Let’s say you were watching a TV debate, and one of the debaters claimed that it might be better for the children if black people and white people could not get married. Let’s say they couched it in claims that some of their best friends were black and that they saw nothing wrong with black people themselves, and by the way, that they felt that black people were of course entitled to all the same privileges as white people, except in this one small matter of marriage.

Would you call that person a racist?

Let’s say you were listening to a radio show, where one of the panelists asserted that French people and Irish people were better off not marrying. Now, she had nothing bad to say about the French, and had vacationed in France a few times, but, alas, marriage between French and Irish people was not such a good idea, thinking about how the children might be affected.

Would you call that person a xenophobe?

Maybe they thought small people were excellent, but marrying tall people was unconscionable.

Would you be entitled to call such people heightist?

So what do you call people who think that gay people are great, life and soul of the party and all, but there’s just this small thing about marriage that they wish they could refrain from?

I wonder. What words could you apply to such people? Any ideas?