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UPDATED: Why Maggie Gallagher’s Argument Against Same-Sex Marriage Is Wrong

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UPDATED: Now with video from today’s “Washington Journal.”

Maggie Gallagher, the Chairman of the Board for the National Organization for Marriage, appeared this morning on C-SPAN to discuss President Obama’s decision to no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA.) But the conversation, with her foil Brian Moulton of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) really turned into an argument about the institution of marriage itself. And Maggie Gallagher’s argument was clearly wrong. (You can watch it here.)

Here’s why.

Gallagher argues that marriage should be between only one and and one woman, and (only?) for the the purposes of procreation and raising the children born of that one man and one woman.

Therefore, according to Gallagher, other marriages, such as those between a same-sex couple, are not truly marriages and the state (i.e., the state and federal government) has no business conferring the title of “marriage” upon those unions.

(She also at one point says civil unions and some benefits are acceptable to her for same-sex couples, but recoils at the thought of civil unions for opposite-sex couples. And of course doesn’t touch the possibility of opposite-sex couples who can’t or don’t want to have children getting married, because it doesn’t fit into her neat little argument box.)

Civil marriage, from a government perspective, exists to benefit the state. That’s a fact that any legal scholar should be able to support. The state confers the title of marriage upon a couple because it believes that a legal recognition of their relationship will benefit government and society as a whole.

Maggie agrees.

But Maggie continues to go down the path that children of same-sex couples do not deserve the same protections as children of opposite-sex couples. Further, she never accounts for where all these children come from.

Hold onto that thought for a moment and consider this, too.

Why is it that conservatives are so desperately concerned with protecting life in the womb, but the moment the child is born, all bets are off?

Back to Maggie.

Maggie seems to think that same-sex couples will deny the children of opposite-sex couples the right to their own parents. It’s as if she believes that if same-sex couples are allowed to legally marry and enjoy all the federal benefits and societal recognition that is afforded opposite-sex couples in marriage, that opposite-sex couples will (a) stop wanting to get married, and (b) stop wanting to have children.

This makes no sense. And it goes along with the zero-sum game mentality to which many conservatives subscribe.

But I can assure you, there are an unlimited number of marriage licenses at every city hall.

So here’s my question to you, Maggie:

Please, explain how conferring the status of marriage upon my relationship will weaken the institution of marriage. And don’t go down the hypothetical route that you’ve created that claims that “future couples” will not get married because they will think that marriage is not a valuable institution. If, according to you, marriage has been around forever, because of procreation and the result thereof, then future couples will want to marry as well. Perhaps, also, Maggie, for love.

Additionally, Maggie,  I wish you would please account for the fact that in states that have banned same-sex marriage, the incidence of divorce is higher?

Further, please, tell us, why it is OK that in the United States, (as I wrote in a 2009 piece commemorating Father’s Day,) “[t]here are 2.9 million children in America living with no parents – and 1.6 million American children are homeless. 2.9 million is almost 1 percent of the entire U.S. population – and that figure is five years old. Half a million U.S. children live with foster parents.”

“Those half a million foster kids? Only half will graduate high school, only 2% will earn a Bachelor’s degree. The day they turn 18, 30% will have no health insurance and will be on public assistance.”

Please, tell me how society does not benefit by allowing loving same-sex couples to marry, adopt, and raise some of these children.

Maggie, in may respects, I believe you and I are fighting for the same thing. We’re fighting to strengthen the institution of marriage. And we’re fighting for children to be raised in loving homes. We merely differ oin who should be “allowed” to participate.

But I promise you, same-sex couples, upon marrying, will not steal the children away from any opposite-sex family. That’s not what we do.

In a panel discussion at Brown University a few weeks ago, Maggie Gallagher said, “Marriage emerges again and again in a variety of completely separated societies because every human society has to figure out how to deal with the fact that sex between men and women makes babies, that societies need babies and that those children do better with — and certainly long for — a father as well as a mother in their lives.”

Um, not exactly.

Take, “those children do better with — and certainly long for — a father as well as a mother in their lives.”

I can all but guarantee there is no credible study that proves that a majority of children in same-sex parented households “long for” a father as well as a mother in their lives, if they did not know their father and their mother before. (And I can also guarantee that many children “long for” things like a pony.)

