Cooper v Kagan ~ Where Are All the Good Hate Lawyers???

I have not had a chance yet to read the full transcripts from this week’s Prop 8 and DOMA Supreme Court cases.  But I have seen and heard some of the “highlights.”  This particular exchange, from the Prop 8 trial on Tuesday, jumped out at me:

What?????

For one thing, if, as Justice Kagan says while summarizing and clarifying Cooper’s main argument, the government has an “interest in regulating procreation through marriage,” can someone please explain to me why no one is arguing against the legality of single parenthood?  Where’s the ban against that?  If we’re now regulating procreation through marriage, wouldn’t making single parenthood a criminal offense be a good place to start?  Where are the cases of women being jailed for becoming pregnant out of wedlock?  Where are the cases of single men being tried for heterosexual sex without a condom?  I like to think that I’m pretty up to date on current events, but I’ve somehow missed these important cases winding their way through the court system.

A wee bit later, Justice Kagan asks Cooper why the state should grant a marriage license to a man and a woman over the age of 55.  Cooper answers that “it is very rare that…both parties to the couple are infertile.”  To be clear ~ He believes that gay people shouldn’t be married because only a straight couple can procreate.  He believes that an older straight couple should be able to legally marry because one of them is possibly, maybe, could be ever so slightly still fertile.

(At no point in the transcript ~ at least as far as I’ve read ~ does Cooper offer up the idea of a state run fertility test before a marriage license is granted and when Scalia jokes that a fertility questionnaire would be unconstitutional, everyone laughs and laughs at the absurdity of even the thought of such an invasion of privacy.  Hilarious!!!)

But I digress.  In the interest of full disclosure I should let you know right now that I’m no scientist.  I hold no reproductive degree.  In fact I actually, literally, have zero experience whatsoever with hands-on heterosexual sex and I’m not entirely sure at my advanced age that I understand procreation as well as, say, this genius arguing a case before the Supreme Court ~ but I feel secure in asserting that it takes two fertile people to make a baby.  Am I wrong on this?  I’m a little out of my comfort zone here, so help me out if you’re able.  Can an infertile man impregnate a fertile woman?  Can an infertile woman become impregnated?  I’m so confused.  According to Cooper’s own argument and words, the state has an interest in procreation through marriage as long as one person in the couple could be fertile.  This is less compelling than “Smash.”

In the whole country, this is the best they got?  This is their best lawyer?  This is their best argument?  This is their A game ~ brought before the Supreme Court???  They have nothing.  This exchange alone proves how ridiculous, sad and silly the opponents of marriage equality are.  If this is the best they can come up with it proves, once and for all, that they are ultimately rooted in nothing more than a deep hatred of gay people and a misunderstanding of human sexuality in general.  It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so utterly ludicrous and hurtful.