Those of us of a certain age grew up in an anti-gay environment so pervasive it never occurred to anyone that it was anti-gay. Gay rights were not considered controversial then. They were not considered at all.

When the issue was eventually raised, the response of many was the equivalent of sputtering incoherence. Of course the rankest perversion should segregated from the rest of society. How could anyone challenge such a basic idea?

Classic conservatism, the libertarian variety, eventually turned things around. Why can't everybody leave everybody the hell alone?

Anita Bryant helped in that first step. When Dade County in Florida passed a law against discrimination on account of sexual orientation, she went ballistic. She had been a prominent public figure, but not at all political. At least not until then. She was a fairly popular singer who had become the popular spokesperson for Florida Orange Juice.

What these people really want hidden behind obscure legal phrases, is the legal right to propose to our children that theirs is an acceptable alternate way of life. I will lead such a crusade to stop it as this country has not seen before.

More than any other person in my memory, I really do believe Anita Bryant advanced the then fledgling cause of gay rights. Late night show hosts made fun of her. Dana Carvey seemed to model the Church Lady after her on Saturday Night Live. Her contribution was not within the war of ideas. It was image. Her image was that of a stern, moralistic, and vaguely repulsive individual. She turned the popular view from that of normal people who happened to be against perversion to that of a strange bunch of prissy prudes. Anita Bryant dropped from sight after time spent on her struggle for moralism contributed to the destruction of her marriage. Her supporters could not tolerate being led by a divorced woman.

Eventually, the argument against tolerance of gays was lost. The struggle turned to gay marriage. The astonished indignation at the very idea still spawns a stream of incoherence. It's hard for opponents to get past the how-dare-you stage into any sort of cogent presentation. The arguments against marriage equality, such as they are, have coalesced into variations of:

• The majority is against it.

• Tradition is against it.

• God is against it.

• Yuk!

Occasionally, we'll see a creative new argument emerge from the fertile minds of opponents of equality. One prominent traditionalist suggested that gay sex is so good, it feels so much better than anything heterosexual, that the species will disappear if gay equality is allowed.

The arguments against equalities for gays are losing their appeal. In fact, they are inherently weak enough so that a prominent legal group hired by Republicans in Congress to argue the case before the Supreme Court finally gave up and resigned from the case.

The majoritarian reasoning seemed pretty strong at first, at least to those proposing it. But it suffered from the same fate as Mitt Romney's electability argument. It was circular logic. Voters should be against gay marriage because voters are against gay marriage.

Tradition was weakened by any knowledge of history. The "thousands of years of tradition" argument had to be circumscribed a little by the realization that the tradition had included polygamy, slavery, and patriarchal dominance that was effective ownership of women by men. Advances in civil rights had also contributed to the weakening of that approach. Appeals to tradition had been exhausted by over-exercise in the defense of slavery, segregation, the denial of voting rights, and the dilution of civil rights. If it was traditional to hurt people for no other reason than tradition, then tradition had to be wrong.

Extreme religious literalists brought up Leviticus, among other passages. The argument was discredited by theocracies that went from early European inquisition to more recent Ayatollah ruled lands of the Middle East. The fact that scripture also forbade the eating of shellfish, and promoted slavery and the execution of disobedient children became almost an afterthought as religious fanaticism brought down buildings and killed people in 2001.

But, with a growing majority of Americans favoring marriage equality, we still have fading resistance.

Last year, new Congressional Representative Vicky Hartzler, a Republican from here in Missouri, made her case against gay equality in marriage. She spoke to the Eagle Forum in Washington, DC.

Her argument was not so much in defense of any traditional definition as it was for having any definition at all. She was responding to arguments that, as far as I can tell, are not being made. "Well, think about it. That starts you down the road to opening up licensure to basically meaning that the license would mean nothing." She brought up examples.

• Polygamy
  "If you just cared about somebody, have a committed relationship, why not allow one man and two women or three women to marry? There are a lot of people in this country that support polygamy. Wny not? They’re committed to each other. Why should you care? Why not allow group marriage? There are people out there who want that."

• Incest
  "Well, is that the best policy? Why not allow an uncle to marry his niece?"

• Pedophilia
  "Why not allow a 50-year-old man to marry a 12-year-old girl if they love each other and they’re committed?"

• Unconstitutional Infant Drivers
  "It’s not a right in the Constitution as far as that goes either. It’s not a right of… a 3 year old to be able to drive a car."

It was not a slippery slope Rick Santorum sort of argument. Anita Bryant famously went a little beyond most folks in her slippery slope imagination. "If gays are granted rights, next we’ll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards and to nail biters."

Representative Hartzler does not seem to be arguing a man-on-dog or nail biting eventuality, although she did include, "So pretty soon if you don’t set parameters, you don’t have any parameters at all. The license means nothing, marriage means nothing." Still, hers is more a reductio argument. If you are going to defend this, why not apply the same argument to that?

The answer seems to have been established in the public mind. Each of the eventualities she mentions presents serious issues that gay marriage does not. If you oppose allowing children to make serious adult decisions, if you see health considerations in incest, and contractual exploitation inherent in multi-partner marriage, you can oppose polygamy, incest, and pedophilia and still be for gay rights to marriage. You can favor marriage equality for gays without any self-contradiction.

Vickey Hartzler is not entirely without opposition. County Prosecuting Attorney Teresa Hensley has announced for the Democratic nomination. Her website does not mention a position on gay rights. It could be she sees more pressing national problems in joblessness and the economy. But she does have a reputation of convicting child abusers. Presumably, that would answer one of Hartzler's objections to gay marriage.

"The government has set some parameters," says Representative Vickey Hartzler. Presumably, a more rational set of parameters is on the way.

[Correction: Quotation marks placed around ... you know ... quotes]