>> so john -- >> hi, maggie. >> it's great to be with you. we've debated same-sex marriage a few times across america and of course now we are here with our hot off the press book debating same-sex marriage with oxford university press. let m just start with you and maybe you could share with me again and with the viewers here what is your best three minute case for a marriage. >> well come to keep it very simple life and relationships are good for people, marriage is good for relationships, and some of our fellow citizens of our day. when i say relationships are good for people, not just because they need people happy although that is an important part of it and we all want to live happily ever after as it were, but there's also something about having someone to come home to at night to make up with in the morning to share one's joy and sorrow to be committed and make sacrifice for to read the reason that relationships are good for people was that they make us better people. i am a better person because of my tenure plus relationship with my partner, mark. when i say marriage is good for relationships that is partly because commitment is good for relationships and also marriage ties as into the larger community any way. marriage ties us into our families in the certainly. my parents regard marks as their son-in-law and that is important to sort of sustaining the family life that we have. in some of our fellow citizens are gay and we can talk more about that. i think one of the reasons we see a shift over the last 15 years in favor of same-sex marriage and the country's evenly divided on this issue now that half the country at least in the polls. when we look at the election results we will see something different but the polls in 1996 when gallup started looking at this and 60% of people were against 27% were in favor and in the last couple of years 53% in favor of 201150% in favor of 2012 so there has been a shift and i think the reason we see that as people increasingly recognize that gays and lesbians are there and citizens and so on and there are relationships important to us and our lives. estimate yet any time so far we have 40 elections coming up this november in maryland and washington and minnesota and maine and the span the spectrum. washington and maryland legislature passed the marriage and it's now going to the voters to either veto the world or affirm legislature's decision in minnesota they're voting on the marriage amendment that says one man and one woman you need some odd states to pass that similar legislation and in maine they are trying to pass the marriage said it will be an interesting election for those of us that watch marriage of until this year gay marriage has never won in an open vote, so this is a real question given the symbol beautiful case that you are laying out for gay marriage why do you think it hasn't yet -- wire there so many people who really are not on board with this? >> i think it's a fair question and it's trendy. maybe they think it is trendy. >> i thought you just told us it was a trend. >> i didn't mean it that way. i was talking about the trend of the draft. people are afraid of the unknown i think frankly it's better mobilizing people politically than my side has. i think a lot of that has to do with people being mobilized in the churches pastors are telling them you need to go out and protect marriage and their feeling unsettled because i think one of the things you and i would tend to agree on is that marriage has been in trouble in this country in recent decades and in certain ways. i think that case can be overstated but i also think that one of the reasons this bookworks and we know we disagree sharply in the book we are able to please talk to each other and understand each other better than some is because we agree marriage is important so people have fear about marriage deteriorated in and they see this as a further threat the natural inclination to say no. i think that is leaning. i think increasingly people realize this is not a zero sum game. we can give marriage to same-sex couples without taking away from or having it deteriorated for a different sex couples and i am hopeful that in the fall at least one of those states and may be several of those states will actually reverse that election trend and we may win. but we will see. >> so, when i asked you why people disagree with you and still very substantial numbers it turns up in north carolina just this year a very decisive defeat. >> although there was a republican primary going on. islamic we can do a political analysis. >> they are not lining up. so, again this is a real question. do you think that the reason i've spent the last ten years debating same-sex marriage is because i am afraid of the unknown? >> i wouldn't dare try to speak for you and your motivation for what you're doing this. i think it could be interesting for you to talk about why you do this. i do think -- >> let me just like it because this have been somewhat particularly people that have the moral understandings. people with more progressive, and i don't know if -- i don't know if your center-right or center-left but you are somewhere in there. >> we want to be center something. >> i'm just right wing. i've just been struck by how often the only way progressives can understand why people disagree with them is to root in either prejudice or fear and president obama's people clinging to god and their guns and so for those of a store on the conservative side of the spectrum, it just -- do you really think there