They're really, really, really opposed to gay marriage

The Revealer liked the well-done-but-tough-to-stomach Russell Shorto NYT Magazine feature on gay marriage opponents. One of our frequent commenters (thanks, 'B') recommended it to me, too, and I did finally read it. I had the same thought I always have when I contemplate this issue for long: "Can't these people turn some of their energy and commitment toward fixing the things that are really wrong with this world?" But to the people opposed to it, gay marriage is emblematic of what's wrong with this world.

(T)he Christian activists aren't vague in their opposition. For them, the issue isn't one of civil rights, because the term implies something inherent in the individual -- being black, say, or a woman -- and they deny that homosexuality is inherent. It can't be, because that would mean God had created some people who are damned from birth, morally blackened. This really is the inescapable root of the whole issue, the key to understanding those working against gay marriage as well as the engine driving their vehicle in the larger culture war: the commitment, on the part of a growing number of people, to a variety of religious belief that is so thoroughgoing it permeates every facet of life and thought, that rejects the secular, pluralistic grounding of society and that answers all questions internally.

Worth reading the whole long feature (with a roll of Tums nearby), if nothing else, for the cultural enlightenment.