No sensible solution has a prayer

Here are two issues on which only extreme positions have any chance to prevail.

Gay unions.

The chief reason to oppose gay marriage and favor civil unions instead is that gays in a civil union needn't have the same rights as married couples, and in fact the rights conferred by civil union would have to be specified by state law and might vary considerably from one state recognizing such unions to another.

Chief among the rights that ought in prudence to be denied gay couples, I think, for the sake of the children, and barring exceptional circumstances, is the right to adopt.

The case of lesbians might be a bit different.

This is just one of the issues concerning which the intervention of the Supremes based on legal lies has not advanced the general good.

Michigan Governor Signs Adoption Ban For Same Sex Couples

Abortion.

The chief reason to oppose late term abortion at will is that it differs from infanticide in no significant fashion, and one opposes infanticide at will.

So late in the process, what lives within the mother really is quite literally an unborn child.

But that is not to say those who argue in favor of euthanasia are not in at least some relevant cases right, and when they are their arguments seem to favor allowing euthanasia equally of infants and of the unborn.

It seems unlikely that in the later stages the mother's physical safety could be better protected by abortion than by induced live birth, but if in actual fact such were the case then I suppose abortion ought to be allowed then, as well.

The law does and should require that parents make sacrifices for their children, but I don't know that it does or should require in any definite way any significant sacrifice of physical health, bodily integrity, or well-being, much less a sacrifice of life.

On the other hand, the chief reason to favor allowing abortion at will quite early in pregnancy is that, just as an acorn is not an oak tree - not even a sapling - , neither a zygote nor a fetus is an infant.

None of the forces engaged in the controversy are interested in so moderate a solution.

This is another of the issues concerning which the intervention of the Supremes based on legal lies has not advanced the general good.

SCOTUS May Keep Abortion Front And Center In 2016 Race

Transgendering is a little different.

Currently medically impossible, this is a faux issue on which the already victorious position is egregiously false, stupid, and malevolent and the losing side bellows in impotent rage.

O'Brien demanded, "How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?"