National Organization for Marriage co-founder Robert P. George and his two disciples, Sherif Girgis and the Heritage Foundation’s Ryan T. Anderson, have offered another adapted excerpt from their book opposing same-sex marriage. The clear goal of their book, What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense, is to find ways to argue against marriage equality without sounding anti-gay, and the claims made in their latest post demonstrate the folly of this exercise.

At the root of their argument is an arbitrary definition of marriage using a “conjugal view,” which asserts that there’s something unique about how a man’s penis and woman’s vagina interact — even if they’re infertile — such that marriage must be preserved exclusively for heterosexual couples. Gloating that “there is no inequality in treating fundamentally different sorts of bonds differently,” the authors suggest that none of the legal benefits of marriage require marriage anyway:

But traditional marriage law denies these companionate ideals to no one. It does not discourage anyone from seeking them. Its more specific view of what makes a marriage can even liberate us for emotional intimacy in other bonds. And even if companionate bonds are impaired if deprived of public status, it does not follow that they require legal status. Remarkably, then, one of the most common and powerfully felt objections to conjugal-marriage policy is also one of the easiest to answer. The law simply has much less to do with this than people commonly suppose. We can unpack this all.

Note first that, however the debate about redefining marriage is resolved, two men or two women will still be free to live together, with or without a sexual relationship or a wedding ceremony. (None of this is true, for example, of bigamy or polygamy — crimes rightly punishable by imprisonment.) The debate about same-sex civil marriage is not about anyone’s private behavior, but about legal recognition. The decision to honor conjugal marriage bans nothing.

The line of thinking here mirrors other arguments Anderson has made that opposition to same-sex marriage has nothing to with gay people whatsoever. The authors seem to at least concede that there will always be gay people and same-sex families, but they then proceed to simultaneously erase the lived experience that these families face.

It’s true that through various legal contracts, same-sex couples can access some legal connections between them in some states. Doing so comes at significant legal costs and complications, and even then, they’re not always recognized, as was disturbingly demonstrated by the Missouri couple that was denied hospital visitation despite having power of attorney. All of the protections society grants to committed lifelong partners are defined in the law by “marriage,” and the sole purpose of the marriage equality movement is to ensure that same-sex couples have the same access to those protections for each other and for their children. George, Anderson, and Shirif are either oblivious to the inequitable complications same-sex couples face without access to legal marriage or they are intentionally distorting the truth just to make it seem like not so big a deal.

The attempts by opponents of marriage equality to not sound anti-gay have painted them into strange rhetorical corners, such as having to argue against adoption, even by straight couples. What’s striking is that in their attempts to “protect” marriage from “redefinition,” they themselves are the ones who have redefined it. In this argument, they admit it has nothing to do with legal benefits. By defending infertile straight couples, they admit it has nothing to do with having children. By claiming it has “always been defined as a man and a woman,” they’re admitting it has nothing to do with “tradition” or the Bible. They’ve essentially dismantled every aspect of marriage such that it means nothing except to promote heterosexual supremacy and homosexual inferiority. Of course, that’s all that they’ve really ever argued for anyway.

A French mayor is challenging the country’s new marriage equality law by refusing to officiate same-sex marriages. According to Jean-Michel Colo, mayor of Arcangues, marriage equality is a “big lie” that he won’t participate in:

COLO: When people close the door at home, they do what they want. For me, marriage is for a woman and man to have children. I am not discriminating as a same-sex couple is sterile. It’s a parody of equality, it’s a big lie.

Unfortunately for Colo, he does not determine the nation’s laws, which now grant same-sex couples the right to a marriage license. As an elected official, it is his obligation to avail them of that right. According to Interior Minister Manuel Valls, he could face “significant sanctions” for refusing to obey the law, including up to three years in jail and a €45,000 fine. The Committee to Defend Gay Rights has promised to report Colo for discrimination if he follows through on his protest of the law.

The Catholic Church is once again engaging in vindictive retaliation against groups it has funded in the past because of their support of marriage equality. Groups local to Illinois who support the state’s Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights have all been warned that their funding could be in danger because the Coalition spoke out in favor of legislation to legalize same-sex marriage. Though the position represented a majority of the Coalition’s members, the Catholic-funded groups didn’t sign on to the statement in advance.

