Last October, Bill Meezan, my cousin, left his home in Columbus, Ohio, for a business trip to Philadelphia. Bill is the dean of Ohio State University's College of Social Work, and he travels quite a bit. In Philadelphia, he thought he felt an old cold coming back. Then he developed a nasty cough. On October 31, he went to the hospital.

He remembers nothing of that day, but Mike Brittenback recalls sharply how doctors in Philadelphia called him in Columbus to say they suspected pneumonia. Mike, an organist and choirmaster, is Bill's partner of 30 years. A few hours later that Friday, they called back to confirm the diagnosis. Mike was concerned but not alarmed.

At 3 a.m. the next day, the phone woke him up. It was a doctor in Philadelphia. Mike needed to come to Philadelphia immediately. Bill had gone into septic shock and might not survive more than a few hours.

* * *

"Here's the key principle," Peter Sprigg, a gay-marriage opponent with the Family Research Council, said in an April radio interview on Southern California's KCRW. "Society gives benefits to marriage because marriage gives benefits to society. And therefore the burden of proof has to be on the advocates of same-sex marriage to demonstrate that homosexual relationships benefit society. Not just benefit the individuals who participate but benefit society in the same way and to the same degree that heterosexual marriage does. And that's a burden that I don't think they can meet."

Can't they?

Labels: culture, gay marriage, government interest in marriage, Jonathan Rauch

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