People will come up with any excuse to ban same-sex marriage. The most recent attack comes from Iowa Family Policy Center president Chuck Hurley. The IFPC is a conservative nonprofit organization that opposes gay unions and is determined to “restore and defend traditional moral principles.” On March 12, Hurley made the wild accusation that promoting same-sex marriage is “arguably more destructive, and potentially more costly to society than smoking.”

All of this comes in response to a startling report released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. According to the CDC’s 2010 National STD Prevention Conference, men who have sex with men are 44 times more likely to be diagnosed with HIV than men who do not; women who have sex with other women are 40 times more likely.

Hurley uses the CDC’s findings as artillery against same-sex marriage in Iowa, saying that “homosexual activity is certainly more dangerous for the individuals who engage in it than is smoking.” While I admit the CDC report is disturbing, Hurley has completely missed the point.

The LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) community is often seen as being promiscuous and straying away from the societal norm of family values–as if this only happens within the gay community and nowhere else, a point Hurley conveniently overlooks. A gay man myself, I can attest to certain proclivities within the community that may lead to a higher HIV risk. I do not condone these indiscretions, but I think I understand them.

For example, a gay man is told he is not equal because he’s in love with another man. He’s told God doesn’t love him because he lives his life in sin. He’s told he can’t marry the man he loves because of his “difference.” And out of this societal evil, the man reaches a settling point. If he can’t get married, he shouldn’t have to wait to have sex, unprotected or otherwise, or even limit himself to one partner. When you tell him he’s different, he’s going to live up to the reputation.

Here’s where it gets interesting, though. The IFPC wants to get back to family values. I believe that we can achieve this in a roundabout way by embracing and accepting the LGBT community as a whole—and by accepting the community as equal by allowing same-sex marriage. In doing so, you create a new family value. Young gay kids will finally have something to look forward to besides despair. They, too, can now wait until marriage to have sex. They, too, can have that childhood dream of falling in love, getting married, and having 2.5 children and a white picket fence. After all, the only way to change the stigma of the LGBT community is to erase it. Perhaps then we would see the dramatic decrease of HIV diagnoses.

Perhaps this theory could only work in a perfect world. But it’s a nice thought—and far less costly to society than smoking.

– Matthew H. Smith, Associate Editor