When you ask a heterosexual bigot exactly why permitting gay couples to marry will destroy heterosexual marriage, they tend to get that “deer in the headlights” look and stammer on about millenia of history, and Adam & Eve.

And while those are nice fallback lines, they still don’t answer the question: How does a gay couple’s marriage threaten to break up your heterosexual marriage (unless you’re a closet case who’s really pining to marry the gay guy next door).

An attorney in Minnesota, where they’ll be voting on a gay marriage ban in November, wrote a long missive to the Star Tribune that promised to explain how “same-sex marriage affects all of our marriages.”

But of course, he didn’t.

Here’s his “strongest” argument.

Same-sex marriage falls short of producing safe environments for children because it, at the very least, reinforces changes to the marital definition. Historically, before the sexual revolution, society’s definition of marriage was focused on the raising and bearing of children. A man married a woman; they had children, and did practically everything around the raising of those children. The interests of a parent became tertiary to the interests of their children and their spouse. Currently, as a society, we have wavered from this traditional motivation, and many, not all, view marriage as a venue for self-fulfillment. This modern view is directly culpable for the rise in broken homes and its resulting negative effects. Because same-sex marriage is made possible by this modern view of marriage, if we make same-sex marriage equivalent to traditional marriage, we only more firmly impart to future generations that marriage is about personal fulfillment. The cementing of the modern view will only continue its destruction of safe environments for future generations.

I went to law school too. And in law school, we called this “it’s true because I say it’s true” kind of argument a tautology.

Not to mention, why can’t gay marriages also be about the best interests of children?

As a lawyer should especially know, you’d think children would be better off in a home in which they have the legal protection of two parents, rather than being legally bound to one and the other just being “daddy’s friend,” especially if daddy dies. (Putting aside for a moment, of course, the notion that single people get married because they’re thinking of the “best interests of their unborn children.” If someone proposed to me and said that that there was their only motivation, rather than love for me, I’d show him the door.)

Fortunately, gay America’s newest favorite heterosexual, NFL football player Chris Kluwe, came to the rescue, penning this response:

“Which version of ‘traditional marriage’ would you like to use Mr. Balling? Should we go back to ancient Israel and practice polygamy, with a woman’s only right that to own her own tent? Or should we use the ancient Greek definition of marriage, one more concerned with inheritance than love or procreation, one that would force a woman to divorce her current husband and marry a sibling if that was required to continue the family? Should we force a brother to marry his dead sibling’s wife? Or perhaps we should make arranged marriages with child brides, that’s certainly traditional enough. Wait, I know, let’s go with the one where you have to pay three goats and a cow in order to ensure the woman is yours to keep forever, and you can stone her to death if she cheats on you. That one sounds terrific!”

You might recall that Chris Kluwe is the guy who famously took on an anti-gay Maryland legislator recently in a very public, very r-rated, letter that went super-viral around the Web. Here’s probably the only part I can safely quote:

Dear Emmett C. Burns Jr.,

I find it inconceivable that you are an elected official of Maryland’s state government. Your vitriolic hatred and bigotry make me ashamed and disgusted to think that you are in any way responsible for shaping policy at any level. The views you espouse neglect to consider several fundamental key points, which I will outline in great detail (you may want to hire an intern to help you with the longer words): 1. As I suspect you have not read the Constitution, I would like to remind you that the very first, the VERY FIRST Amendment in this founding document deals with the freedom of speech, particularly the abridgment of said freedom. By using your position as an elected official (when referring to your constituents so as to implicitly threaten the Ravens organization) to state that the Ravens should “inhibit such expressions from your employees,” more specifically Brendon Ayanbadejo, not only are you clearly violating the First Amendment, you also come across as a narcissistic fromunda stain. What on earth would possess you to be so mind-boggingly stupid? It baffles me that a man such as yourself, a man who relies on that same First Amendment to pursue your own religious studies without fear of persecution from the state, could somehow justify stifling another person’s right to speech. To call that hypocritical would be to do a disservice to the word. Mindf*cking obscenely hypocritical starts to approach it a little bit.

It gets… better… from there.

Yes, we are seriously liking this guy. And from the NFL, of all things. We live in amazing times.

(H/t JoeMyGod)