Yes, you can legislate morality

But if marriage means something deeper than that -- that is, if marriage has a purpose that we can discover, but not alter -- then the two are only superficially alike.

That's only true if the unalterable purpose of marriage is to produce (as opposed to adopt or otherwise acquire) children. What other purpose would make gay marriage fundamentally different from interracial (or any other) marriage?

Mrs. T

So if you can legislate morality... who's morality are you legislating?

Really the verdict is already in, marriage has ALREADY been re-defined. No longer does it only represent procreation, and support of those offspring, which seems to be the underlining assumption of your argument Rod.

Instead we have couples who are married that have no children, nor will they ever. Their commitment is deemed important to society in a way it might not have been in the past. There are single parents, now more than ever, there are adoptions... and society should support all of that.

Marriage and family have ALREADY been redefined.

So if your faith convictions tell you that the redefinition is wrong, than create what you want to see happen in the world, starting in your own sphere of influence: family, Christian community, etc. But don't insist that that everyone holds on to an older view of marriage in the civil sphere, when society no longer lives by it.

Gay people are already in committed relationships. It is in societies best interest to support and encourage that commitment.

Gay marriage fundamentally changes the institution in ways that interracial marriage did not (even the segregationists didn't claim that interracial marriages weren't marriages; they just didn't think blacks and whites should marry).

I'm sure there were more than a few anti-miscegenationists (especially of the Darwinian sort) who considered Africans sub-human. They may not have been shrewd enough to call a marriage between black and white people a category mistake or a non-marriage, but it would seem squarely within the orbit of their thinking.

Tony would perhaps be well-served strategically to grant your premise that the state cannot be morally neutral on marriage and that it must legislate based upon the purpose of marriage. While your argument there is undoubtedly a thought arising (in part) out of your Macintyrean impulse, it may be more pseudo-MacIntyrean than you might like.

I say this as one who shares your side, Rod. At some point your arguments here collide head-on with conviction you (and I) share with MacIntyre that we are reasoning from fragments of our moral tradition. Or even worse, scattered fragments from various conflicting moral traditions.

Since the best our culture can do is work from a bizarre patchwork quilt of a moral tradition, it's really the SOP for moral thinkers in our day to rearrange those pieces (what's important-- procreation, sex, companionship?) and to raise or lower the level of generality (marriage as a union of a man and woman, marriage as a union of two committed people) to suit their interests.

Such skilled re-arrangements of the data turn moral discourse into a shell game. What's considered "the pea" to keep your eye on this go-round vanishes before you know it. If reading Andrew Sullivan taught me anything, it's that.

If you conceive of morality as a tool to be used, rather than a habit to be internalized, then all this is perfectly fine. I see little room for hope while this remains the dominant mode of discourse.

Alan,
I would say that your MacIntyrean argument supports gay marriage, again on a civil level.

The external structure some are trying to cling to are fragments from no longer internalized virtues... it is irrational.

Marriage as a community good is now this; two people in a committed relationship. It makes no sense to exclude gay people from this.

You and Rod may believe there are more compelling internal priorities, but there is very little cultural framework for this... so it just becomes discrimination of a minority.

It seems to me that the question to be asked, in addition to 'what is marriage for?', is 'what is the state's particular interest in defining marriage?'

The real issue isn't 'can morality be legislated'; it is can morality be enforced? Laws are only as good as society's will to enforce them. States had sodomy laws on the books for decades to 'legislate morality', yet they were rarely enforced. You want to control who people love or what they do in the bedroom, you had better spend the money on the police force, courts, and prisons to enforce your morality. And be happy with the power you will have to give the police. Most people would rather not give the police the money or power to enforce someone's idea of morality.

Here's the thing which is so frustrating about these conversations: there are certain memes which get repeated verbatim but which have no actual merit. The comparison to interracial marriage, the fact that not all couples can/do have children, or the idea that marriage is, as someone above ridiculously put it, a theological and ecclesiastical institution. Every discussion which comes up includes these fallacies and usually I or someone else will waste our time explaining why they are not valid. At which point, the original poster will usually divert the discussion to other issues (sometimes related to their original claims, sometimes not). However, it is all but guaranteed that the next time the same fallacies will be brought up all over again like it's never been properly explained why the difference between a black man and white man is meaningless while the difference between a man and a woman carries a lot of meaning for most of us. I often feel like some of the people who support gay marriage believe that by just plugging their ears, talking more, more loudly and more ignorantly than those who oppose it, they think they can win. These discussions often feel like trying to talk to a little kid who's stuck his fingers in his ears and yells, "nay-nay, I can't heaaaar yooooooou! I'm right, you're wrong! I can't hear you!"

