Should or should not we agree with Santorum's argument?

An Argument Against Same-Sex Marriage: an Interview with Rick Santorum has been published on the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life on April 24, 2008 by David Masci. In the article, Rick Santorum has opposed same-sex married because he believes that allowing homosexual marriages in the United States would devalue the traditional marriage which is between a man and a woman, and so marriage will lose its special meaning.  

Link to the article

Do you feel confident that if same-sex marriage became the norm in our society that we would get less traditional marriage? 

The answer is yes, because marriage then becomes, to some degree, meaningless. I mean, if anybody can get married for any reason, then it loses its special place. And, you know, it's already lost its special place, in many respects, because of divorce. The institution of marriage is already under assault. So why should we do more to discredit it and harm it?

Stanley Kurtz of the Ethics and Public Policy Center has written extensively about this,   about what the impact is in countries that have adopted same-sex marriage. We have, in fact, seen a decline in the number of marriages, a delay in people getting married, more children being born out of wedlock and higher rates of divorce. None of those things are good for society. None of those things are good for children.

Premise 1: A marriage between a man and a woman has a special place in society, so if same-sex marriage is instituted in the United States, traditional marriage would lose it special place.

Premise 2: when anybody can get married for any reason, traditional marriage has less meaning.

Premise 3: Same-sex marriage does not give any benefit to society.

Conclusion: Same-sex marriage should not be constituted in the United States.

There is a flaw in Santorum’s argument. How does he commit a fallacy? It will be analyzed as following:

-Straw man: the arguer attacks another person’s argument, but rather than criticizing the actual argument, the arguer criticizes the one that is superficially similar. In his argument, Santorum argues that “If anybody can get married for any reason, then it loses its special place.” He is arguing about the loss of traditional marriage which is no longer special as it has been before because everybody can get married for any reason when they want. However, the main target of his argument is about gays’ and lesbians’ marriage should not be allowed in the United States.  Santorum commits a straw man fallacy in his debate because he criticizes the special meaning of traditional marriage’s loss which is not the real target in his argument.