The Anti-Marriage Activists

For the last few years I’ve used the term “anti-marriage” for people trying to limit marriage only to couples they approve of. They claim they’re in favor of marriage, even trying to protect it. But if you’re trying to limit or restrict a behavior, you’re against that behavior.

After all, people who want to restrict access to abortion are anti-abortion. People who want to limit access to guns are anti-gun. People who want to minimize pollution, or crime, or musical comedies are anti-pollution, anti-crime, and anti-musical comedy, respectively.

But I didn’t foresee a politician fulfilling that definition by proposing to do away with marriage laws entirely. That’s what state representative Mike Turner has proposed to do in Oklahoma.

As Think Progress noted, this mirrors one of the “massive resistance” tactics in the Jim Crow states, shutting down public schools for all students rather than integrating them. Of course, those segregationists insisted they were trying to protect education.