The Catholic Campaign for Human Development, the bishops’ anti-poverty arm, has threatened all the groups that they must leave the Coalition or lose their future funding. Among those that could be impacted are Catholic Charities, Latino Union, Resurrection Project, United African Organization, Centro de Trabajadores Unidos, Albany Park Neighborhood Council, ARISE Chicago, Chicago Workers Collaborative, Interfaith Leadership Project, and Most Blessed Trinity. A meeting later this week will determine if some minds can be changed or if a compromise can be found.

This is hardly the first time the Catholic Church has punished its own beneficiaries over the issue of marriage equality. In 2012, it cut funding for a homeless agency in Sacramento because the agency’s director supported same-sex marriage. Catholic Charities of Colorado threatened to shut down if the state passed civil unions last year, even though that version of the bill included an exception to allow the adoption agency to continue discriminating against same-sex couples. After Washington, DC legalized marriage equality in 2010, Catholic Charities stopped offering partner benefits to all employees to avoid having to provide benefits to gay employees. That same year, the diocese of Portland, Maine abandoned funding for a homeless shelter that also came out for marriage equality.

If the Catholic Church follows through on this ultimatum with these Illinois groups, it would prove that it places a higher priority on opposing marriage equality than supporting poor people or immigrants.

Debunked anti-gay researcher Mark Regnerus has taken on a role as a semi-regular conservative columnist to continue spinning the results of his fraudulent claims about same-sex parenting. In his latest post — cross-promoted by the National Organization for Marriage — he defends the argument that allowing same-sex couples to marry will hurt marriage for heterosexual couples. He claims the sexual permissiveness of gay men will motivate straight men to disavow monogamy:

Many libertarians and conservatives, including Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron, assert that marriage is a conservative institution—which is true—one that will therefore function as such for those who enter it, whether gay or straight. While certainly the case for some, that claim is an unlikely future for many, not because gay or lesbian couples are liberal but because those in the driver’s seat of the contemporary mating market—men—are permissive. This, I predict, will be same-sex marriage’s signature effect on the institution—the institutionalization of monogamish as an acceptable marital trait. No, gay men can’t cause straight men to cheat. Instead, the legitimacy newly accorded their marital unions spells opportunity for men everywhere to bend the boundaries. Dan Savage will be proud.

Regnerus concedes that research shows that gay men don’t actually have more sex than straight men — they just have more partners. Because men are generally more permissive sexually, he suggests, the relationship of two men is likewise more permissive than that of a man and a woman. Thus, if straight men see gay men marrying and still having sexual partners outside the marriage, they’ll want to explore “monogamish” territory themselves.

This may, actually, turn out to be true, though there would be no way to connect the dots between marriage equality and a relaxation of the expectations of monogamy and commitment. Regnerus’s implication is that it would be a bad change for the supposed “institution” of marriage, though that is a judgment based on values, not on the merits of such change.

Moreover, Regnerus may have put the cart before the horse. Society has long stigmatized the gay community, inherently discouraging monogamy among same-sex couples. It was easier for gay people to have secret sexual liaisons than build a consistent life with a person of the same gender that might out them. Over time, the gay community has sought out monogamy in spite of societal expectations, and Dan Savage’s “monogamish” structure may well have evolved out of these competing dynamics.

Thus, Regnerus is blaming gay people for how they adapted to being condemned by society to justify continuing to condemn them. Rather than acknowledge this tautology and instead promote marriage and monogamy for all couples, he continues to feed the feedback loop. Given that even opponents of marriage equality believe it to be inevitable, Regnerus is solving nothing by clinging to the past.

At some point in the next three weeks, the U.S. Supreme Court will issue its rulings on the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8, and a new poll confirms that California voters are ready for full marriage equality. According to the University of Southern California and Los Angeles Times, 58 percent of registered California voters support marriage equality, while only 36 percent are opposed. As in other polls, those who had a gay friend or family members were more likely to support same-sex marriage (65 percent).

