Redstate

You don't see them pushing for civil union statutes anywhere any more. Or even discussing them. It is all SSM all the time. Really, this isn't much of a surprise, because they could get civil unions (as they did in two states before they completely abandoned that tact). The last thing the GLBT community wants to do is win and make themselves irrelevant. So they pick the unwinnable battle to fight over the winnable one. The GLBT organizations are not so different than the civil rights organizations. They are not really interested in solving any problems. They are mostly interested in maintaining their position.

No gay couple cares in the slightest, nor do they care if you had or have different ideas on what a marriage "should" be.

Yes but I do, that is why I and others are using our raw political power to tell the gays, NO!

Now, here's the danger.  And I defy anyone to cogently refute this.

A successful argument for gay marriage will exactly mirror the successful argument for polygamy, and in fact the polygamy argument will be stronger.

Here's the argument.  The 14th Amendment guarantees equal protection of the law.  Gays have been irrationally discriminated against by the states.  There is no rational relationship between prohibiting gays from marrying and the stated goals the state has of furthering family, stability, and society.  Therefore, the discrimination not being rationally related to a legitimate state interest, gays must constitutionally be allowed to marry so long as straight people can.

Now for polygamy, to be argued the week after the Court upholds gay marriage.

The 14th Amendment guarantees equal protection of the law.  By permitting a single man to marry a woman and not a married man the state has irrationally discriminated against all married men and all single women.  There is no rational relationship between prohibiting women from marrying the men they love.  Therefore, the discrimination not being rationally related to a legitimate state interest, married people must constitutionally be permitted to marry unmarried people.

Furthermore, "Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion."  Polygamy, being a vital aspect of many world religions, is being prohibited by the states.  Given the Court's recent decision in the landmark gay marriage case, it should extend the holding to polygamists.  There is a much longer tradition of polygamy, in America as well as the world, than for gay marriage.  It would be plainly violative of the 14th Amendment to deny these willing adults marital rights.

Polygamists are willing participants in their marriage.  They're often people of deep faith, concerned about family, values and country.  They love each other.  Don't force them to continue to live in the shadows of society.  Give them the legitimacy they deserve.

That's an impromptu attempt.  But can't you see that the arguments for polygamy are at least as strong, if not stronger, than gay marriage?  Here's the question:  Is gaining the right to marry another person of the same sex worth polygamy?

Increasing numbers of people believe a lot of silly things I'm not sure what that proves.

Too true.  Not a thing. :)  Just thinking that when it comes to who will prevail in this issue: if this essential biological diversity becomes too much of a lynchpin for the argument and more and more people fall away from seeing this as needed, it may not bode well for efforts to increase/strengthen other aspects of marriage that people like you and I may agree on: no-fault divorce, etc.  To restate: if SSM is seen as "obliterating" marriage, and SSM wins out, then people will begin to believe that marriage truly has been obliterated, and may be more willing to tinker with everything else! Such as monogamy, longevity, is marriage important or necessary, etc.

To expand:SSM is legal in MA. So, following your argument, marriage has now been obliterated in MA (and Spain, and the Netherlands, Canada, etc).  So when a conservative/Christian/anyone-opposed-to-SSM raises his/her family in MA or Canada or Spain, and talks about marriage, and seeks to promote marriage as a noble goal and institution, is s/he in trouble?  I mean, if marriage has been obliterated, then what institution is s/he championing?  Does s/he refer to "what used to be marriage" or "the old marriage, the right one", thus distancing in his/her children's mind what the current instance of marriage is from what s/he seeks to preserve? Doesn't this actually make it harder for a new generation to see what they see as marriage as endowed with everything else that matters: love, faithfulness, boding and families?  If we call SSM an obliteration, it seems we make the job of preserving the instiution that much harder.

Hitler invades Poland . . .

Millions of American men drafted . . .

Women thrust into workforce . . .

Men come home shell-shocked, battle fatigued, whatever the euphemism was back then . . .

Women like the fact they're working, keep working . . . kids ignored . . . dad's dispondent b/c of battle fatigue . . .

Unsupervised, unraised kids burn bras and draft cards. . . .

Parents don't put them down, and continue to pay for their college "education" while they protest and burn flags . . .

Gay marriage . . .

Gay divorce.

Hitler.

By the way, they should just be able to annul that marriage for lack of consummation, unless they just want to go to court and redefine that too.

Great Society meddling with families changed how government looked at families.  How much the government controls and "cares for" (strong scare quotes required) families, welfare involvement, social services, etc.  SSM proponents simply want the status quo, as it is, to apply to same-sex couples.  They don't want to "meddle" with anything; they want to be part of the tradition.  To quote from a recent article in tnr: "Gays don't want to overthrow society's most hallowed institution;  they want in."

And I agree with your comment on the no-fault marriage laws; this too would apply to SSM.  Again, there is no changing of the concept of marriage: what it means, how long it's supposed to last, how it affects and supports and sustains families--SSM proponents argue it should simply be extended to include same-sex couples.  Strengthening marriage through modification of no-fault divorce laws would benefit gay couples as much (or more so) as straight couples.

could you point me to some information on how "marriage" vs "civil union" is defined in legislation?  i'm honestly curious, since i was under the impression that all legislation used the term "marriage".  i thought that "civil union" was just a phrase that people used to describe a non-religious marriage.  thanks.

Sorry; this is completely contrary to both fundamental fairness and reality. A few points:

•  Gay people have been raising kids for millennia--did u think they weren't? This is not new or different--it's just that now you know a parent may be gay when they try to adopt. Children from marriages where a parent came out and divorced, gay parents still in hetero marriages, adoptive parents, etc. Gay parents have been part of society as long as there have been societies. So your knowledge of who someone sleeps with means the burden of proof has shifted?
  
•  If straight people can adopt (going thru a qualification process of course) why not gays? You truly want a "are you gay" question on the application, which triggers some different process or rejection?  Isn't this discrimination?  I thought even those who opposed SSM believed "equal rights, not special rights."  Any man or woman, gay or straight, needs to prove to adoption agencies and social services that they would be go parents--are you suggesting that gays get a different process? Treating prospective gay parents as different from straight ones cannot seriously be believed to be equal rights.
  
• As a member of this society who pays taxes, gays do not have to "prove" that they should be treated the same as straights--you need to prove why they shouldn't.

That crazy jocularity.

Dude, I was just kidding.

Sorry I missed it.  But in another diary I'm aruging  with some Confederate flag waver and historical revisionist, so I guess that puts me in a mindset where ANYTHING can seem serious, heh.

"Several millenia of understanding what marriage is?"  Where are you talking about?  Certainly not the Israel of the Old Testament or even the new.  Certainly not pre-modern or even modern Europe, the source of most of our moral and social beliefs.

If your concept of marriage is a nuclear family, one adult man and one adult woman voluntarily choosing to enter a lifetime union, set up an independent household to bear and raise children, you're talking about broadly embraced practices at most a few hundred years old and even then for a minority of the people on the planet.

If you want to add in an understanding that includes both partners having a full personal existence in the eyes of society and law (read: can sign a contract or own personal property), you're talking about an invention of the last 150 years, and for an even smaller minority on the planet.

If you want to add in an understanding that alloes a married couple to decide whether to have children and how many, you're talking about the last 50 years.  (Married couples couldn't legally buy contraceptives in Connecticut in 1965, for example.)

Marriage has evolved constantly and dramatically over the past several millenia all over the world.  Even the western church's ideas of marriage have evolved substantially in the last 400 years.