isn't a substantive basis to the disagreement? given that for the average voter they are not as involved in the particular influence and people who influenced them etc.? is there a kind of court to this disagreement which is included in fear that is it something else? >> one of the reasons i wanted to do this book to you when oxford came to me and we started talking about who to do this with i thought you were a good person to do this with. it's because i wanted one of the best people on the other side to lay out the arguments. you do that in the book and each of us has our main essay in rebuttal and as i explained in the rebuttal i don't think the arguments work. i don't think you're too much work and you don't think mine work. if i don't think the arguments work than i needed some other explanation for why a smart thoughtful person like maggie gallagher reaches the wrong conclusion on this issue. if you think of me as a smart and thoughtful person would need an explanation for why. seeking batt logical mystics or is missing something? perhaps it is oversimplifying to put it in terms of fear but i do think that all of us come to the debate with a certain mindset and one of the things that is valuable about your segment of the book is that we draw attention to something people on my side often miss which is people on your side really want to preserve a special understanding of marriage from their father's union and that we may have moved away from that in the society and in many ways we have moved away from that in our understanding in law and so on and what a relationship needs to do to qualify as marriage and one of the reasons for example we moved away from law requiring confirmation for marriage to be valid and contested later because we moved away from that. but, sir, i'm not a psychologist. i'm a philosopher and i can analyze the arguments and try to show where i think the arguments along. >> that's fair. i didn't mean to put you on the spot. >> what do you think the people on my side are missing? >> it's not hard for me to understand why a game and and pete -- people who are thinking about this is a question of how we are going to treat fellows citizens family members would be for gay marriage. i think it's become a symbol for many people, even people who probably are not even going to enter the marriage it's become a symbol of the idea of respect for gay people and their relationships. >> i want to interrupt you there because sometimes when you say symbol i know people on my side and your being dismissive. it's just a symbol for you people, but symbols are important to we agree? >> said germans are symbols, right? >> if it's just a symbol. >> not just a symbol -- >> no, you know, if you come at it from a cultural perspective, symbols for the sacred objects for rich and by which we constitute reality. there are people on my side of the conservative side who say well, you know, it's just a symbol like money is real and the question of how we are we to understand marriage moving forward is something fluffy unless you're dealing with the legal incidence of marriage, and i do think that we have a very weakened marriage culture and that the structures are bound marriage have been lowered considerably. and, that the symbolic content of the marriage actually what i call the public meeting of marriage is in fact the most important part of how marriage influences the way people lacked and behave so that's one of the ways that it's different. >> can i ask you more about this because then you recognize that not just gay people with least in the polls about half of the country -- >> and don't think it's have the country that a big chunk of the country. >> and they can't all be gay people want to acknowledge our relationships as -- want to assure respect and acknowledge just as the families to understand ourselves to be. how do we do that if not totally satisfied israel human need not only for people to commit themselves to each other and the relationship but to acknowledge and our neighbors and fellow citizens have done that if not for marriage? >> there's been a lot of proposals for different ways for coming up with different relationship structures feud in my view, they've been mostly pretty roundly rejected by gay-rights activists at this point announce separate means not equal. you cannot demonstrate respect except through marriage. >> but what do you think? i want to know -- >> what do i think? i think some of these strike me as basic rights that need to be protected particularly things like senior loved ones in the hospital. i don't think relationships are marriages and most adult relationships do not require legal structures frankly. most important adults relationships. the wall mostly requires the congressional relationships and touches the family mostly through dependency relationships so marriages the great exception it's not the normal or the usual way we build relationships with one another that matter and the way we say relationships are important isn't typically just a run of the government regulation. >> but when we married we learn the property in certain ways and there are things for the law does come into play, and you can understand why the recognition becomes very important, and in some cases crucial. >> i think it becomes important to some people, the of, john, if this is so important as a practical matter, why is it that when gay marriage is available, it is only really a fairly small minority of people and to these relationships. >> i think that is a complicated question and i