Let me just let Ken Layne at Wonkette set this little “discussion about marriage” between NOM’s Maggie Gallagher & “journalism’s” Kathryn Jean Lopez for you:

K-Lo asked a “marriage expert” to explain why she cannot seem to find the happiness Jesus Christ intended for her, in the form of wedded bliss to some tough guy, maybe Tony Soprano, so she wouldn’t have to live out her days as a spinster blogging in an apartment. Imagine the house she could have, in New Jersey! And children, just running around the way children probably run around, on the lawn or whatever. A lawn with a crucifix-picket fence, maybe. Some flowers or whatever, an herb garden. And this might be the night Tony comes home all ginned up and randy, with the sedan parked haphazardly on the lawn! Baby No. 3 could be created tonight.

Indeedy!  So let’s see what these two love experts have to say about things:

LOPEZ: Not to be part of the problem here by focusing on Maryland, but: Is Maryland, once the Catholic colony, about to give way to gay marriage?

GALLAGHER: Maryland and Rhode Island are extremely deep-blue states, and with Democratic leaders pushing gay marriage, it’s a tough fight in each state. But Maryland, like Maine, has a referendum process, a “people’s veto.” We are going to win in Maryland, one way or another.

No matter which erstwhile principles they have to abandon!

LOPEZ: How are American marriages? Is this fight helping Americans get their priorities straight (no pun intended)?

GALLAGHER: American marriage is a little-bit-of-good-news-much-bad-news story. Those who enjoy most every other advantage in human and social capital — the college-educated — are seeing something of a minor revival in marriage: low rates of out-of-wedlock childbearing combined with a sharp drop in divorce over the last 20 years.

The other two-thirds of the American population is in a tailspin. The out-of-wedlock birthrate appeared to stop climbing in the late ’90s and early 2000s. Since the gay-marriage debate broke out in 2003, the out-of-wedlock birthrate has continued to skyrocket: We’re getting close to 45 percent of births out of wedlock. (I’m not claiming cause and effect here, just noting the timeline.)

If young people are pro-gay-marriage, the effects of the cluster of attitudes that go with being pro-gay-marriage appear to be more like David Blankenhorn predicted than Jonathan Rauch predicted: It goes along with the idea that family structure is not that important, love makes a family. It tends to reduce marriage to a symbol of romantic love, disconnecting it from childbearing.

Okay, let’s be serious here for a minute. What Maggie is describing here, in a sort of lying by omission way, is that marriage is incredibly strong among educated, middle/upper-middle class LIBERALS IN BLUE STATES, most of whom support marriage equality, live next door to gay couples, love their gay friends and family, and whatnot. Marriage is NOT doing well in red states, among less-educated people, among more conservative people, etc. She doesn’t want to give away that game to the readers at National Review, but all you have to do is look at the statistics.

In a way, it’s just like arguing with supposedly “pro-life” people. Anybody with an internet connection can use Google to learn that the legal status of abortion has nothing to do with the abortion rate in any given nation, but that pro-choice policies [access to family planning, economic empowerment for women, access to birth control, medical care, etc.] do the most to reduce the NEED for abortion, and thus the actual rate of abortion. Likewise, here, Maggie is citing statistics where marriage is successful, and just conveniently forgetting to tell you that marriage is strongest among the most pro-marriage equality segments of our population.

Maggie and K-Lo’s readers are intellectually lazy, so it’s not a surprise that they pass crap like this on to them.

LOPEZ: What are you most enthusiastic about regarding the marriage issue right now?

GALLAGHER: To me, it’s amazing, given the array of forces pushing for gay marriage and the weak response of most conservative politicians, that the American people have stubbornly dug in their heels on this question: Are two men in a union a marriage?

The answer is “no,” and people really do know it. Marriage is the union of husband and wife — for a reason. Creating a world where people are treated like haters or bigots for standing for marriage is irrational, and people know that, too. An America in which Genesis is akin to racism is an America that will be unrecognizable. Ideas have consequences, and this idea cuts us off from our roots and makes the future much harder.

And now Maggie’s just conveniently pretending like support for marriage equality hasn’t been growing every single year, hasn’t crossed the 50% line, isn’t supported by overwhelming majorities of the segments of the population which are most likely to stay alive for a while, and just feeding more delusional bullhonkey to her supporters. And her throwaway line about “Genesis being akin to racism” is meaningless to educated people, but she knows which dogwhistles to use with her audience. “The Bible ain’t racist! Evildoers!” Etc.

Anyway, happy Valentine’s Day to our readers, however you are or aren’t celebrating!