What's Their Real Problem With Gay Marriage? (It's the Gay Part)

By RUSSELL SHORTO

The small but grandiose building at the corner of Eighth and G Streets NW in Washington, tucked directly behind the National Portrait Gallery, holds its own in a city packed with monumental architecture. You step into the lobby and automatically look around for a plaque, figuring that with its dark wood paneling and marble columns, this must be the onetime home of Rutherford B. Hayes or some other historical personage heavy with Victorian-era dignity. As it turns out, the structure, with its architectural signals of tradition and power, was built in 1996 for its tenant: the Family Research Council, the conservative public policy center.

In the gift shop just off the lobby -- where you can buy research-council thermoses and paperweights and the latest titles by Peggy Noonan, Alan Keyes, John Ashcroft and Pat Buchanan -- sits one of Washington's most unusual museum displays. Moms and dads who are planning to take the kids to the nation's capital this summer for an infusion of American history might want to add it to their itinerary, since it carries the lesson up to the present and right into their own living rooms. Beneath a large wall-mounted plaque emblazoned with the group's slogan -- Defending Family, Faith and Freedom -- and flanking a rather ferocious-looking American eagle statue are two large, museum-quality glass cases. The one on the left contains a complete groom's outfit -- tux, tie, fluffy shirt -- and the one on the right holds a bridal gown and all the trimmings, right down to the dried bouquet.