can speak from my own experience. i am in michigan where i am not permitted to marry, and we are constitutionally prohibited to have meridor union for any other purpose. that is the term of language. and market and i have talked about getting married in new york ranger or some other state. but there are complications -- >> i understand -- >> evin places like canada or the netherlands for a number of years now you know where does it looks like ten or 15% of gay people are entering these unions. >> i think that is partly because in many cases they have cobbled together certain structures to the extent that they can. as we have this expensive binder of homeland people have done that and so there are questions that gets corrected and it's partly because as you know getting the work over the last several decades the marriage culture takes time to build and when i started working on this issue back in the -- when i started working on gay-rights issues in the 90's marriage wasn't on their radar. it wasn't until the 90's in hawaii that we started talking about this in a seriously, and my friend -- you know him well -- evin was working on this, but when evin started working london in the 90's, people like marriage? and that is because we were simply fighting to make it legal for us to have intimate relations in many states. i was an u.n. apprehended felon in the state of texas for a number of years as i lived there. and we can joke about that and i think okay they are not going to enforce that but for friends of mine who were going into law enforcement or education or military or things like that the sodomy law that was huge so it takes time i think to make this a part of the culture. not just in terms of the legal incident but in terms of parents and grandparents saying when are you in to get married and make it official that takes time to build. islamic one of the things i remember thinking about and do the data but is better than i can obviously is the fight for gay marriage has changed the culture in which a game in live internally. is it sort of the debate about marriages somewhat theoretical, but it strikes me the prominence in the agenda has raised from unlike yourself or for the traditional in your view of relationships in the context to much more prominent level than you were within your own community. and how has that played out? >> find understand the question you are saying this has become mainstream. >> the culture was something for poland about that personally, and we were at the same time jonathan and i saw it is overlapping and the cultural time period and this is something that has occurred to me and prefer to be in a marriage like relationship with the want to make it legal or not. >> one of the reasons this has, on in the movement is you recognize people are doing this and pairing off and settle them down having domestic lives together and so whereas there were some were given that i'm in academia and i saw it from the academic and will there were somewhat self-styled queer academics that said this is coopting us into this patriarchal institution that's restricting us and the fact is this is something a lot of people wanted. they wanted to settle down and the house with a white picket fence and so on. so it wasn't so much jonathan and andrew sullivan and others argued for this and then everyone sort of read the arguments and were convinced and, on. they were responding to something that was already a desire within the community and corresponds to make universal companion ship. islamic what do you think is different about -- you talked about same-sex and opposite sex relationships. let's just leave the lesbians out of that. what have you observed and obviously you have relatives and family and friends that are in opposite sex relationships. there are a lot of ways. how do you think that they are different? >> how do i think that opposite sex and syntex -- >> loving across the gender divide. >> the fact that different sex relationships can create life is huge and something i acknowledge in the book any relationship that has the capacity for doing that that mixed relationship fraught tremendous possibility and risk and so that's relevant and bridging certain gender differences whether those are biological, cultural, some complicated combination of the two which is the right way to look at it, that could create challenges. also think the challenge there to the edges for same-sex relationships that don't get it launched very often. the fact that so many of us at least, my generation, and i hope this is changing although we are hearing a terrible story to realize it is not completely changed for so many of us the struggle for the thought that my feelings are sick and natural deviant canned morrill could have lost in to the scholastic emotional scars i don't think we talk about so much because it makes us sound week that that affects the in any way. i cannot at a time in the context where many people believe that acting on those deep feelings was going to send me straight to hell and there are plenty of people that still believe that and that could do a lot of damage to kids. the fact that we have that shared experience and sensitivity of that experience is one of the difference is that in many cases we have had to fight much harder to be acknowledged merely as legitimate and that we still have to go through coming out. if i'm on an airplane coming to an event like this asking what i'm doing and i have to make some decision which at this point in my life is a pretty easy decision. well, let