Any of us is entitled to our own opinions about same sex marriage, but as Ronald Reagan said, we're not entitled to our own set of facts.

Once again, please note how if two gay people marry, this is automatically equated with a loss for straight marriage: not to throw away many millenia of (loved and cherished) traditionSo if two gay people get married, all of marriage is lost? Straight marriage is thrown away?  Why do people believe that their marriage is in any way touched by another's? Compare: legal marriage, Christian marriage, arranged marriages, marriage 300 years ago, etc.  They bear little resemblance to each other, yet they in no way threaten or change your marriage.  So why do two gay men getting married have this awesome effect to "throw away cherished tradition?" No one is outlawing straight marriage.

You went from Does a group of a people have a right to do something that they cannot do in nature? to marriage. Was the quoted sentence about adoption or marriage?  People don't get married in nature; it's a human custom and institution.

Let me ask you then, based on your description of rights and government's place in defending them: Is there a straight right to marry?

I don't think we'll resolve the nature-vs-nurture thing here, but I will approach it from a slightly different angle than those you normally hear, that of the ex-gay movement. If being gay is a choice, as you say, than clearly somebody out there can cure it, yes?  Change it? Live as a heterosexual?

Many of those in the ex-gay organizations, those who claim that homosexuality can be reversed or stopped admit that the desires for the same sex (those I label as natural, those you label as immoral) never go away, but that they can be "controlled". So the homsexual actions, as all actions, may be a choice, but the feelings, those for love and sex and family, are as innate to a gay man as are yours for your wife.  Also, even in the ex-gay movement, one of the leaders of the movement was caught at a gay bar years after he claimed to be cured, and all or nearly all of the spokesmen for these organizations you read or see are in fact working for the org and are paid by it--you can't find a "success story" out there who isn't, sadly, making a buck off of it.  Also, when ex-gays report the numbers of how many they have "helped," they report every one who has ever attended a meeting, even once--not the number of successful converts--so that's where the "thousand or tens of thousands" numbers come from.

So, what do we have? 50 odd years of attempts to change gay people and what has come of it? No therapy, no prayer, no treatment seems able to successfully change it.  What suppression of sexuality has led to is depression and suicide.  Suppression, as I see it, of that person's God-given sexuality, and that is unnatural.

The whole "you can do it with a contract" misses a few points: some laws, and private organizations, such as hospitals and insurance, only recognize spouses. A gay man can't write a will that forces his HMO to give his partner health insurance, and there are weaknesses of contracts with faced with statuory rights of families in law; contracts can't overcome all of this.  The other is why should an in-love couple have to hire a lawyer and spend extra time and money when the law already has a formula that does all this--it's called marriage.  We can't do separate-but-equal; we tried that in this country once already.

As for adoption, a mother and father both may or may not be the "best" for a child, but we are not talking about the best for everyone; we are talking reality.  Should a barren but poor husband and wife not be allowed to adopt a child because it's "best" if parents are rich? Should we take a newborn away from his single mother and give him to a husband and wife who want a child because it's best to have two parents?  And I notice you didn't answer my question about orphanages.  Right now, all over the country, gay parents are adopting minority and older children--those that no one else will have. They are finding loving, stable homes that, quite honestly, no one else including white Christians seem to be able to provide. Will you tell that child he needs to go back into foster care because it's "better" to wait for a hetero couple that will never come rather go to a loving two-mom or two-dad household now?

Thanks for listening.

I don't see it as any kind of a shield. Marriage is more of a way to get free stuff from the government. In terms of lower taxes and spousal benefits, for example.

But you pay for that: they are intimately involved in your relationship, as anyone who has ever been through an unfriendly divorce quickly finds out. Then the government is scheduling your time and telling you what to do with your money and property. Some shield.

and certainly not without irony, somehow linking this anecdotal incident to the overall failures of the great society is more than a stretch.

But, yes, ultimately it will be interesting to see what, if any, societal problems arise from gay marriage (and divorce).

To restrict marriage to opposite sexes. It's just as arbitrary to restrict it to unrelated people or groups of more than two. That is the connection. If there is no reason to restrict marriage to a man and a woman, what reasons are there for the other restrictions? One could argue based on tradition and the definition of marriage, but that argues against all three. You take that away and there are no good arguments against any of it.

As for similarity, there is a whole lot more similarity in a brother and a sister getting married than in two men getting married. I'm not sure what that has to do with anything, but it's your argument.

I didn't include bestiality because there are arguments there that can be applied to only bestiality and none of the others (animals not being able to enter into any kind of contract for starters).

because to accept homosexual marriage you have to completely eradicate several millenia of understanding what marriage is. So you may not like obliterate but when you insist that the very understanding of the institutions of marriage and family be changed completely it is a pretty good word to use.

Yes, Britney Spears' marriage was a marriage. She may not have entered into the agreement seriously, I don't know what or if she thinks. But her abuse of an institution does not take from the fact that she had and has the inate capability of entering into a marriage and creating a family.

Increasing numbers of people believe a lot of silly things I'm not sure what that proves.

Dude, when I got my marriage license, I had to take a number at the office. I sat next to my wife for a few minutes, then a civil servant called us to her desk.

We signed a paper and gave her a check.

She gave us a receipt and a piece of paper to give to the Justice of the Peace.

She yelled "NEXT!"

There may have been recognition, but there was no approval to be found.

I don't mean to give you talking-points answers -- I'm sure you've heard this before -- but I just don't buy that.  Gay parentes regularly adopt children and raise them.  Similarly, infertile couples regularly adopt children and raise them.  But if family entails children (and I don't think it does -- I know married people who don't intend on having children), then advocates of gay marriage don't have a particular problem.

I mean, I know gay people are accused of being shallow, but if this qualifies as "approval and recognition" then gays must be easier to please than stereotypically reported... :)

But seriously, what about marriage gets gays love, stability and family?

Other than, "I want to get married to another gay person," do gay people want?

What is it about marriage that they want?

And, why do they demand the redefinition of a word?

Why can't they create their own thing.  We created marriage.  They can create whatever they want.

I've got to second Paul.  And any generation that could have allowed so many of their children to become the self-indulgent baby boomers of the sixties and seventies has to have been doing a lot of things wrong.  Really wrong.

and will not be destroyed because they bend their rules a bit. Indeed, an utterly rigid tradition is most apt to be discarded completely precisely because it cannot be adjusted to fit changing circumstances. Our political traditions at one time excluded various sorts of people  (women, Blacks, Native Americans, at one time even non-property owners and non-Protestants) yet we did not overthrow or damage it when we allowed those people within the pale of full citizenship.

Read the Declaration of Independence and marvel at how little King George was really asking and how viciously they responded. They started a war! Over what? A 10% tax on tea? A 5% tax on tea? They give a laundry list of grievances... but, really, how much more liberty did they have from England's heavy hand than we have from ours today?

Which brings us to marriage.

Marriage provides a small, but noticable, shield from the heavy hand of the state.

Who wouldn't want such a shield?

If the government didn't have such a heavy hand, I suspect that gay marriage wouldn't even be an issue.

Gay Marriage is a problem created by Big Government.

(In full recognition of your snark, but to address it semi-seriously too)

Boy--I hope you realize that this line of thinking does far more damage to the institution of marriage than gays ever wanted to.  Live with? Have sex? Have kids? Hospital visits? Guess what-- Straight people don't need marriage for that either. They can do all those things without marriage, so why should straight people get married?  You've advanced an excellent argument for straight people to never get married--now who's threatening the institution?