Several other polls have shown that Californians are ready to leave Prop 8 in the dustbin of history:

• June: 58-36 in support of marriage equality (USC/LA Times).
• May: 56-38 in support of marriage equality (Public Policy Institute of California).
• March: 67-30 in support of same-sex couples deserving the legal benefits of marriage (SurveyUSA).
• Februrary: 61-32 in support of marriage equality (Sacramento Bee).

Though many suspect the Supreme Court will not rule definitively on Proposition 8, instead allowing a lower court ruling to stand, the Justices cannot argue that public support is opposed to same-sex marriage. In fact, both in California and nationally, a majority consistently report that they approve of recognizing same-sex marriage. When the Supreme Court overturned bans on interracial marriage in 1967, only 20 percent of the American public supported allowing blacks and whites to marry. It wasn’t until over 20 years after Loving v. Virginia (1991) that a majority of Americans were on board with interracial marriage. The polling shows that in terms of justice, same-sex marriage equality is long overdue.

The Hands On Children’s Museum in Jacksonville, Florida is oddly specific about who it lets obtain a “family membership,” specifying that a family must include one mom and one dad. Karen Lee-Duffell’s family has had a membership there for three years, but when an employee noticed she had a same-sex partner, she was told she’d have to pay more to renew this year.

As far as the museum’s staff is concerned, Lee-Duffell and her partner do not constitute a family. They explained that including both moms would constitute a “substitution,” which they don’t allow because they fear multiple families would take advantage of the policy. They defended the discrimination in a statement provided to First Coast News, comparing Lee-Duffell’s partner to a “friend”:

The Hands On Children’s Museum Family memberships are very specific. They have not changed in 13 years. Our Family membership cost has only gone up $1.00 in almost 13 years. To keep our rates as reasonable as possible, we do not allow any substitutions; whether they are friend, aunt, uncle, grandma, grandpa or any other person.

She was offered a Family Membership and to add an extra person. She refused to add an extra person to a Family Membership. [...] If, in the past the extra person had been added there would have not be [sic] any confusions [sic].

The Museum’s discrimination against some kinds of families is completely legal given Florida does not legally recognize same-sex couples. That does not change the fact that it left Lee-Duffell feeling like she’d received a “punch in the gut” because her family simply didn’t count. There is now a Facebook boycott page and a Change.org petition calling on the museum to end its discriminatory policy. (HT: The New Civil Rights Movement.)

The Catholic Diocese of Columbus, Ohio is once again demonstrating how anti-gay it is. Earlier this year, veteran teacher Carla Hale was fired from Bishop Watterson High School after her mother’s obituary revealed she was in a same-sex relationship. Now, a speaker was disinvited from speaking at the graduation for Bishop Ready High School because he supports marriage equality — and worse yet, the school cast the blame on him for not showing up to the ceremony.

Franklin County Commissioner John O’Grady is a dedicated alumnus of Bishop Ready, and Principal Celene Seamen apparently invited him to give the graduation speech about two months ago. At the ceremony, his name was still on the program, but students were told he could not speak because “something had come up,” and Seamen gave the speech herself. It turns out that “something” was an intervention from Bishop Frederick Campbell, who objected to O’Grady’s support for advancing marriage equality in Ohio. Campbell was the very same bishop who defended Hale’s firing for being in a “quasi-spousal relationship.”

This only came to light because someone who attended the commencement told The Columbus Dispatch that O’Grady didn’t show. The Dispatch reached out to him and he confirmed what had happened. If he hadn’t, the school would have left the crowd believing O’Grady had blown off the speech instead of taking responsibility for disinviting him. If the diocese feels it needs to hide the fact that it refuses to associate with people just because the support marriage equality, it reveals an understanding that such choices are wrong.

Last summer, a gay couple, Dave Mullins and Charlie Craig, was refused a wedding cake by Colorado bakery Masterpiece Cakeshop. Another same-sex couple who was denied a cake there called back and the shop actually agreed to do a cake for a dog wedding, but still not a same-sex wedding. Mullins and Craig decided to file a complaint with the assistance of the ACLU, and an investigation by the Colorado Civil Rights Division (CCRD) found multiple examples of the bakery denying service to same-sex couples in violation of state law.

