Sneering at family institutions or just a little of that 'ol time impassioned gibberish

"I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr. Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife. Well, if that's the idea you can count me out....[sic] Nowadays people begin by sneering at family life and family institutions, and next they'll throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white."

Flushed with his impassioned gibberish, he saw himself standing alone on the last barrier of civilization.

-- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Chap. 7

Meanwhile, 80 years and a hundred or so miles south of East Egg...

WASHINGTON, July 15 - Minutes after the Senate rejected the Constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage on Wednesday, Republican sponsors of the proposal deftly maneuvered Representative Jim DeMint before the television cameras.

"All of us as Americans believe that people have a right to live the way they want, but no person, no judge has a right to redefine our basic institutions," asserted Mr. DeMint, a Republican who, not coincidentally, is running for the Senate back home in South Carolina.

So, it's impassioned gibberish you'll be wanting? I'll give you impassioned gibberish.

"Conservative members of both political parties will be risking liberalizing the definition of traditional marriage and eroding thousands of years of Judeo-Christian values, unless they vote for the Republican nominee," said Kirk Humphreys, a Republican Senate hopeful in Oklahoma.