me tell you about the buck? [laughter] but, -- >> you can order it on amazon. >> exactly. but you still occasionally will be sitting next to that person who will give you a sort of a double take a look like you are one of those and that's a difference. islamic that's definitely true three dimond orthodox and roman catholic, so i don't believe anybody goes to hell but it's not -- it is by no means a different position that it's not right for two men to have sex. >> i want to invite you to talk about -- >> i will in the second but after the break which comes up i want you to take the lead in interviewing me. but i wanted to get to this because -- i would like to say about this book that it is the only book in the history of the world that ever has been and probably never will be endorsed by both rick santorum and daniel savage. >> that is true. >> we talk about civil debate and dan savage express's a lot of men feel about me and people that have my point of view he says john corvino deserves a medal of honor for the work he has done keeping his cool and engaging responses in the face of bad and sometimes infuriatingly in solving arguments. john is like your favorite college professor, and so, maybe you can explain how you're very good, and you've obviously chosen media is part of being a professor to engage in relationships with people you probably disagree not really to me and it's like i understand how you could sit around and be pleasant and kind is the word that comes to mind, but think about you as well as intelligent and passionately devoted and rather good-looking, too. how would you explain to other people that think it is an insult to them to sit around and be several with people that have these views taking me as the symbol of all of those people so there will be people watching how can john act so friendly and nice to maggie that is doing all of things what do you say about that? >> damn is going to be dillinger -- inviting he's not a president of the national organization of the cofounder to dinner at his house and did so specifically as you know he challenged him i will delete you anytime anywhere and instead of setting up this big public thing with supporters he said come over to my house for dinner with me and my partner and some cameras and he's going to be interviewing them, but in part because i think that while he can be very sharp tongue at times and that is in some ways part of his charm he enters the importance of reaching across the divided because he comes from a family like so many of us do and when you are in a family with a diversity of the people that sharply disagree on very important things i've loved family members with whom i disagree on deeply important things, so probably if people think hard about it, they all will be able to find people in their lives that fit that description. for me reaching out in a friendly and a thoughtful way is not that difficult because of our shared commitment to a with aiding the dialogue which is why we did the book together. but also if thre's one thing i understand as a gay man it's that personal affection doesn't always line of with societal explanation because the society expects you to respond to something in a certain way just like with women sexually. just because people expect i'm going to sit down with maggie gallagher and want to tear my hair out you know, we hit it off and we get along and i think that can be an occasion for something valuable. >> rett think it is a gift and have it that we live in this very polarized culture where we enjoy if not hating each other at least ragging on each other and it seems like there is increasingly ever small spaces but i do think about this a lot because i think about how differently this with abortion at this point and it's the question of whether you want to stay in the relationship or not. if you don't you say how could you? if you want to be in a relationship, you say i understand she cares about that issue. i don't see it that way but she isn't doing this to be mean to me she's trying to stand up for what she thinks is right. it's emotional work that goes on but the clue is when you want to stay and when you don't you know how to relate to that and there's the bad people there and the people here and coming from a catholic background and atheist now, one of the things that i attribute to the culture actually is the sense that we are sinners in it together. i once told andrew sullivan that we would have a beer and purgatory and talk it over. he said that means you think i will get to have won he eventually. i said i hope so. so i don't know if that is useful, but it seems very rare now and increasingly rare. it seems to be invading all the spaces. estimate do you think it is in reality rare or what we see in the media is the version. >> in the culture it's one of every devotee america is a nice place where i watched focus of some new jersey and there was an evangelical woman and a lesbian mother and they were working hard to figure out a way where everyone could be okay. it's easy to watch them in the same room. we have to get a break but we will be right back and continue this conversation debating same-sex marriage. .. >> in your rebuttal you said the last line for not the absence of the bride of everything that i wrote to to, i wrote a lot but its stock out. >> it you take the woman at of the wedding, except for that it is the same but the union of male and female you have no religion the connection between marriage and the link before the generation aground doing of our own been