Now, the state Attorney General’s office has filed a formal complaint against the bakery, requiring its owners to testify at a hearing in the fall. Here are a few examples of the Masterpiece Cakeshop’s discrimination from the CCRD’s investigation:

The Charging Party states that on July 20, 2012, in an effort to obtain more information as to why her son was refused service, Munn telephoned Phillips. During this telephone conversation, Phillips stated that “because he is a Christian, he was opposed to making cakes for same-sex weddings for any same-sex couples.”[...]

S. Schmalz subsequently posted a review on the website Yelp describing her experiences with the Respondent. An individual identifying himself as “Jack P. of Masterpiece Cakeshop” posted a reply to Schmalz’s review, in which he stated that ” … a wedding for [gays and lesbians] is something that, so far, not even the State of Colorado will allow” and did not dispute that he refuses to serve gay and lesbian couples planning weddings or commitment celebrations.[...]

Allen and Sandlin state that they later spoke directly with Phillips. During this conversation, Phillips stated that “he is not willing to make a cake for a same-sex commitment ceremony, just as he would not be willing to make a pedophile cake.”

Baked goods do not have any legal standing and are thus unaffected by whether or not the stated purpose of the cake is recognized under state law. What Colorado law does say is that it is unlawful to refuse goods or services to an individual because of their sexual orientation. Just like the Washington florist facing similar litigation, Masterpiece Cakeshop is in clear violation of this provision, and the owners’ religious beliefs are actually irrelevant. As the ACLU points out, “the store has no more right to turn away a gay couple than to turn away an interracial couple, no matter what the owners’ personal beliefs.”

Polling is not an exact science, and an individual poll should only be examined within the trend of other polling. This did not stop the National Organization for Marriage from championing a single poll that had conflicting results about how Americans feel about marriage equality and what they think the Supreme Court should do with the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). According to results from the Huffington Post and YouGov, Americans are split 43-45 over whether the federal government should recognize same-sex marriages and 41-45 over whether the Supreme Court should overturn DOMA.

NOM’s Brian Brown claimed this was “the only poll that matters“:

For months and years activists bent on redefining marriage and striking down DOMA have argued that the Supreme Court should issue a sweeping ruling in favor of same-sex marriage because it is inevitable. This poll, and the only poll that matters — the free votes of citizens in over 2/3rds of American states — shows this is not true. The Supreme Court ought to uphold DOMA and uphold Proposition 8 and respect the pro-marriage views of millions of Americans.

Of course, there’s nothing about YouGov’s online opt-in process that makes it “free votes,” nor is there anything to distinguish it from other polling — with one exception. Unlike most phone polls, YouGov’s online polling allows respondents to answer “Not Sure,” which 12 percent did on the question of marriage equality and 14 percent did on the question of the Supreme Court’s action on DOMA. Brown neglects to mention this significant contingent of unsure respondents.

Polling over the past three years has consistently shown a majority of Americans support marriage equality, and two other reputable polls this week demonstrated just that. In addition to the Pew Research Center poll that found that even NOM’s would-be supporters think marriage is inevitable, a New York Times/CBS News poll found that 51 percent of voters support marriage equality. More importantly, 56 percent believe the federal government should recognize the legal marriages of same-sex couples, while only 39 percent oppose it. These results jibe with a Quinnipiac poll from April, CNN and CBS polls from March, and the ABC News/Washington Post poll that found 58 percent of Americans support marriage equality. NOM did not write about any of those polls.

A new poll from the Pew Research Center finds that 72 percent of Americans believe that nationwide marriage equality is “inevitable.” This includes 85 percent of people who support marriage equality, and even 59 percent of those who oppose it. There were not even significant differences across political lines; in fact, Republicans believe it’s inevitable (73 percent) just as much as Democrats (72 percent) and independents (74 percent).

The survey also assessed how familiar individuals are with gays and lesbians and found that 87 percent of Americans personally know someone gay, up from 61 percent in 1993. About half (49 percent) have a close friend or family member who is gay. Those who know a lot of gay people are twice as likely (68 percent) to support marriage equality as those who don’t (32 percent).