But I can guarantee that there are studies, as Gallagher hinted at today on C-SPAN, that prove that children raised by same-sex couples are actually better-adjusted and perform better in school that their opposite-sex-parented peers.

In fact, two long-term studies published last year found prove this. In fact, one of them,  a twenty-five year-long and vigorously peer-reviewed study published in the journal Pediatrics, found that adopted children raised by lesbian parents are better-adjusted and do better in school than their opposite-parented peers.

And there’s another, a study of gay dads that finds they are more likely than straight ones to focus on parenting over career, at least when their children are young.

In summary, I’ll leave you with a thought from a piece I wrote last year, that this “zero-sum” argument, that we can choose families headed by same-sex couples, or not, is beyond the hypothetical — and the absurd. It assumes that if same-sex marriage is not legalized, that there will be no families headed by same-sex parents. Conversely, it assumes that if same-sex marriage is legalized, opposite-sex couples will stop getting married and stop having children. It’s a ridiculously fallacious argument, and it’s the typical argument that conservatives always seem to make, because they see the world as a zero-sum game.

It’s not.

Yes, marriage is a valuable institution for society and for the state. We should all be working together to strengthen it, by allowing same-sex couples the right to fully and equally participate.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=wv7gbjaWLLo%3Ffs%3D1%26hl%3Den_US

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News

Trump Admin Blames Dems’ Immigration and Trans Policies for Food Stamp Shut Off

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October 27, 2025

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Over the weekend, the U.S. Department of Agriculture updated its website with an expanded message blaming Democrats’ support for “illegal aliens” and gender-affirming care for transgender people as reasons “mothers, babies, and the most vulnerable among us” will be denied “critical nutrition assistance.” Benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) are expected to be shut off on November 1 due to the federal government shutdown, although some say there are funds available that legally can be used to continue benefits.

On Saturday, visitors to USDA.gov were confronted with this message: “Due to the Radical Left Democrat shutdown, this government website will not be updated during the funding lapse. President Trump has made it clear he wants to keep the government open and support those who feed, fuel, and clothe the American people.”

Some experts have said similar messages may violate the Hatch Act.

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On Sunday, the message was changed to read: “Senate Democrats have now voted 12 times to not fund the food stamp program, also known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Bottom line, the well has run dry. At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 01. We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats.”

It then went on to blame Democrats for continuing to “hold out for healthcare” for “illegal aliens,” before adding also a coarse description of gender affirming care, including surgery, for transgender people.

The federal government has been shut down since October 1. At 27 days, this is the second-longest shutdown in U.S. history. The longest, 35 days, was during President Trump’s first term.

About 42 million people access Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to help feed themselves and their families. The vast majority of adults using SNAP have at least one job.

Democrats have refused to vote to re-open the government because Republicans have said they will not negotiate on reinstating subsidies for the Affordable Care Act. Millions of Americans may see their monthly health care premiums double or even triple, some experts have said. Double-digit increases, at least, are expected. Millions are expected to lose their health care as a result of the canceled subsidies.

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‘Refrain From Any Action’: Congressional Vets Warn Trump on Using Troops Against Americans

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October 27, 2025

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More than forty members of Congress, including military veterans, are urging President Donald Trump to not violate the Posse Comitatus Act by using U.S. Armed Forces against Americans on American soil.

President Trump has recently and repeatedly threatened to use the Insurrection Act, which is “among the most powerful emergency powers at the disposal of a president, who can use it to deploy the U.S. armed forces and the militia to suppress insurrections, quell civil unrest or domestic violence, and enforce the law when it is being obstructed,” according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

“I could use it. If I wanted to, I could use it,” Trump said this month. “I’m allowed to use the Insurrection Act.”

“Trump and his team have threatened to invoke it almost daily for weeks,” according to the L.A. Times earlier this month, “after a reporter pressed the president about his escalating efforts to dispatch federalized troops to Democrat-led cities.”

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MSNBC reported two weeks ago that Trump “has been itching to use the Insurrection Act since the George Floyd protests in 2020. But he’s closer than ever to invoking the 1807 law.”

In their letter to President Trump, the 43 members of Congress, led by Army veteran and U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA), expressed “grave concern” about “reports that your Administration is considering invocation of the Insurrection Act to deploy active-duty military forces for domestic law enforcement.”

