We’ve been asking the question for a while.  How would my gay marriage hurt you, the straight married person?  Now, we’re not alone in asking the same thing.

“The unusual exchange between U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn Walker and Charles Cooper, a lawyer for the group that sponsored Proposition 8, came during a hearing on a lawsuit challenging the measure as discriminatory under the U.S. Constitution.

Cooper had asked Walker to throw out the suit or make it more difficult for those civil rights claims to prevail.”

The judge not only refused but signaled that when the case goes to trial in January, he expects Cooper and his legal team to present evidence showing that male-female marriages would be undermined if same-sex marriages were legal.

The question is relevant to the assertion that Proposition 8 is constitutionally valid because it furthers the states goal of fostering “naturally procreative relationships,” Walker explained.

“What is the harm to the procreation purpose you outlined of allowing same-sex couples to get married?” Walker asked.

“My answer is, I don’t know. I don’t know,” Cooper answered. ~ MSNBC”

There is, apparently, more than one way to skin a cat.

Regardless of the belief on the part of some in the right wing that so-called radical leftist judges legislate from the bench, this is a case in point of what a judge is supposed to do.  Raise the questions that are relevant to the underlying assertion that denying rights based on tradition or a set of rules outlined in a non-secular document (the Bible, for example) and adhered to by only a specific subset of  the religious should determine what liberties should be enjoyed by another human citizen of our country.  Cut through the rhetoric.  Call out nonsensical for what it is.

I think this is our next best chance at validating our equality.  And, I love that the anti-gay marriage attorney came so ill-prepared.  Reminds me of that yokel who represented Attorney General Jerry Brown, sadly for our side, at the appeal last spring.

But, it will be a long road, even if we prevail.  One that will end up in the Supreme Court – and that is what scares me most.