US Marriage So Weak, Opening to Gays Will Kill It: Witness

The institution of marriage is so weak in the US that opening it to same-sex couples will likely kill it completely—and perhaps even lead shortly thereafter to legalized polygamy, a supporter of California’s ban on gay marriage testified today. David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values think tank, was called as a witness by lawyers defending Proposition 8 in the San Francisco trial.

Earlier in the session, lawyers for the gay couples challenging Prop 8 got a defense witness to agree that anti-gay stereotypes rooted in religion had a large role in the 2008 passage of the measure by state voters—the very type of admission that could get Judge Vaughn Walker to strike down the measure, the AP reports.