Today on Public Discourse, Melanie Baker of Human Life International reports on recent events in her home state of Maryland, and what's at stake in the marriage debate:

The law cannot be divorced from reality, from nature. The moment this happens, law becomes arbitrary, the whim of the ruling power: it becomes tyranny.

...If Maryland’s Civil Marriage Protection Act becomes law, Pandora’s box will be opened. Once the law redefines marriage as the sexual union of any two consenting adults, further modifications will no longer appear alarming: two consenting adults might become two consenting persons (age therefore being eliminated and opening the door to disguised child abuse), or “two” might be deemed an arbitrary number (already there are lawsuits making their way through the courts), thus opening the door for polygamy and polyamory. When the law can be changed so flippantly, it does not inspire confidence in its ability to “protect.” What sort of “freedom” and “protection” will your children, and their children, enjoy in fifty or sixty years at this rate?

Finally, we need to take a good, hard look at the type of discourse surrounding this issue. Rational discourse seeks truth: it employs premises that flow together to yield a sound conclusion. The pathos-laden language that is being employed in this issue is simply not a valid response to rational discourse. Reason must be answered with reason, not emotion. There is an objective truth that continues to shine in the debate, and it is the simple fact of nature: the essential component that sexual difference brings to marriage. This is a fact of nature that can be clearly seen by reason, and it is here, on the plane of reason, that this Act needs to be assessed by law.