Here I though that conservatives talked about love and stability, family and society, and how important marriage was to all of those things--I guess they really missed the point; who needs it?  I guess all the straight people out there just got married for the recognition.

[/snark

(Property was my fav in law school; good luck)

do I get the feeling that you are not really open to discussion on this subject ...

thanks for the links, but they all point to "civil union" being a legal term used specifically for gay marriages.  are there instances where the term "civil union" is used to legally describe a heterosexual marriage?

the reason that gays want to get "married" is that "marriage" is a term with a legal and political definition while "civil union" is not (except where it has been specifically given the legal meaning of "gay marriage").  

i agree that it is unlikely that once the full legal impact of "marriage" is given to gays, but under the name of "civil unions", it is unlikely to be taken away, but i think the possibility definitely exists.  right now, gays can make a pretty simple argument about what they are being denied.  everone knows what "marriage" is, so it is pretty easy for people to understand the issue.  

but say that gays get "civil unions" but not "marriage".  even if the two start out identical, it is entirely possible that federal and state governments could start to introduce differences between them, either by giving additional benefits to "marriage" or removing benefits from "civil unions".  at that point, the gay activists have a much harder time making their argument, because the differences between "marriage" and "civil union" may be subtle or difficult to understand.

Well said, Bob.

Many times!  And recently. To quote from DFL:

If your concept of marriage is a nuclear family, one adult man and one adult woman voluntarily choosing to enter a lifetime union, set up an independent household to bear and raise children, you're talking about broadly embraced practices at most a few hundred years old and even then for a minority of the people on the planet.

If you want to add in an understanding that includes both partners having a full personal existence in the eyes of society and law (read: can sign a contract or own personal property), you're talking about an invention of the last 150 years, and for an even smaller minority on the planet.

If you want to add in an understanding that alloes a married couple to decide whether to have children and how many, you're talking about the last 50 years.  (Married couples couldn't legally buy contraceptives in Connecticut in 1965, for example.)

This changed marriage significantly, and yet we still call it marriage.

Also, as for this: There is also the matter of a small minority of a minority dictating to the majority how they should see/feel/consider something. Not to be rude, but this is the height of narcissism. No one cares how you or other anti-SSM advocates view marriage.  No gay couple cares in the slightest, nor do they care if you had or have different ideas on what a marriage "should" be. You don't need to change your views or your values. There are still arranged marriages in the world, where women are forced to marry against their will and subject to violence if they attempt to refuse.   That definition of marriage doesn't dictate to you how to view yours (I assume), so how could a gay couple's?

Because you know that this has been bubbling for a while.

One brought it up to the other and she was appalled. "If we get divorced, do you know how much damage this will do to The Movement? The people who want to preserve Traditional Marriage against the forces of people like us who want to destroy it will mock us mercilessly!", she no doubt said.

And so they went back to their routine... until it got bad again.

They mentioned it to their friends before going to court, no doubt. "But all of our hopes of destroying marriage are riding on you!", their friends must have said. "Our cause will be mocked by the average American who isn't bigoted but just has traditional views on gender roles and marriage!"

And they went to court anyway, despite the whippings from their consciences, despite the protests of all of their friends who surely suggested counselling ("We'll even pay for it!", some no doubt said)...

And they got a divorce.

How bad must it have gotten?

Right about the first premise.

As to the second, I only treated polygamy as the ultimate evil above because every gay marriage advocate says, "I'm not for polygamy, and this won't lead to it."

That line of thinking should end.  Group marriages, bigamous marriages, and the like must be permitted between consenting adults under the Constitution if gay marriage is a right under the Constitution.  But to be honest, I do regard polygamy as problematic.  I don't care whether a million women and men want to live together and have sex.  I just don't think that's marriage.  Call me Jonathan Edwards, but I'll stick by it.

The arguments for why anti-miscegenation laws are different than not having SSM have been made over and over again. The arguments about why polygamy and incest are different from SSM are never made... or if they are, they directly contradict the same ones they just made in support of SSM.

There is no slippery slope here. There is no slope. For one thing, a slope would tend to lead to things that are worse. I don't see how either of these is any worse than SSM. Polygamy has a long tradition and can be made into a 1st amendment issue so I see it as being much more deserving of legal recognition than SSM. If anything, it should be on the uphill side of any slopes.

paid people to have children and remain unwed. Anyone with an ounce of sense ought to have foreseen what would happen.

•  If you think gaining civil unions instead of marriage is a "winnable" battle, then you clearly aren't on the mailing list of CWA or FotF.  Also, have you read the texts of most of anti-SSM amendments and ballot initiatives? Most of them explicitly outlaw any arrangement of any kind that gives legal recognition to SS couples.  Those people aren't protecting the word marriage; they are against civil recognition of any kind whatsoever.
  
•  This seems like a quick attempt to devalue the GLBT leadership by insinuating that they don't actually want to win, they want to prolong the fight for position's sake.  While I completely agree that leadership at GLBT organizations is far too political and often becomes just one more arm of the Democrats, they fight battles involving fair housing, employment protection, and social discrimination as well as marriage equality, and they are winning those other battles fairly well.  Judging their hypothetical motives as self-serving (even if true) doesn't end the discussion.

Re: As long as the parties to a marriage must be of different sexes, it follows that the number of parties is set at exactly two.

This is not true. In the traditional form of polygamy, with one man married to multiple wavies, the women are married only to the man: they are NOT married to each other and have no legal connection to each other. If the husband dies then the ladies are not left in a group same- sex marriage: they are simply widows and able to wed again.

Polygamy and incestuous marriages? If the state has no business denying the benefits of marriage to two men that love each other, what is the reasoning behind denying the benefits of marriage to one man and two women that love each other, or a brother and a sister that love each other?

I guess I have been defining homosexuality as "actively" homosexual.  People who are celibate are non-sexual.  It doesn't matter what your inclinations are it's what you do.  I'm not suggesting that fornicators are not as wrong as homosexuals but as pointed out above it is harder for them to change

I see.  I forgot that some members of the community have a secret window into the minds of gay activists--you know what gays "really" want. So enlighten us, please--tell us what gays "really" want.

Two things:

•  There is no "they." Gays have as many different opinions on things as straights do.  This is akin to saying that "Straight people want to win the war on terror" because many Republicans who happen to be straight do.
  
•  Only a gay man or woman can tell you what s/he wants; speaking in absolutes about what "they" want indicates personal knowledge.

In two states. And it was by the will of the people, not judicial fiat. There are many people who could support civil unions but oppose SSM. I am one of them.

The response to their single judicial win on SSM has been devastating. Now there are prohibitions on SSM across the US... many of them written into state constitutions. If they were actually interested in winning (and as I have said... I have my doubts about that), their single-minded focus on SSM has been about as good a strategy as the Japanese attacking Pearl Harbor. They may have won the battle (for now) but they lost the war.

I just don't think the GLBT leadership necessarily represents the gay community in good faith, just as I'm positive the civil rights leadership doesn't represent the black community in good faith. The only other explanation for abandoning civil unions is that they are collectively as dumb as a box of rocks... so I was giving them credit there for just having other motives instead of being stupid.

I just don't think the GLBT leadership necessarily represents the gay community in good faith, just as I'm positive the civil rights leadership doesn't represent the black community in good faith.

