Gay marriage is not an increase in liberty [ARTICLE REPRINT]

By Maggie Gallagher

USA TODAY's Editorial Board is bending over backwards to find a way of engaging the marriage debate that escapes the key question: Is there a reason why marriage is the union of husband and wife, not only in our culture, but in almost every known human society?

OUR VIEW: Gay marriage not over finish line yet

Here's our answer to the evaded question: Marriage is rooted in real differences between same-sex and opposite-sex unions. Only a union of husband and wife can make new life, and connect those children in love to their mother and father. Society — and government — have a unique interest in promoting marriage to further this goal.

Abraham Lincoln once famously asked, "If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?" Four, he answered, because a tail is not a leg, even if you call it one.

USA TODAY argues that everyone deserves equal treatment under the law, whether that means traditional marriage, gay marriage or civil unions.

I understand the impulse.

But as an answer, it evades and presumes precisely the questions at hand: Are same-sex unions really the same as unions of husband and wife? Do they further the same interests and serve the common good in the same way? Does marriage have an important public mission that the law needs to recognize and support?

If so, redefining marriage as a civil, legal and public institution in order to further a false equality is a poor trade-off indeed.

Gay people are perfectly capable of entering into loving, committed caretaking unions. That does not justify government involvement or coercion of third parties to recognize these non-marital relationships as marriages.

Gay marriage is not an increase in liberty; it is a government takeover of an institution that government did not create and should not redefine.

When the government endorses a lie about human nature, there will be consequences.

Maggie Gallagheris chairman of the board of the National Organization for Marriage.