The first African-American president of the United States is going to bring some uniquely different values into the White House. Testing the parameters of his moral vision during the presidential campaign, Obama was asked about same-sex marriage, among other things. His answer…..that he opposed it…..has morphed, now that he’s president.

Today, he affirmed homosexual unions, and went even further…

President Obama honored Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month with a White House reception Monday where he likened the struggle for gay rights with the struggle of African-Americans for civil rights.

With first lady Michelle Obama at his side, the president told the cheering crowd filling the East Room that his administration would work to repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act and end the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding gays in the military.

Why “so-called”? That’s dismissive.

“I know that many in this room don’t believe that progress has come fast enough, and I understand that,” Obama said. “It’s not for me to tell you to be patient any more than it was for others to counsel patience to African-Americans who were petitioning for equal rights a half-century ago.”

Hold on. Re-set this dialogue.

The debate over whether the state ought to recognize gay marriages has thus far focused on the issue as one of civil rights. Such a treatment is erroneous because state recognition of marriage is not a universal right. States regulate marriage in many ways besides denying men the right to marry men, and women the right to marry women.

That was only about half a year ago.

Now, we have Gay Pride month, 2009. And the “gay rights” movement has taken great strides in the interim.

Rights, as the Declaration of Independence tells us, are founded firmly in and are fully dependent on the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” Anyone whose claim can be asserted on the level of a right therefore gathers tremendous moral and political impetus for his cause.

As was evidenced in today’s White House gathering. But it goes beyond the Obama administration.

Former Vice-President Dick Cheney’s recent public endorsement of same-sex marriage is typical. He said: “I think that freedom means freedom for everyone… I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish. Any kind of arrangement they wish.” Really? Any arrangement? What does this mean for our society?

This attempt to legitimize any arrangement demands especially close scrutiny, because it questions the meaning of concepts critical to our moral and political understanding of ourselves, including the very understanding of that “Nature” upon which our Founders thought our existence as a free people depends.

Which begs the question of whether anyone is thinking through the consequences of expanding the laws and rights governing marriage.

If the state must recognize a marriage of two men simply because they love one another, upon what basis can it deny marital recognition to a group of two men and three women, for example, or a sterile brother and sister who claim to love each other? Homosexual activists protest that they only want all couples treated equally. But why is sexual love between two people more worthy of state sanction than love between three, or five? When the purpose of marriage is procreation, the answer is obvious. If sexual love becomes the primary purpose, the restriction of marriage to couples loses its logical basis, leading to marital chaos.

It’s the logical progression of where we’re headed by stretching and redefining the language of rights.