We Work Hard. We Play Hard.

Whilst reading a Globe & Mail article on the Californian judge who recently declared that banning gays and lesbians from getting marriage licenses was discrimination, I came across the following quote:

"The two groups opposed to gay marriage rights — The Campaign for California Families and the Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund — argued that California has a legitimate interest in restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples as a way of encouraging procreation."

Now, without getting into an actual debate over whether or not gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry, I have to state that I'm having trouble figuring out the logic of their argument.  The judge himself addresses the obvious flaw: "One does not have to be married in order to procreate, nor does one have to procreate in order to be married," but that's not the part that I'm talking about.  Rather, I fail to see how it encourages procreation, in that, regardless of whether they are able to get married, a gay couple can't procreate.^*  And it's not like a gay couple is going to wake up one morning and say "Well, we still can't get married, so let's become heterosexual and have lots of ankle-biters."

Again, in the effort of avoiding flaming, I'm not addressing their position (although my opinion on the issue should be fairly obvious);  I'm merely saying that perhaps they might want to rethink their argument.

*  Yes, I'm aware of lesbian couples that have children via a surrogate father; that's not the point here.