The editors of the Concord Monitor supposedly examine the arguments for reestablishing our marriage tradition in New Hampshire law and proclaim: "Examined dispassionately, none of them should sway any votes in the weeks ahead".

Let's look at the first "argument" for marriage they say shouldn't sway lawmakers:

"Marriage is between one man and one woman. This is more of a declaration than an actual argument. In fact, it's a declaration of bigotry. After all, who gets to define marriage? Those already married? Without a compelling reason to deny marriage to gay people, a statement like this is hard to take seriously."

Talk about a straw man! In fact, proponents of marriage say that "marriage is between one man and one woman because children deserve a mom and a dad." That's a compelling argument. Therefore it's no surprise that the editors of the Monitor conveniently chop off the second part of the sentence giving one of the many reasons why marriage is what it is.

In fact, here are 76 more reasons to support one-man, one-woman marriage. Here is a compelling scholarly argument for marriage published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy by NOM Founding Chairman Robert George (which has been read over 100,000 times now).

Again, the editors conveniently chose not to mention any of these good arguments for marriage.

Of course, the editors go even farther than ignoring good arguments when they claim believing in our marriage tradition is "a declaration of bigotry." How can they claim there will be no consequences to redefining marriage when they also try to claim that their opponents are guilty of something as despicable as bigotry?

For all of their talk about it being "hard to take seriously" arguments for marriage, its even harder to take seriously their conclusions when they decide to stack the rhetorical deck so blatantly.