In some cases, they probably don't.  As I said, I am not a fan of the political aspect of many GLBT leaders, and I agree 100% with your analysis here.  The difference is that blacks have acheived a legal equality that did not exist previous to the civil rights movement, and the leadership seeks to maintain its power in a different world than faced MLK.  Gays have nowhere near the protection that racial minorities do, so the efforts to represent the GLBT community do still reap excellent rewards in addition to the questionable (and political) bad ones.

Yes, the backlash to the judicial decision in MA has been bad, but a lot of the anti-gay sentiment has been building and took time to organize, and CWA and FOtF and other Christianist organizations most definitely oppose unions of any kind now, regardless of their (I presume) silence at the time the civil unions (in what, HI and CT?), and in some cases they now seek to roll back evencivil rights protections of all kinds in certain locales.  Right now, efforts to grant recognition is being opposed by these groups, regardless of name.  Rather than run and go for a separate-but-supposedly-equal status, we might as well go for actual equality instead of different word to make people feel better.

Everything in your post is true, but it does not in any way contradict what I said.

It remains the case that if the parties to a marriage must be of different sexes, the number is of necessity set at two.  That is because there are two sexes.  

I did not say that plural marriages are of necessity gay marriages.  Though I think it does follow that gay marriages can easily be plural.

What's the basis of your insistence that "they" (the political organizations) have abandoned civil unions completely?  I'm not aware of any action in New Hampshire or Connecticut to abolish civil unions in favor of marriage, for example.  I think this would come as a surprise to the gay man or woman on the street.  

And trying to place blame for the fact that this issue has gotten out of control probably won't get anything resolved.  It's the kind of thing that just gets people upset, in my experience.

We already have a legal institution that does what we're talking about--it's called marriage.  It's a legal contract that does all these things we're talking about.  Why do we need a separate-but-supposedly-equal creation when we already have one that does what's needed here?

Hypothetical time: Harken back to when blacks or women cannot vote.  They seek to gain this right. The response is: "You want to vote like white males, huh?  Hmmm.  Well, I don't know about our voting, we kind of have a tradition that only land-owning white males can vote, but I could create another legal thing (we'll call it civil opinion-registering), that allows you to indicate who you want to lead you, how you want your government run, etc. It is exactly the same as voting, we swear; we'll just call it something different."

Why do this?  They wanted to vote, not get a separate-but-equal equivalent.  Gays want to marry--why make up a new thing when it's not necessary?

SSM is argued for as a logical necessity of gay citizen's legal status in society; the argument is that gays should have the right to marry as straights do.

Maybe those are the talking points the GLBT community uses but that isn't really what they want. If that's what they wanted, they would push for civil union legislation... and they would get it in a whole slew of places. There is a reason they aren't interested in civil unions any more, even though it would satisfy all of the legal arguments.

I'm saying that the Great Society's meddling in the urban black family nearly succeeded in destroying it.

Go read "the Moynihan Report," of March 1965 (formal title: The Negro Family: The Case for National Action).  Look at the date.  Think about the dates of the policies you're blaming.

You've got your explanatory sequence backward: though formal divorce was difficult before the 1960s, families -- especially poor families -- routinely broke apart before the Great Society ever got started.

I've never suggested separate but equal.  I've suggested that if their only goal is those legal contracts afforded by marriage they can be obtained excepting the tax break.  I don't see how a hospital can stop the person who has all the authority on if you live or die from visiting.  I never claimed this was equal just as I still claim SSM will never be the same as real marriage.

I can think of allot of instances where having rich parents are a detriment.  I didn't ignore any of your arguments I didn't think that I needed to spell out that I don't think single people should adopt either.  Yet look at all those children they could help?  What is wrong with foster homes that provide stability?

Society has the ability to change over time what is considered sexually attractive.  In Victorian times a nice plump woman was attractive (the rich were plump) in the 20's women with bobbed hair were attractive the 50's Marylyn Monroe was attractive now the speed addict thin bodies are attractive.  In France men don't think a second about unshaven women where as here at least a few men would think twice about it.  By legitimizing homosexual marriage we move society a little closer in that direction.

My friend in high school became homosexual and when he told me I was surprised because I remember him talking about how hot Sculy on X-files was.  Was he pretending then?  I don't know but since I never brought up girls when we were together and he did I suspect not.  I have a friend from collage who was bi-sexual.  This seems to indicate a choice.  Is this the case for all homosexuals?  I don't know how much nature has to do with it but it is obvious that it is not all controlling as you have said.  I don't know anything about the organizations you mention but I don't think their exaggerations prove much.  High recidivism does not prove there is no problem or that something isn't wrong.

There is a genetic defect called something like the "super" man syndrome where something doesn't happen right in conception and you end up with an extra or extras chromosomes.  In this case XYY.  These people have been shown to be very aggressive and there is a very large disproportion of them in prisons.  Does this excuse their behavior?  Or do we argue that they have no choice because unfortunately God made them that way?  We don't.  Perhaps you could take up this unfair treatment of them as well.

Re: But even interracial marriages had the potential to fulfill the intent of marriage, the creation of children and a family.  

Since we allow infertile people to wed I fail to see why fertility matters so much. Nor in fact has it ever, in Christian times. While impotence (the inability to have sex) was a bar to marriage in canon law, barrenness never was, nor was it grounds for divorce, as many childless kings and nobles discovered to their frustration. This insistence that marriage is only about children is the real untraditional innovation here. If you had asked someone in 1800, 1200 or even 500 "Must a marriage have children to be true?" they would have thought the idea weird.

Now if you want to turn the proposition around and say "Children should be brought up by married parents" that's something we can all sign onto, and something that is truly traditional. But the statement is not reversible.

you have changed the definition of marriage, it is no longer what is was, why is that hard to understand?

   There is also the matter of a small minority of a minority dictating to the majority how they should see/feel/consider something. I don't much care for it.

Not everyone who is gay is a member of "the GLBT community." They are not all activists. They are not all political. There is no equivalent "straight community" at all. If you can't make any generalizations about political groups, well, then we are in trouble because we have nothing to talk about on any issue. You can't say anything about liberals, conservatives, Republicans, Democrats, the left, the right, gun control advocates, 2nd amendment advocates, environmentalists, etc. Wouldn't want to generalize, now would we? I'm sure you'll find anomalies in every one of those groups.

Anyway, no mind reading is required. They don't want civil unions. After early success, civil unions have been completely removed from consideration for years now. If they are truly interested in legal protections, they would support civil union legislation. You tell me why they don't.

1. Since marriage doesn't exist for gay people, how could gays "wait until marriage"? That would mean never having sex ever, never being in a situation where they could dedicate themselves and their families to God.
   
   
2. Your religious beliefs are your own, and unlike many who will mock you for your beliefs, I won't, but it's important to remember that civil marriage, the license and the courthouse and the law part of things, in this country is for all religions and for none.  Atheists get married, as do Jews and Muslims and Buddhists, and SSM has no impact on your religious marriage, just as an atheists' marriage doesn't.
   
   
3. Maybe, but allowing gay spouses to visit their loved ones in a hospital or inherit their property isn't legislating immorality.
   
   
4. Research shows that children of same-sex households do just fine. Also, what about single-parent homes?  Do we take away their children because their "children are raised best by a mother and a father"?  Is it better for children to stay in orphanages and foster care forever rather than have gay parents?  
   
   
5. By extending marriage rights to gays, gays will be able to be raised in families and taught to wait until marriage; right now they have no such option.

