UPDATED: Why Maggie Gallagher’s Argument Against Same-Sex Marriage Is Wrong
UPDATED: Now with video from today’s “Washington Journal.”
Maggie Gallagher, the Chairman of the Board for the National Organization for Marriage, appeared this morning on C-SPAN to discuss President Obama’s decision to no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA.) But the conversation, with her foil Brian Moulton of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) really turned into an argument about the institution of marriage itself. And Maggie Gallagher’s argument was clearly wrong. (You can watch it here.)
Here’s why.
Gallagher argues that marriage should be between only one and and one woman, and (only?) for the the purposes of procreation and raising the children born of that one man and one woman.
Therefore, according to Gallagher, other marriages, such as those between a same-sex couple, are not truly marriages and the state (i.e., the state and federal government) has no business conferring the title of “marriage” upon those unions.
(She also at one point says civil unions and some benefits are acceptable to her for same-sex couples, but recoils at the thought of civil unions for opposite-sex couples. And of course doesn’t touch the possibility of opposite-sex couples who can’t or don’t want to have children getting married, because it doesn’t fit into her neat little argument box.)
Civil marriage, from a government perspective, exists to benefit the state. That’s a fact that any legal scholar should be able to support. The state confers the title of marriage upon a couple because it believes that a legal recognition of their relationship will benefit government and society as a whole.
Maggie agrees.
But Maggie continues to go down the path that children of same-sex couples do not deserve the same protections as children of opposite-sex couples. Further, she never accounts for where all these children come from.
Hold onto that thought for a moment and consider this, too.
Why is it that conservatives are so desperately concerned with protecting life in the womb, but the moment the child is born, all bets are off?
Back to Maggie.
Maggie seems to think that same-sex couples will deny the children of opposite-sex couples the right to their own parents. It’s as if she believes that if same-sex couples are allowed to legally marry and enjoy all the federal benefits and societal recognition that is afforded opposite-sex couples in marriage, that opposite-sex couples will (a) stop wanting to get married, and (b) stop wanting to have children.
This makes no sense. And it goes along with the zero-sum game mentality to which many conservatives subscribe.
But I can assure you, there are an unlimited number of marriage licenses at every city hall.
So here’s my question to you, Maggie:
Please, explain how conferring the status of marriage upon my relationship will weaken the institution of marriage. And don’t go down the hypothetical route that you’ve created that claims that “future couples” will not get married because they will think that marriage is not a valuable institution. If, according to you, marriage has been around forever, because of procreation and the result thereof, then future couples will want to marry as well. Perhaps, also, Maggie, for love.
Additionally, Maggie, Â I wish you would please account for the fact that in states that have banned same-sex marriage, the incidence of divorce is higher?
Further, please, tell us, why it is OK that in the United States, (as I wrote in a 2009 piece commemorating Father’s Day,) “[t]here are 2.9 million children in America living with no parents – and 1.6 million American children are homeless. 2.9 million is almost 1 percent of the entire U.S. population – and that figure is five years old. Half a million U.S. children live with foster parents.”
“Those half a million foster kids? Only half will graduate high school, only 2% will earn a Bachelor’s degree. The day they turn 18, 30% will have no health insurance and will be on public assistance.”
Please, tell me how society does not benefit by allowing loving same-sex couples to marry, adopt, and raise some of these children.
Maggie, in may respects, I believe you and I are fighting for the same thing. We’re fighting to strengthen the institution of marriage. And we’re fighting for children to be raised in loving homes. We merely differ oin who should be “allowed” to participate.
But I promise you, same-sex couples, upon marrying, will not steal the children away from any opposite-sex family. That’s not what we do.
In a panel discussion at Brown University a few weeks ago, Maggie Gallagher said, “Marriage emerges again and again in a variety of completely separated societies because every human society has to figure out how to deal with the fact that sex between men and women makes babies, that societies need babies and that those children do better with — and certainly long for — a father as well as a mother in their lives.â€
Um, not exactly.
Take, “those children do better with — and certainly long for — a father as well as a mother in their lives.â€
I can all but guarantee there is no credible study that proves that a majority of children in same-sex parented households “long for” a father as well as a mother in their lives, if they did not know their father and their mother before. (And I can also guarantee that many children “long for” things like a pony.)
But I can guarantee that there are studies, as Gallagher hinted at today on C-SPAN, that prove that children raised by same-sex couples are actually better-adjusted and perform better in school that their opposite-sex-parented peers.
In fact, two long-term studies published last year found prove this. In fact, one of them,  a twenty-five year-long and vigorously peer-reviewed study published in the journal Pediatrics, found that adopted children raised by lesbian parents are better-adjusted and do better in school than their opposite-parented peers.
And there’s another, a study of gay dads that finds they are more likely than straight ones to focus on parenting over career, at least when their children are young.
In summary, I’ll leave you with a thought from a piece I wrote last year, that this “zero-sum†argument, that we can choose families headed by same-sex couples, or not, is beyond the hypothetical — and the absurd. It assumes that if same-sex marriage is not legalized, that there will be no families headed by same-sex parents. Conversely, it assumes that if same-sex marriage is legalized, opposite-sex couples will stop getting married and stop having children. It’s a ridiculously fallacious argument, and it’s the typical argument that conservatives always seem to make, because they see the world as a zero-sum game.
It’s not.
Yes, marriage is a valuable institution for society and for the state. We should all be working together to strengthen it, by allowing same-sex couples the right to fully and equally participate.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=wv7gbjaWLLo%3Ffs%3D1%26hl%3Den_US
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
