Parenting & Family Quote by Daniel Keys Moran

The line works like a rhetorical trap: it presents itself as modest uncertainty while quietly indicting the certainty of everyone who insists gay couples are uniquely disqualifying. Moran doesn’t argue in the grand, abstract language of “rights.” He picks a very specific comparison - a childless heterosexual couple - and forces the debate onto the terrain where prejudice usually hides: assumptions about reproduction, “family values,” and what relationships are for.

The intent is surgical. If the objection to gay couples is that they can’t produce children together, then childless straight couples should trigger the same moral alarm. They don’t, because the real objection isn’t about kids; it’s about sanctioning a particular kind of intimacy. By choosing childless heterosexuality as the control group, Moran exposes how often social policy is built on symbolism rather than outcomes: heterosexual couples are treated as legitimate even when they don’t meet the supposed purpose of marriage, while gay couples are treated as suspect even when they do all the practical things marriage is meant to support (mutual care, stability, shared responsibility).

The subtext is impatience with bad-faith distinctions. “Unable to see it” reads as calm, but it’s also a challenge: show your work. In the cultural context of late-20th and early-21st century debates over marriage and adoption, the sentence anticipates a familiar move - dressing discomfort up as principle - and strips it down to its inconsistency. It’s less a plea for tolerance than a demand for intellectual honesty.