Problem is you've laid out a straw man with respect to pedophilia. I've never advanced the argument that pedophilia or any other kinky thing that involves victims is okay. You've laid a direct line from gay marriage to pedophilia. Yet, society and the laws have accepted homosexuality many years before gay marriage. They've additionally accepted many other behaviors the moralists day they despise like people living together, growing divorce rates, privacy in one's home, birth control, abortion. Yet none of those have in any way led to a legalization of either pedophilia or bestiality.
I will always believe that a state has the power and the obligation to prevent behaviors that involve victims. But with respect to moral issues between consenting adults, yes, we the people should generally be left alone.
But back to my question to you. If not the people, who should determine what is morally right among consenting adults?
It's not any sort of 'straw man'.... and I didn't accuse you of supporting pedophilia. I just implied that you are inconsistent.
If and when pedophilia becomes socially acceptable, you will NOT support it.
Ergo your standard of what 'the people' want falls flat on its proverbial face.
As to your question......... I believe in absolute truth, and standards that go beyond what 'the people' happen to feel like on any given day.
"The people" supported owning other people, and supported keeping women from being able to vote. Our history is rife with examples of how wrong "the people" can be.
In this case, public opinion, forced by years of leftist propaganda, has given in to saying in public that homosexual marriage is OK.
That doesn't make it right, any more than it made slavery right. Public opinion can be very, very wrong.