In 1961 when I graduated from high school sexual promiscuity was almost unheard of, divorce was unacceptable for most Americans regardless of their religious belief, and significant others could not openly rent an apartment together. Within 30 years sexual promiscuity became rampant among teens and no fault divorce laws escalated the divorce rate to over 50%.
All you can see is your individual right to do what you want without any regard for what you want can and will do to any society that legalizes immorality. We can ignore the lessons of history until our society crashes and burns or we can draw the line where it now is and work to reverse this trend.
I am not taking this discussion in 5 different directions I am taking it in the straight line (no pun intended) to its obvious and historical conclusion.
I have no idea how old you are however, I have seen more pain and misery over the last 40 years perpetrated in the name of "individual rights" and "equality" since traditional moral and family values have been thrown out the window by liberal courts.
You used the term "equality" and I merely demonstrated how gay activists are pushing legalization of "inequality" by means of the proposed Federal Hate Crimes Law; how the ACLU is acting as legal advisor for NAMBLA so they can have "equal" sexual rights with children; how schools are giving gay students "unequal" protection from bullies; all of which demonstrates what egalitarianism does to any society that legalizes or turns a blind eye to all immoral behavior.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana (1863–1952), U.S. philosopher, poet. Life of Reason,“Reason in Common Sense,” ch. 12 (1905–6).
The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.
G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936), British author. All I Survey,“On St. George Revivified” (1933).
History not used is nothing, for all intellectual life is action, like practical life, and if you don’t use the stuff—well, it might as well be dead.
A. J. Toynbee (1889–1975), British historian. Television broadcast, 17 April 1955, NBC-TV.
You can ignore the lessons of history however your parochial view of "equality" and "individual rights" will be the death of our society if it is adopted by our legal system.
The gay community has the right as individuals to be treated equally under the law; however, you don't have the right to force your behavior down the throats of the majority. The end result will be a tyrannical control of the majority.