They said to do so would be a “profound departure” from “constitutional traditions and limits established under the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the use of the United States military, including National Guard troops called into federal service, in civilian law enforcement except in the narrowest and most extraordinary circumstances.”

Explaining how the Insurrection Act may be invoked, they made clear: “None of these conditions currently exist.”

“Threatening or preparing to use the military against the American people,” they warn, “is both inappropriate and deeply irresponsible.”

They also chastise his administration’s “rhetoric and subsequent actions singling out communities and states led by elected officials of the opposing political party,” saying, that “only deepens the perception that such actions would be politically motivated rather than grounded in law.”

“We therefore urge you, in the strongest possible terms, to refrain from any action that would violate the Posse Comitatus Act or undermine the principle of civilian governance.”

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President Trump has wrongly claimed that about half of the American presidents have invoked the Insurrection Act:

“Don’t forget I can use the Insurrection Act. Fifty percent of the presidents, almost, have used that. And that’s unquestioned power,” he said, according to Politifact.

CNN called his comment “at least a slight exaggeration,” and noted that, according to the Brennan Center, just 17 of 45 presidents have invoked it.

MSNBC reported that the “rarely used law was last invoked by President George H.W. Bush in 1992 during the Los Angeles riots that followed the acquittal of police officers in the beating of Rodney King.”

CNN also noted that Trump has wrongly claimed one unnamed president used the Insurrection Act 28 times: “That figure is nowhere close to accurate.”

On Friday, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA) wrote: “There is no rebellion. Not in Los Angeles. Not in Portland or Chicago or D.C. Not in San Francisco. And yet Donald Trump continues to threaten invocation of the Insurrection Act to force these cities to bend the knee to his will.”

Congressman Thompson on Sunday wrote: “We won’t be intimidated — and we won’t allow the President to misuse our military to police our communities. The law is clear: the Insurrection Act doesn’t give him that power.”

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Data Analyst Reveals Which Trump Policy Faces Sharpest Backlash Among Americans

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October 27, 2025

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Support for President Donald Trump’s tariff policies has collapsed, with six in ten Americans now opposed, CNN’s Harry Enten reports. That’s a sharp shift from less than a year ago, when 52 percent backed higher tariffs.

“I think that Americans have moved more against tariffs than any other major Trump policy that he’s been pushing during this second term,” Enten said on CNN on Monday.

“So the bottom line is this,” he added, “if I were advising President Donald John Trump, when it comes to his policies, I’d say, ‘Step off the tariffs,’ at least from a political point of view, because the bottom line is, it doesn’t sell with the American people.”

“It’s one of the largest shifts that we have seen during Trump’s second term in office,” Enten reiterated.

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A lack of economic improvement, according to the CNN host, and the opposition to Trump’s tariffs, Enten said, “go hand in hand.”

They then turned their attention to Canada, just after President Trump angrily raised that nation’s tariffs by another ten percentage points, over a video he did not like.

“Picking a fight with China is one thing,” Enten said. “Picking a fight with Canada is just something totally different here.”

On “net popularity,” he noted that “Canada is far more popular than Donald Trump is here in the United States.”

“Look at this: the net popularity rating of Canada is plus 49 percentage points,” he observed. “Look at the net popularity rating of Donald Trump here in the United States: It’s minus 10.”

“We’re talking about Canada coming out nearly sixty points ahead on the net popularity rating versus Donald Trump here in the United States. When you pick on Canada as a United States president, you are picking on a country that the American people adore. They adore Canada.”

“Canada has always been a friend to the United States, at least during our lifetimes,” Enten added.

“And when you’re going after Canada, you are going against someone who is far more popular than you are with Donald Trump. Pretty much every single time, among most Americans, Americans will choose Canada, over Donald Trump, yet Trump has decided to pick yet another fight with somebody or some entity or some country that is more popular than he is.”

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“No president has come anywhere close to how popular Canada is right now, and Donald Trump certainly is a long, long, long away,” said Enten, noting that Trump’s overall popularity rating is negative ten points. “He cannot see Canada from his house when it comes to his net popularity.”

Meanwhile, America’s — and Trump’s — popularity with Canada has plummeted.

“They think that Donald Trump’s a big hoser. That’s what they think. They hate Donald Trump. They hate everything that he’s doing.”

“So Americans love Canada, but Canadians no longer love the United States of America.”

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