"What is Marriage?" by Evan Wolfson - Response

I found it somewhat peculiar that Wolfson chose to use the court case Turner vs. Safely in this excerpt.  After reading the introduction, I learned that this excerpt was going to be about gay marriage and gay people gaining the right to legally marry.  In the beginning Wolfson describes how marriage is a mutual concept that all countries around the world share and its many meanings.  I thought that section was entertaining and well written; it kept me wanting to know when he would introduce the concept of gay marriage.

  He decided to ease into gay marriage rights by bringing up another group of people who originally didn't have the right to marry; prisoners.  When the Turner vs. Safely case was introduced to the Supreme Court, they decided that "marriage is such an important choice that it may not be arbitrarily denied by the government" (94).  I believe that Wolfson's rhetorical strategy by sharing this story before he brought up gay marriage was to say 'so convicted felons who broke the law are allowed to get married because it's 'so important', but two people of the same sex who have never broken the law and are in a loving relationship can't?...how is that at all fair?  I believe that Wolfson definitely reached his readers with this approach; it was effective because it makes the reader feel even more sympathy for same-sex couples who don't have the right to marry.  I have to admit I was confused at first as to why the court case was being discussed, but once Wolfson made his point I understood his angle and what he wanted the reader to think about. 

Though bringing up the Turner vs. Safely case begs the question 'if convicted felons can marry why can't gays?', I'm not sure if it is completely relevant to the issue of same-sex marriage.  Gay people that want to get married are asking for the privileges that come with being legally married and starting a family with that status.  Prisoners, though allowed to marry, don't have the same rights as every other United States citizen because, well, they're in prison.  Gays are just like every other citizen in the US and they don't deserve to have less rights because of their sexual orientation.  I commend Wolfson for making a strong argument about this issue and though it may not be one hundred percent relevant, they way he introduced it definitely caught the readers' attention.