It's probably a misconception that there is some single minded gay community, so it's tricky to try to say what the "gay community" wants.  Civil unions would be fine for many, maybe even most - according to my son, who is gay - but some of them get hung up on the idea of being put into a "separate but equal" kind of second class citizenship that was outlawed in 1954.

"Does a group of a people have a right to do something that they cannot do in nature?"

Yes, if you agree that you have a right to vote Republican.  You couldn't vote Republican until the 1850's -- we've been surviving for thousands of years without being able to vote Republican, and now you want this right?

Yeah, I know, it sounds glib -- but my point is that marriage, like voting, is a social institution.  So, it's wrong to look for the sources of social or political rights in nature.  I'm not sure what it would mean to have a right to marry in nature -- who would preside over a marriage-in-nature?  

But then, surprisingly, you contradict yourself: "In all those thousands of years gays have never had the right to marry.  Ergo, it's not a right."  So, are rights absolute, in nature?  Or are they in society, and for us to find?  If the former, then what we've been doing as a society for thousands of years is irrelevant.  But, if the latter -- then it's an empirical question what our society considers a marriage to be.  And, to answer your question, it's changing -- just as it changed from one-man, many-wives to one-man, one-wife, it's changing to two people.  And how you feel about that probably depends on how you feel about, say, ending a sentence in a preposition...

In the early days of the industrial revolution you had whole families, including children, working.

Yet our society didn't fall to pieces then.

Well, now we just disagree as to the facts on the ground, so to speak.  Can you point to an example of when the "argument is used regularly, and as the lead argument"?  If you review HRC, or Lambda Legal, or a host of other SSM-proponent sites, you will see that the lead arguments involve things like fairness, love, legal rights, protection of families and children, etc. (Again, you may disagree with some or all of those arguments). I don't know of any that say "Gays should be able to marry because interracial couples once couldn't."

As I said, SSM proponents note that opposition to SSM mirrors that of opposition to interracial marriage, but it's a counter to the opposition, not a lead argument in favor of.

A woman in a SSM can just as easily bear a child as a woman in a traditional marriage where the man is infertile.

Both of these things happen all the time, and it take the biological function out of the equation completely.

does "civil union" even have a legal definition?  i know that when people get married by a civil servant, it is typically referred to as a "civil union", but they still need to get a "marriage" certificate beforehand and it still says "married" on their tax return.  and it is my understanding that "marriage" is the term used for both religious and non-religious unions (what we are referring to here ase "marriage" and "civil union", respectively) when referenced in legislation.

my guess is that the reason that gays don't want "civil unions" is that it would be very easy for legislatures to strip away rights from "civil unions" that still apply to "marriages".  seperate-but-equal can quickly and easily lead to seperate-and-not-equal.

It certainly does have a legal definition in those states that allow for them. I don't see a trend towards less acceptance for gays, so I don't see the risk in benefits of civil unions being stripped out at a later date. They would have to be passed by a legislature that is answerable to the people. Presumably the same people they answer to when they passed the civil union statute in the first place. In any case, what is there to lose? Right now (except in a couple states) they have nothing.

This is America.  Many people get married, and [maybe too] many of them get divorced.  That's just how it is.  

Now we find that gay marriages are no different in that regard.  So what?  Are you saying that gay divorces prove we shouldn't have gay marriage?  Because that's an argument for banning all marriage.  Or are you saying gay [or any] couples should not be allowed to divorce?  No, probably not;  that's just silly.  

In all seriousness, what exactly do you think this proves?  

This is why I consider "The Greatest Generation" to be an epithet. These are the people who in their youth embraced Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, and when they got their own hands on the wheel they brought us The Great Society. They followed that up with no-fault divorce, "Federal Aid to Education," and other goodies too numerous to mention.

They left the United States a totally different place... much less free, much more regimented, and with its culture set on "slippery slope."

OK, getting rid of Hitler was heroic. But the rest of it we could have done without. We will now not get rid of this leviathan they created until it implodes from its own "largesse" some time around 2030.

For any kind of logical distinction. I would have a lot more respect for SSM proponent's positions if they would support it all, to be consistent. If you want to take all "arbitrary" restrictions out of marriage law, there is a good argument there. If you want to take one out and leave others for no good reason, that is not an argument. It would be like if the civil rights groups only wanted civil rights for blacks and not other minorities. It would be a nonsensical argument. There are arguments for not selling meth at Safeway. I haven't heard a cogent one for prohibiting polygamy or incestuous marriage that cannot also be applied to SSM.

Children are a product of their environment and I just don't see how a child raised by male-male or female-female 'parents' can help but be "uncertain" about life.

•  The preliminary studies (and they are small and not long-term, to be sure, just to anticipate the arguments) all show kids of gay parents come out just as good if not better, on average, then "traditional" families
  
•  What about single parent homes? Is a mom with no dad in the house any less of a mom than a mother with a husband?  Of course it's not optimal to be in a single-parent home, but millions of moms and dads do the job every day--are you saying you think all their kids are "uncertain" about life?

Your comment really shows more about how you view gay people than anything else, since you see a child raised in SSM household somehow being uncertain about things.   Since a straight kid with gay parents has both biology and 90% of society around them to reinforce their orientation, I'd be a lot of more worried about gay kids in "traditional" households, where they have no support structure or help--they are far more likely to be "uncertain" as they grow up.

Your well thought out arguments.  I appreciate your keeping these arguments rational and not getting defensive or angry.  I realize arguing with some one who cites personal beliefs as a reason for their arguments can be frustrating but I feel like my view points are shared with a lot of people.  I also it would be slightly misleading if I didn't reveal my real reasons I am against SSM.

1.    Can you be a homosexual if you have never engaged in homosexual acts?  Since I believe sexual orientation is a choice this argument does not hold for me.

2.    Our marriage law prohibits Muslims from practicing polygamy even though it is accepted by their culture and religion.  The constitution protects the freedom of religion not freedom of sexual orientation.  Once you win the arguments for the Muslims feel free to continue with your own.  SSM will never be equivalent to marriage and trying to force a law to make it seem so doesn't make sense to me.

3.    As pointed out before this can easily be done by other means.  I have a living will that took me a whole 5 minutes to complete this would easily allow anyone I mentioned visitation rights as well as the ability to make life an death decisions.  Other legalities can also be addressed in the same way.

4.    It is better for children to be raised by a father and mother that is why I think adoption laws should favor that situation.

5.    This is the same as one.

Why can't they create their own thing.  We created marriage.  They can create whatever they want.

And understandable, but the reality is that we all live in the same society.  We all have the same rules and regulations, from hospitals that restrict visits to family members to health insurance that is reserved for spouses: the world is set up to recognize "that person" and "that bond".  Ever increasing numbers of gays have the exact same relationship as straight couples, and they expect and need the same protections in our society.

The other thing is that as gays gain more and more acceptance, they will continue to be more and more visible: living, adopting, etc.  People will see them, know them as people, work with them, etc. And as more and more young people see this, and see an entire class of people co-habitating and raising children and trying to function without marriage, they will devalue marriage themselves.  It's to marriage's benfit to include gays, not exclude them.

(And there is no "we" and "they".  Humans created marriage. There is no us and them in that.)

First off, nothing is preventing gays from marrying right now. There is no law against their doing so. If they can find a celebrant willing to conduct the service, or if they wish to pledge marriage to one another in front of witnesses, they will not be hauled off to jail or fined.

The question is whether the law will recognize these marriages, which brings up another question: why is the law recognizing a religious rite at all? We don't recognize baptisms or bar mitzvahs.

