As The Washington Post reported, "This past weekend, the Family Research Council ran ads in California newspapers declaring, `Beginning Monday judges are removing the word husband from California marriage certificates. The next step will be to remove the term father from birth certificates. Enjoy this Father's Day....It might be your last.'"

(By the way, the FRC's claim about marriage certificates is, of course, not true. They used to refer to "bride" and "groom." Now they say "Party A" and "Party B." Big deal.)

Why must these Religious Right organizations always reach for the most hysterical and lurid rhetoric they can find? Don't they realize it makes them look foolish? Try as I might, I have yet to figure out how the language on a marriage certificate of a same-sex couple in California (or indeed any state) could possibly affect my status as a father or shut down Father's Day.

Groups like the FRC employ the most incredibly lame arguments imaginable against same-sex marriage. They are constantly telling us, for example, that churches will be forced to marry same-sex couples or that expanding gay rights generally means churches will be required to hire gays or admit them as members.

Not as long as we have the First Amendment. A house of worship is free to choose which couples it will marry. Protestants have no right to demand marriage in a Catholic church. Nor can a church that employs only male clergy be required to hire women. Churches also remain free to expel any member for any reason.

The FRC's claims are scare tactics, pure and simple - and the fact that the organization constantly resorts to them is further proof of how weak its arguments are. I challenge the FRC and other Religious Right groups to come up with one good, secular reason against same-sex marriage. I don't think they can do it.

Some don't even try. Recently, an ultra-conservative Roman Catholic group called the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) placed a two-page ad in The New York Times blasting same-sex marriage. TFP cited several Catholic theologians and papal decrees against the practice.

That's nice - and it might have some relevance if this were medieval France. But it's modern-day America, and while I'm perfectly happy to let the pope issue all of the decrees he wants, his interpretation of Catholic dogma simply cannot be the basis for U.S. laws. Nor can a narrow interpretation of the Bible offered by James Dobson and his pals.

So how about it, FRC? All I want is one solid secular reason why same-sex marriage should be banned. And don't try to give me that "marriage-is-about-raising-children" line. Many couples marry and never have children, either because that is their choice or an inability to conceive. (Plus, plenty of gay couples raise children.) Although it has been adopted by some courts, that argument is absurd. You must do better.

One solid secular reason is all I want. I'm waiting.