Are straight couples less stable parents than their gay counterparts and consequently require the benefits of marriage to assist them?

Kenji Yoshino opines just that in a New York Times op-ed analyzing last week's 4-to-2 decision by New York's highest court that a legislative ban on same-sex marriage did not violate the state Constitution.

He states their decision could be read to mean something quite unflattering for heterosexuals:

What's noteworthy about the New York decision, however, is that it became the second ruling by a state high court to assert a startling rationale for prohibiting same-sex marriage -- that straight couples may be less stable parents than their gay counterparts and consequently require the benefits of marriage to assist them.

The critical question, expressed in a plurality opinion by three members of the New York court, is whether a "rational legislature" could decide that the benefits of marriage should be granted to opposite-sex couples but not to same-sex couples. The opinion then answered in the affirmative with two different arguments. While both related to the interests of children, they differed significantly in vintage and tone.

The more traditional argument stated that the Legislature could reasonably suppose that children would fare better under the care of a mother and father. Like most arguments against gay marriage, this "role model" argument assumes straight couples are better guides to life than gay couples.

And like other blatantly anti-gay arguments, it falls apart under examination. In a decision last month in a case concerning gay foster parents, the Arkansas Supreme Court found no evidence that children raised by gay couples were disadvantaged compared with children raised by straight couples.

But the New York court also put forth another argument, sometimes called the "reckless procreation" rationale. "Heterosexual intercourse," the plurality opinion stated, "has a natural tendency to lead to the birth of children; homosexual intercourse does not." Gays become parents, the opinion said, in a variety of ways, including adoption and artificial insemination, "but they do not become parents as a result of accident or impulse."

Consequently, "the Legislature could find that unstable relationships between people of the opposite sex present a greater danger that children will be born into or grow up in unstable homes than is the case with same-sex couples."

To shore up those rickety heterosexual arrangements, "the Legislature could rationally offer the benefits of marriage to opposite-sex couples only." Lest we miss the inversion of stereotypes about gay relationships here, the opinion lamented that straight relationships are "all too often casual or temporary."

Imagine that! I thought one of the arguments not to allow gays to marry was that we're so promiscuous, we would ruin the good name of marriage. Well, apparently, we're not the only ones, or rather, we're not the ones at all!

Unfortunately, he also tells us how this decision was really just a sugar-coated pill for gays, and above all, a ruling that, appearing "nice," might take longer to overturn than a nasty one would have been:

We should not need a century to unmask the "reckless procreation" argument as a new guise for an old prejudice. The "reckless procreation" argument sounds nicer -- and may even be nicer -- than the plainly derogatory "role model" argument. But equality would be nicer still.

It sure would.