The real problem here, IMO, is that we ought not have laws about marraige at all: leave that up to churches, synagogues, temples whatever. All the law really recognizes is a civil union: it could care less about the religious reasons behind the union or lack thereof.

So civil unions would not be "separate but equal" (as an aside EVERY marriage is separate from every other marriage anyway!) they would just be a more accurate term to describe what is being done.

And if gay people want to describe or sacralize their unions as marriages no one will stop them.

And there are political GLBT groups that are fighting for this. It is frankly irrelevant what every individual man on the street thinks. They aren't the ones fighting the battle for SSM. They aren't the ones who removed civil unions from the agenda. They aren't the ones in court. Just because you are gay doesn't make you an automatic member of this group, any more than being a minority makes you an automatic member of the civil rights community. Or owning a gun makes you an automatic member of the NRA and GOA.

The reason these legal protections aren't forthcoming has nothing to do with evil conservatives and everything to do with the GLBT leadership. If they want someone to blame, they should start with them.

So my discussion points are an indication that I don't want to discuss?  Did you want to reply to these points?  I would make a "take your ball and go home" comment, but I'm trying to be respectful.  You made a broad generalization about "years of tradition" and gay people, and I responded that "years of tradition" indicates that gay people were and are parents--that's a discussion, yes?

stems from the last half hour of posts you have made on this subject. Taken together they 'appear' strident and convey, to me anyway, a mind made up; so why should I spend my time and effort "discussing" it?

But what do I know ...

"Guess what-- Straight people don't need marriage for that either. They can do all those things without marriage, so why should straight people get married?"

Your right strait people don't need marriage to do these things either.  What they do need it for though is so that they can have an intimate relationship with the person they love with out fornicating.  My wife and I had no sexual relations till we were married.  In the covenant of marriage we raise children.

1.    not all strait people honor this thinking but no homosexuals do.

2.    if I believe that homosexual acts are sins, marriage as a covenant between God and a man and women can not be extended to homosexuals.

3.    some might argue I'm legislating morals and perhaps I am but going the other direction is legislating morals as well.

4.    children are raised best by a mother and father getting guidance by both sides of nature.  I have no desire to legitimize homosexual families.  People have been murdering each other for centuries that does not make it right.

5.    When homosexuals win "rights" to be married democratically fine.  Till then I will fight to keep marriage defined in a way that makes it as special for people saving themselves for a relationship honored by God.

There is no connection between SSM and polygamy, incest (or as Santorum sees it, bestiality).  Your comment: It would be like if the civil rights groups only wanted civil rights for blacks and not other minorities. indicates that there is some equivalence between SSM and polygamy, incest, etc.  Why isn't there? Because blacks, Hispanics, Asians etc are all people, just different races.  So to ask for rights for one and not the other is illogical, as you say.  Biological restrictions on who can marry apply to everyone equally regardless of orientation or desired partner, and there is NO connection between polygamy and SSM.  Again, there is no "what about??!" here unless you view all the "other" types of arrangements as belonging to some large group, all in one vasy sliding scale as "different than what I thought marriage was."

Honestly, there is far more similarity between SSM in America and hetero marriage in American than between hetero marriage in American and, say, arranged hetero marriages in Pakistan or hetero marriage from the 13th century.

What is it about marriage [they] want?

 I believe what a majority of the top-most GLBT organizations want to secure for homosexual couples are the identical set of obligations and benefits/rights granted to heterosexual couples by the local, state, and federal government entities. One such organization provides a list.

 Such benefits arise out of the strictly civil aspects of marriage - a license provided by a government official and whatever legislation that refers to such licensed (i.e. married) individuals, i.e. "civil marriage".

 I do suspect a large number of homosexual persons would be just fine with a license that confers exactly the same obligations and benefits/rights as a civil marriage license, even if the State called it a "mulliage license". It would probably be enough for most to live in happy mulliages (albeit sometimes ending in unhappy divorces, I mean, dulorces). If people were willing to give homosexual couples all the same obligations/benefits as a civil marriage, it seems kind of silly for such couples to get hung up on "marriage" vs "mulliage".

 However, arrayed against them are organizations who are also opposed to the idea of a so-called "seperate but equal" status that would be conferred by things like civil union and domestic partnerships, like Concerned Women of America, who had this to say regarding the topic:

[Interviewer]: Do you want to see a marriage amendment that would prohibit so-called civil unions in the states or would you accept a Federal Marriage Amendment that basically just denies the word "marriage" to homosexual unions but allows them to be legalized by the states?

RIOS: We are not satisfied with a weak amendment. The case I continue to make is what it would be like if we were sitting here, 150 years ago, and we said that we wanted an amendment to outlaw slavery, but if states want to have "owned people," they just have to call it chattel. Just don't call it marriage, or don't call it slavery. An amendment that protects marriage in name only is troublesome to us and does not go far enough...

[Interviewer]: Can you give us some idea of what conservatives and conservative groups are on your side of this and who's lined up behind Matt Daniels? There are some people who don't want their position known on this?

RIOS: Well, I would say this. We have met enough times that it's safe to say that almost 100% of the conservative family groups do not want to see civil unions or domestic partnerships part of the landscape.

 So I guess, the summary of positions is that both "sides" are apparently disinclined to agree to a scenario where all of the same obligations and benefits of civil marriage are conferred to homosexual couples under a different terminology. One side wont stop until there is complete prohibition of any kind of homosexual "marriage/union/partner" status, and one side wont stop until homosexuals can receive a government-issued "marriage" license.

You're trying to paint and official government registration and approval of LOOOOOVE (Which is what redefining marriage would make it into) as a SHIELD from big government?

That sounds completely backward to me.

Right here, comment 54, though it doesn't state the full thesis.  On the other hand, I just searched for it, and whaddya know.  The fact that it's framed as a counterargument is irrelevant, since it's a preemptive counterargument, and a classic straw man.

Does a group of a people have a right to do something that they cannot do in nature?

That is the premise behind the Constitution and our laws, that certain rights exist in nature and government's job is to codify and protect them.

What constitutes such laws is based on thousands of years of human experience.  In all those thousands of years gays have never had the right to marry.  Ergo, it's not a right.  Therefore, what they're asking for is either (a) a redefinition of marriage, (b) a redefinition of a right, or (c) to just give them what they want and call it want they want even though it's not a right, but a privilege.

The notion that gays can marry each other is as foreign as jihadism to a nun.  It makes no sense, which is why it hasn't been permitted since, ummmmm, ever.  

Fundamental change requires overcoming a burden.

that they didn't even have sex anymore.  Oh, wait...

Fair enough.  Seeing who has the burden of proof in arguments like these would go a long way toward settling policy.

I guess the reason I'm trying to put the ball in your court (beside the fact that it makes my argument easier!) is that we're talking about giving a certain group of people some right that they are requesting.  And perhaps they are wrong to request it, perhaps they don't have the right in question -- but it seems that we should be careful about denying a group a right that they request.  And if you're right that families raised by gay parents are worse off, then youd have some reason to deny their request.  Hence, I suggest you have that burden of proof.

You're right that inertia is on your side.  We've had this institution that's been in existence for thousands of years, and we shouldn't change it without reason.  But the whole point is that we do have reason -- gay people want to take part in a beneficial institution.  If our institution -- long-running as it is -- is unfair, then we ought to make it fair.  But, I suppose the threshold at which you decide to change these things is exactly what separates a liberal from a conservative (in some sense of those words)...

as a wedge so that they can be "Normal" in all aspects. But it is a false dream. Homosexuals can and have a right to expect respect, tolerance, and legal rights, but will never have 100% acceptance.

