We’ve all heard the claims. Gay marriage will lead to incest. Bestiality. It will hurt the children. The world as we know it will cease to exist. The political community, of course, accepts fear as a valid campaign tactic; the logical community, however, isn’t quite so easy to please. Now, it’s easy to use rational arguments to refute increasingly dramatic declarations about the dangers of letting gays marry each other, but most of the people making those allegations are not themselves rational—reason has no effect on them. Instead, I would like to refer the Carrie Prejeans among us (those who believe in “opposite marriage”) to Canada. Gay marriage is legal in Canada, and as anyone living close enough to the border to see across can tell us, Canada is not currently experiencing some sort of apocalyptic scenario. Our northern neighbors have not descended into an ancient Greek system of marriage in which everyone marries very close relatives, nor do they marry their own dogs. In fact, Canada is doing just fine—better than the U.S., even. Everyone has health care in Canada. Canada has not involved itself in two wars (nor is it involved in a secret third war with Pakistan). When Americans go abroad, we pretend to be Canadian so that people aren’t aware that they probably hate us. Sure Canadians have to pay a little bit more when they buy books and magazines and such. And yeah, they do pronounce “about” as “aboot.” But it seems to me like Canada has the right idea about a few things, gay marriage included. As Canada shows us, none of those claims that gay marriage will destroy the foundations of society are accurate. So no need to worry, Carrie: heterosexual couples wont’ be outlawed if we legalize gay marriage. The U.S. won’t fall into anarchy or spontaneously combust. Canada has gone on existing—we will too.
