Democracy is often a messy process, with extreme statements on both sides of any issue--particularly when public attitudes are evolving rapidly on contentious social issues.

So it may be best to view last week's statement by an executive at the American Family Association that we will soon legally be able to marry our cars in that light.

The startling prediction came from Buster Wilson, general manager of American Family Radio, during a discussion with co-host Ed Vitagliano articulating the pair's views against marriage equality. (Same-sex couples can marry today in six states and the District of Columbia.)

Wilson starts out by saying that the "end result" of marriage equality is legalization of polygamous marriages.

That, he says, will be followed by polyamory marriages (multiple partners of any gender), and then "people who brought to the forefront their desire to marry—one guy had a desire to marry a building, another one a car, another one his dog."

The discussion can be viewed in the YouTube clip at the bottom of the article.

The American Family Association has long fought marriage equality, claiming on its now-defunct NoGayMarriage.com website that the legal marriage of two women or two men will "destroy marriage," lead inevitably to polygamy, make divorce too easy, and bring about divine retribution--among other dire effects.

In other related news, last week the chairwoman of presidential candidate Michele Bachmann's Iowa campaign organization claimed that same-sex marriage would lead to women wanting to marry the Eiffel Tower.

It is unclear whether any person in the United States has ever attempted to marry a car or other vehicle, although sexual attraction to mechanical objects, including cars--while quite rare--has been claimed and is known as mechanophilia.

No state would have granted a license for such an event. Regardless of the evolution of marriage equality in the United States, legal scholars say marriage of humans to inantimate objects will not become legal under any circumstances. The same goes for inter-species unions.

Most marriage equality advocates find the comparisons to bestiality or marriage to objects offensive, though perhaps not all that surprising in the evolution of the culture wars.

The American Family Association was designated a hate group last year by the Southern Poverty Law Center.