  Civil Unions would give all the rights, and also preserve marriage, but would not fit into the political movement.

I think the burden of proof is not on those of us who would refuse, but rather on those who would toss several thousand years or practice over the transom. Why is this a good thing, not why is not a bad thing?

Since I am not asking for that, nor do I wish to grant it, nor do I support it, I don't need to be able to explain why I don't support it in order to support SSM.  If you want to discuss polygany, ask a polygamy supporter. Slippery slope arguments are usually a matter of insinuation and "what ifs"; they can be used to avoid discussion on the actual matter. For example, in discussions on the legality of alcohol versus marijuana, drug warriors ask, "Should we sell crystal meth at Safeway?!?!"  or "So you want heroin sold to children?!!" in hysterical tones, trying to make people fear a hypothetical next step more than the current one being asked.

points.

In those jurisdictions with anti-miscengenation laws they did not invalidate the marriages. This is where these laws make a poor proxy in the debate. Even though the marriages were criminalized the marriages were recognized as legal marriages.

I don't see the Henry VIII think as affecting either the concept of marriage or family. His wives were women, pretty traditional from where I sit, and the purpose of those marriages was to create a family, again tradtional.

was a marriage in form (and law) only precisely because she had no intention of honoring it, and (it rather seems) was barely aware what she was doing when she entered into it. This is why even the Roman Catholic Church allows such marriages to be anulled, because they are not valid in the first place. It takes more to make a real marriage then a piece of paper and a JP dressed like Elvis.

Nobody redefined the word "vote" to get suffrage.

The problem with analogies is that they all fail.  It so happens that for whatever reason we have this thing called marriage.  It's been a contract between men and women for centuries.

Now gays want to get married too.  Except that marriage is between a man and a woman, according to all objective etymologists.  Therefore, gays can marry, just not each other.  I.e., a gay man can get married, just not to another man.  

What to do if you're a gay man.  You can't get married, because you don't like women (after all, marriage does mean man and woman).  So you want to do something with someone that is like marriage, but not marriage.  What to do?  

What is it about marriage you want?  Is it sexual relations?  Don't need marriage for that.  Is it the right to have kids?  Don't have to be married to have kids.  Is it the right to live together?  Don't need marriage for that.  The right to visit each other in a hospital?  You can contract that.

Oh, I see, it's the recognition from the world that you're married.  

Seems a bit narcissistic to me, but fair enough.

I, of the world, pronounce you married.  

I'm sorry, I'm in a pithy mood.  Bar exam's next week.

Back to property.

I thought that's what the site was here for--to advocate and discuss. This site has changed my mind on more than one occasion; I would imagine others would say the same.  Besides, maybe I can convince you; stranger things have happened. :) I enjoy these discussions, and I feel that there is more fertile ground here for discussions than other sites, such as DU or Free Republic.

Strident, huh? How about "impassioned" or "fervent" or "heart-felt"?  :)

is sufficient, than defenders of anti-miscegenation laws could claim they same thing: "If you open up marriage to different races, what next?  Two men?  Why take away my arbitrary distinction and keep yours?"  Every case needs to be judged on its own merits, not in a hypothetical fear of a hypothetical next step.

What you are arguing is how SSM should be granted, which is through the legislature and not the courts, in order to avoid this type of extension.  If SSM is only granted by judicial review, it will end up with a rule, or a principle, or some theory that was applied to that case and can possible be applied to another, in this case by polygamist-seekers or incestous marriage seekers. I do find it funny though that it's the traditionalists who worry about polygamy more than the liberals...

When a legislature does something, they say, "This is it," and the discussion ends with no "a leads to b leads to c" possibilities.

CA almost did it last year, other states will follow; it's just a matter of time.  The question really is how bloody is the fight going to be in the meantime, and how many people's lives will suffer for it along the way.

I thought was more of a sense of progression than malaise, but in light of your "things can't get worse than SSM," I won't argue with you on that. :)

But again--no one on the SSM side is arguing for polygamy or incestious marriage, so why do I have to defend against it to make my point in favor of SSM?   It's like when Bush made the case to go to Iraq, and liberals said, "There are lots of places with dictators--is Bush going to invade all of them? Are we going to stop the next one? How far does it go?" And that argument was seen as hollow, of course. The issue then was that this dictator, this country, this situation needed attention and action, based on the evidence, and hypothethical "where will it all end"'s are not a substitute for deciding not to do what's right.

http://www.sec.state.vt.us/otherprg/civilunions/civilunions.html

http://hartford.about.com/od/government/a/aactcivilunions.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_union

The connection is clear.

As I have posted here before, there is a further connection.

As long as the parties to a marriage must be of different sexes, it follows that the number of parties is set at exactly two.  If parties may be of the same sex there is no rational limit to the number of parties to the marriage.

By the way, you seem to have two unstated premises.

First, you seem to regard polygamy as synonymous with polygyny - one man and many women.  If polygamy is legalised by the method you describe, it seems to me obvious that it would also include polygyny and group marriages.  (Though a statute drafted to the needs of traditionalist Mormons and Muslims would not).

Second, you seem to assume that polygamy is more harmful than gay marriage.  You are raising the one as an argument against the other.  Yet, as you also say, polygamy has a longer history than gay marriage and is accepted in many societies.

it so happens that for whatever reason we have this thing called voting.  for centuries, it has been reserved for white, male landowners.

now women and blacks want to vote too.  except that voting has always been restricted to white, male landowners, according to all objective etymologists.

see how easy that is?  

when the states were voting to ratify the constitution, they didn't put out a call for everyone except blacks and women to vote on it.  they didn't need to.  the definition of the word "vote", as they understood it then, already clearly indicated that women and blacks didn't participate.

as has beeen pointed out several times upthread, the definition of marriage has changed significantly through the centuries (polygamy, arranged marriages, political treaty marriages).

the meanings of words change.  that's a fact.  arguing that the word "marriage" has had some universal and immutable definition down through all of history is silly.    

it is not necessary that a marriage be for life or for a fixed term, whether it be for love, or arraigned, or for procreation, or for economics.

  It is only necessary that it be between a male and female because that is its very definition and you ought not to throw away many millenia of (loved and cherished) tradition for the purpose of appeasing a small subset of a small subset of the community.

I have said the same thing for some time now, greatest generation? Well they did some heroic things then they voted for socialists and raised a narcissistic generation of ner-do-wells.

There was indeed a problem with the black family before the 1960's. The great society welfare programs not only did not help matters they made them MUCH worse.

  compare the figures on fatherless children form the Moynihan report with the figures from twenty or even thirty years after.

that I think much of those adoptions either. Children are a product of their environment and I just don't see how a child raised by male-male or female-female 'parents' can help but be "uncertain" about life.

Infertility adoptions are not much of a counter argument, most infertile couples don't discover tht fact until they are married and trying to start a family. Married couples who chose not to have children does not invalidate the argument that absent that choice they are capable of fulfilling the concept of marriage.

I think that if you're trying to prevent gay people from marrying and/or adopting children, you have the burden of proof to demonstrate that they'd make bad parents.  And I'm aware of very few studies that suggest that -- of course, there are plenty of studies about single parents, but that's not at all the same thing.  In any case, I could make a good a priori argument that gay parents would make better parents than straight parents -- after all, in order to adopt a child, you have to prove to the satisfaction of some agency and some birth mother that you'd make good parents.  Whereas, to have a child the natural way -- well, let's say there aren't any quality controls on that process.