reenacted in front of us. i have a lot of emotion about this. this is part of the central five of the sexual revolution and graduated from yale 1982 pro-life atheist at the time. the really big lie is the relationship at two generativemini that this makes manulife women uniquely bear the life it is a great gift but also the a great to vulnerability. in the '80s was orthodox feminism. we are separating sex from reproduction. we haven't. before we can see the same sex union as a marriage and make a decision how seriously we will treat the phenomenon when men and women have sex they often make children but three-quarters of all birth is an intended by at least one parent. children are hurt because when they do this without being married children whose fathers and it is costly to be the unmarried mother and it is very difficult. as someone who was 110 years. i think most people who advocate want it only a question of gay people but simultaneously we make a decision to institute -- institutionalize the worst feature of the sexual revolution. we repress our awareness their relationships are full of the possibility and those who are shaped by the reality and marriage is the one institution of all cultures to manage the reality list of becoming a social problem is of course, i sacred ground going forward. i don't think you can strengthen that addition when you institutionalize the pressure of gay marriage and a quality. there is no difference of same-sex of opposite sex marriage. cleaning to that principle is overarching. what mr. did two -- 10 years ago a mother and father that is why we should not do gay marriage but now it is the rejection because that conflicts with the moral norm that the marriage quality tries to embody. you cannot take the woman out of the wedding and act as if nothing has been lost. >> you know, since then i roach that because "the reader" said paint the picture. it looked like a wedding. i get the fact you want people to take seriously the creation of new life and fathers to stick around to provide loving homes for their offspring. i get that. we have talked about it. i don't think marriage equality means the difference but that they deserve equal treatment under the law. this is what i don't get. i think we would both acknowledge both men do not need a bride. they are gay men. >> it would be a challenging marriage. i would not advocate or take off the table. >> right. you don't have a daughter. if you did there is a gay guy. >> it is high risk. >> but not off the table? >> no. with a more madman and mixed orientation part of that to a defying him as a mormon he has this theology that is very strong with that faith. i knew a jewish game man who decided to become orthodox and did not very but your religious identity is more important than your sexual desire. it strikes me as challenging but i respect that if made in honesty. >> okay. not that i don't respect it. i am pro freedom type of guy. i want people to pursue open and honestly what they decide are suitable for them as long no one is armed. -- harm to. suppose they do not see tha as an option as most gay men do not but yet they found each other and their lives are rich they make each other better people. that is it important part of relationship. >> one thing that is lovely that you do in the book you lay out a rich portrait of marriage more than romantic love in bedded of the communal norms and that to this and attractive vision. >> why it is important it keeps people together in commitments for the long haul even as the romantic excitement waxes and wanes. and savage roach talk about moving into gather because you roll over in the morning and do exciting stuff or deal with morning braff. [laughter] that romantic excitement can wax and wane but there is something challenging. boyd and josh what to pursue that further and include their family is. do object to them have paying zero wedding? >> you put me in charge with the moral order to people i don't know. i am not comfortable with that. if it were my own son, love and caretaking and commitment are always valuable. they mean something. icahn acknowledged that they think is good to be celebrated. for me, having my son commit to living in a gay relationship in the rest of his life would not be easy for me to celebrate. we would have to come together. it is more intense and challenging within your own family. how we live and love across deep differences. >> was not primarily asking you looking for advice 43 -- boyd and josh but the society, regardless if you believe support is that strong but there is a trend because people want to respect the choice to commit to each other. not that you run the world. >> i definitely do not rent the world. >> if you did, what is there room for people like that? did make you could structure domestic partnerships to be celebrated in different ways. i feel perry strongly, with my perfect world, a gay people would not be afraid. we could non the groundwork we have a lot of differences and a lot in common. we recognize each other as human beings and agreed to disagree. to build communities, respected members of america. that is my world. >> that domestic partnership there isn't a worry it is marriage by some other name? >> for me, the question is is our marriage tradition good lord discriminatory? it is frustrating to gay people that sometimes i come up with a 10 point* play and but it is not relevant. because we could win them marriage debate is the union of husband and wife for reason to strengthen the connection to connect new life rather