Another one of my favorite weblogs is The Sake of Argument by Joe Kelley. He also has a rather down-to-earth and practical style. Here is his latest on gay marriage. Some excerpts:

As a conservative, I can’t understand how America would be would be set back by encouraging promiscuous homosexuals to engage in long-term, committed monogamous relationships. Homosexuals are fighting for access to health insurance, pensions, family medical leave, hospital visitation, bereavement leave, and a variety of other basic legal protections for families and children. None of these options will be available to them if they are divorced from (or not married to) their partners, thus establishing government-regulated encouragement to stay committed. With less promiscuity, we’ll see less sexually transmitted diseases and lower private and taxpayer-funded health insurance payments.

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In absence of a good argument supporting it, I can see no reason to expressly prohibit homosexual marriage through a Constitutional Amendment. The solution, as I have previously argued, is to take the state completely out of “marriage” and grant all couples, both homo and hetero, civil unions. Allow marriages to be the sole property of churches.

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Frankly, the two functions of the existing DOMA are in contradiction of each other. You cannot allow states to create their own marriage laws for the benefits of the participants if the participants can’t benefit from the marriage laws.

The ideal role of Uncle Sam would be to Constitutionally prohibit one state from defining marriage for other states and to recognize marriage (for purposes of federal law) as defined by each individual state.