But I think that infertile couples and couples who choose not to have children are an interesting case.  Certainly, some infertile couples know ahead of time that they're infertile -- in many cases, routine gynelogical exams can tell you that you're infertile.  So, there are at least some couples that marry knowing ahead of time that they can't become pregnant.  Some will choose to adopt.  How do you feel about those?  

Couples that merely chose not to have kids are not capable of having children so long as they remain on birth control (and absent any failures in that birth control).  In some sense, they are capable of changing their minds somewhere down the line, and maybe that's what you mean -- but if we're talking about letting people marry in order to have families, these couples still seem to present a problem.

I take it that the debate of SSM is a debate about what marriages should be legal.  So, the anti-miscengenation laws are germane, since we're engaged in that enterprise here.  

It's true that Henry's marriages were to women, and that procreation was his intent (with somewhat horrific consequences, too).  But, his marriages weren't of the permanent, 'to death do us part' variety, which caused various and sundry problems down the line.  I could say similar things about marriage evolving from a one-man, many-wife concept, though there are fewer iconoclastic figures there.  But the point is the same: there is a concept of 'family.'  And the extent to which that concept necessarily involves one man, one woman, and permanence is exactly what's up for debate.  But drawing a sharp line here goes against millenia of change in that concept.

I'm saying that the Great Society's meddling in the urban black family nearly succeeded in destroying it; and that this ought to be a cautionary tale for all those enthusaists of the effort to meddle even more drastically in the delicate structure of the family.

As for divorce, I think the "no-fault" laws are a pitiable oppression, dressed up in all the florid language of emancipation, and ought to be repealed; such that the severing of the ties of marriage would be at least marginally more difficult.

I don't think is one ancedote "proves" anything, for proof is not to be hard in the messy world of human society.

among straight couples being what it is, using this example of homosexual divorce as evidence that the whole thing is a bad idea, and by extension so is the larger (presumably) post-modern approach to relationships and family structures, just doesn't wash.

However, if one could point to a vastly higher rate of homosexual couples splitting up because of something directly linked to homosexual behavior (i.e. an inherent promiscuity in the culture), that would be different.<br.<br>
One could just as easily say that, rather than gay marriage being supported by the post-modern Left because it is against tradition and authority, gay marriage could actually be beneficial to the strength and security of heterosexual marriage.  Just imagine how many closeted gay men would not enter into unhappy, deceitful, straight marriages if they grew up knowing that there was an acceptable alternative.  What if this alternative prevented so many homosexuals from creating families only to break them up, with all the attendant stresses this places on the children?  Allowing homosexuals to harbor the notion that they can have stable relationships just might go a long way toward transforming gay culture as well.  This does not necessarily promote homosexuality as being somehow equal or superior to heterosexuality.  It will always be quite clear that homosexuality is not the default setting for our species.  Nevertheless, homosexuality will continue to exist, and if it can be channeled into healthier behavior, that would ultimately be beneficial to our society.


As for the rest of the criticism of the depressing legacy of Baby Boomers (who are really at fault for what's going on now), well, spot on.

Completely agreed.  I think there are several arguments in this ballpark, some of them more plausible than others.  I don't think proponents of same sex marriage are trying to argue like, "Well, since interracial marriage was once illegal, gay marriage should now be legal."  I think the reason they bring up the case of interracial marriage is a little bit more complex: maybe they're pointing out that the same principles that lead you to accept interracial marriage ought to lead you to accept same sex marriage.  Maybe they're pointing out that (some of) the arguments against interracial marriage are being trotted out here (and, insofar as they were wrong then, they are wrong now).  Maybe they are trying to show that conception of marriage has been changing -- concepts of 'marriage' and 'family' are not fixed marks that are just now being shaken -- just ask Henry VIII.  Maybe they're saying that we should be skeptical in making arguments about who should get married, because we've been wrong before.  I think all of these lines could be pressed in interesting ways (though maybe not all of them will be completely succesful).  But to present the argument the way the OP did doesn't really do those comments justice.

It seems, based on your comments, that to have an in-love same-sex couple as the core of a marriage instead of an in-love opposite-sex couple is "obliterating" marriage, or a family comprised of, say, a same-sex couple and a few adopted kids instead of a opposite-sex couple and a few adopted kids is "obliterating" family.  In that mind-set, the make-up of that couple is the be-all and end-all of marriage.  The biological make-up (one male and one female) overrides any and all other components of marriage.

To that end, Brittany Spears 18-odd-hour marriage in Las Vegas is still "marriage" due to the required biological diversity; a romantically and physcially in-love gay couple simply cannot have it.  I obviously disagree with that, but the point here is that use of the word "obliterate" as the term to use when contempating a same-sex marriage or same-sex-led family indicates a sine qua non for marriage that many (and ever-increasing numbers of) people do not agree with.

tradition of malign regard for the 'lesser' people who, for various reasons, are incapable of assimilating such innovations as painlessly as do highly intelligent, well-educated liberal elites.  It is almost as though the insufficiently educated and enlightened merit their suffering.  This elitist disdain for anything and anyone 'common' has become a constitutive trait of liberalism in the modern age.

Could not have been better stated!

Because it was once wrongly argued that blacks and whites cannot marry, it is therefore wrong to argue today that men cannot marry men or women women. Because the one was wrong in the past, the other must be wrong today.

No proponent of gay marriage believes that the right to marry is predicated upon the opposition to previously-barred marriage supplicants. The fact that interracial marriages were once opposed is not the basis for gay marriage.  SSM is argued for as a logical necessity of gay citizen's legal status in society; the argument is that gays should have the right to marry as straights do. But we're not actually having that debate here, of course; my point is this:

The connection (between this debate and interracial marriage) that SSM proponents do draw is that opposition to SSM is a strong echo of the opposition to interracial marriage.  Loud exclamations of tradition, and marriage "protection," and "God doesn't want it that way."  The connection between this debate and the past comes entirely from those who oppose it; SSM proponents simply note the similarity and remind people of the immoral and illogical ground upon which those arguments stood; they don't rely on it as support for their own arguments.

No proponent of gay marriage believes that the right to marry is predicated upon the opposition to previously-barred marriage supplicants.

The argument is used regularly, and as the lead argument. The syllogism goes:

1. Some outlawed marriages were found to be lawful.
   
   
2. All people have the right to marry.
   
   
3. Ergo, all marriages are lawful.

Obviously, the logic is not valid, but that doesn't stop people from using it to claim that this or that class of marriage is lawful.

the contradiction here.

How it is really impossible to be part of a tradition when the proposal runs counter to that tradition. How by completely obliterating the current understanding of both "family" and "marriage" you are more than meddling.

Heck, I don't want to "meddle" but as of today I'm black and I speak fluent Mandarin Chinese. You just have to change your definition of black and fluent Mandarin Chinese.

interracial marriages had the potential to fulfill the intent of marriage, the creation of children and a family. That can't be said about same sex "marriage."

Re: 1.    not all strait people honor this thinking but no homosexuals do

I have known gay people who have lived celibate.

Re: Can you be a homosexual if you have never engaged in homosexual acts?

Of course you can! You don't have to have sex to be a heterosexual after all. Works the same way for gays. Celibate people like Mother Teresa and the Pope are not neuters. They have both gender and sexual orientation, whether they act on it or not.