they add add it more relationships that clearly contradict this model of marriage. they have social maids, don't meet the model. how ruutu we meet them? wide of the reasons is is it about a fundamental principle that the tradition is big bid because it expresses those unions are not as sacred as the opposite sex. but it is heteronormative with it being necessary a lot of people are outside it. they are not looked down upon. this thing is important. >> and i have been proven right to. put end position recommendation recognize a that stroh go over heteronormative said it without public institution called marriage. >> talk about that quasi sacred mentioning you are a devout roman catholic. >> don't give me that much credit. [laughter] i am orthodox. >> people assume you're argument is god says no. but you don't say that. and you talk about your religious views impact what you do? >> i think it reputation works in reverse. i anders should life and marriage and sex and the party changes that i came to believe it has to be wrong to engage in a sexual relationship if you cannot give your child their mother and father. about 35% hold that view but it is not publicly prominent. because life in the bloom is live by never hear a good argument to kill developing human beings. with the roman catholic understanding of sex and marriage was the small step. >> understanding that? >> not so much that guide teaches may but to my first dot book nobody should have to read it. [laughter] i was a acs to then it went back to the church event late twenties it was the only institution that it would capture. my faith has progressed but i was raising a son. you don't pass on moral understanding alone but if community. but to think it is only religious people that stand at this point* not because they are theologically rooted they're not angels dancing on a pin but with the enormous amount of criticism if you oppose same-sex marriage with those of a stronger motivation it is why the public opposition is shrinking in narrowed to those in have a strong motivation those born male and female. >> there are married couples that cannot create new life. and elderly couple both widowed married in their seventies. what is the function then? from a legal standpoint everyone and it is the public purpose of marriage which tried to push each other if the book because they really union but if not intended to be faithful it is not marital. it is not about children regulating such holiday to end up in relationships not to hurt actual or potential children. we really did not just make this up. it has been somewhat covered up to not have the contraceptive regulation that sex makes babies they were good talked-about regulating less. -- lust marriage is the pattern and if not children get hurt. >> isn't the reason is because is it about committing for keeps? when you join together you are there for each other exclusively for life then they can count on having that? >> this is very rich and complicated. it is not marriage per se that protects children. those mothers who rivera to not do better than those who remarry. >> they know they can be disruptive. >> the reason that gold standard is that it brings together their own mother and father into one family and i think it has to do the way when people are not married looking for a romantic partner. there is a conflict to be a good mother and father. it takes money and resources away so to focus your attention within the family is moving to me. i raised a son outside of marriage and the response of stop criticizing single mothers. he is an adult and a successful writer and his mother did a great job but reflecting what it cost her and him. stability does matter. that is why those mothers who don't rebury do better than other single mothers. but my question i do believe children long to know male and female of. if it is exclusively female characteristic. win raised outside of marriage y s1 half of the people not loathsome eight? >> non seems like same-sex couples and families raising children, i am not, but many do that they pay the price for father abandonment. because fathers don't stick around we cannot support to those who do not fall in love heterosexual they. >> that is if you think the right to call your union marriage such a take on a woman and her children is not right for you. what you want to do is not marriage. >> that i understand. but those what the law to acknowledge as may understand ourselves to be to witness that commitment. to pass on community. >> we have three minutes left. >> because as you recognize repass on moral understanding with community, we agree the word is important family and friends acknowledge but it provides an opportunity to pace -- pass on community. so i go back to my earlier concerned -- concern if not marriage than what? >> i will say it is more significant and it is dangerous to rely on marriage where rights and relationships. i think and i have concerns of been deprived of a mother and father and for adoption if you can replace the you need to respect everyone who tried to do it. we don't have time to go into it but afire right it is not a gay people's interest to mess with the collor social institution. if america is this special place to protect that in the future really to strengthen our marriage coulter as we're headed for a serious problem. what i have never been able to get you to say always pushed to say same-sex relationship serve the same purpose with of public square. >> like you i want to of strength of commitment and peoples care. >> i hope i am