Is Gary Bauer embarrassed by gay marriage debate?

A Newsweek columnist writes:

...throughout our discussion, [Gary Bauer], too, seemed curiously hesitant to discuss gay marriage per se. When I ask, for instance, how two gays guys who are not married living next door to me is any different from two guys who are married living there, he responds by asking how I would feel if a man with two wives moved in.

In every hypothetical, in fact, he refers not to same-sex couples, but to polygamists.

Throughout history, he says, marriage has been "a system to guarantee that the largest number of children possible would have a mother and a father. If it's not that, it can be anything - polygamists in Utah, consensual incest. If it's not man-woman there's no constitutional way to limit it to two."

So polygamists are the real threat? "Abraham Lincoln called polygamy one of the two great evils, along with slavery. And if our society goes down this road, I guarantee it will affect your marriage. If there's polygamy allowed, monogamy will be further undermined."

I know he doesn't want to come off as homophobic, but these contortions make him seem embarrassed by the terms of the actual debate.