Which is not at all to say that there aren't people who support gay marriage who have intelligent, challenging things to say. I've really had to think long and hard about some of the things people have said here and in other places. However, the people who insist that gay marriage is analogous to gay marriage, that procreation is irrelevant because there are infertile couples or that marriage is a religious institution make me want to move to a cave just to spare myself from living in a world with such boneheaded people.

OK, I'm going to move one with my life.

MattR:

On the notion that we should accept gay marriage as a civil matter because we can't really argue against it from within our ragtag moral tradition-- that would be one spin on it. My position does look irrational in our current moral smorgasbord. But I think this tells us more about our current state than anything else. Bizarro Superman looks normal in Bizarro world.

I'm a little conflicted. I hold out hope that there are enough old embers of Christendom to support a revival in Christian moral thought. If so, calling these novel and dangerous attempts at moral engineering what they are may serve as good tinder.

If not, we may need to symbolically hand over the moral reins of this culture to the alread-reigning degenerates and let them reap the fruit of their experiments. I say symbolically because as MacIntyre would note, they're already here and running things.

Once that happens I hope we'll reflect on what went so horribly wrong. First up will be what asking what we Christians did to make marriage an institution alternately of scorn and envy by homosexuals everywhere.

Rod,
Every so often you write something which really moves me.

"To clarify, gay marriage is analogous to interracial marriage if one believes that marriage itself, as a phenomenon, is nothing more than a contract between two people who love each other and wish to bind themselves together legally. But if marriage means something deeper than that -- that is, if marriage has a purpose that we can discover, but not alter -- then the two are only superficially alike."

You have, I think, neatly described the two problems at issue here.

First, the purely procedural aspect. Simply put, I want my partner to enjoy the same protections here in the US that he has in Europe. It bothers me not one whit to term this protection civil union. The more I read and think about the US situation, the better I believe it would be if the State were to require civil unions of all who wish to marry and leave the blessing to the individuals and their church. Let us gays have the same protections and rights you have and keep your church's definition to marriage to what it currently is. There are plenty of Christian communities willing to bless and welcome us with open arms, for which I am thankful.

Second, your beautiful line: " if marriage has a purpose that we can discover, but not alter..."
Wow.
I truly wish you had written that yesterday, one of my students today asked why I insist on the term "observed phenomena" as opposed to "natural law" in their scientific writing. Your comment is far better than my explanation was.

Here, of course, we part ways. The rest of your comment: "that is, if marriage has a purpose that we can discover, but not alter -- then the two are only superficially alike."

Because I know that homosexuality is not a choice, but an innate state, I have no problem with building a life together with another man. Sharing and uniting our lives and loves. Establishing a closer harmony.

No, we can not create children without considerable medical intervention. I do not see that, however, as a precondition to marriage. I honor people who have kids (thanks, mom and dad!) and I am and have been babysitter and uncle to quite a few children, some of whom today have kids of their own (finally). Logically, tho', why can there not be a place in families for the "uncle wolf" one sees in the other high-order mammals?

Research on families of homosexuals shows several interesting common characteristics, not least of which that the women in these families tend to bring more children to live birth - and that those children tend to survive in slightly greater numbers to adulthood. The relationship is subtle but would fit perfectly with the observed reality among other high-order mammals.

Homosexuals are very much capable of promoting the social welfare. We have the same protective instincts towards children and people (look at our disproportionately high numbers and teachers, professors, health care professionals, cops and in the military). We have the free resources to help in our families - not having kids of our own, it is in our interest to ensure that a next generation think kindly of us when we are old.

O, my paws and whiskers, another book. I should add chapter numbers.

Sure wish the comments over at poor Tony's blog were as inspired as here, you get all the reflective people (except me) and he gets the wingnuts.

May I use your description in my next course on Technical Writing for the Natural Sciences?

Matt, I quote:
In other words, I can see the argument for equal rights and treatment under the law - but why the need to have it defined and recognized with the same terminology? Is that equal treatment you seek? Or social validation through legislation? Something else?
end quote

I can not speak for all homosexuals, just for myself.

Understandably, you have conflated the visible behavior of those homosexuals most visible with all of us. I am monogamous. Am lucky to have found a wonderful man. Am, a devout Christian and firm believer in social consensus and order.

My validation is not dependent upon society. I do wish for the persecution to cease, however. We have seen enough statistics here on the number of homosexuals and transgendered who are tortured and murdered, beaten, fired from their jobs, thrown out of their leases, abandoned by their families (often as young teens) that I need hardly state that social validation can wait until after I can break bread with my parents and the fundamentalist Christians in our family at table on Christmas.

Personally, I use the term marriage because it applies. If it makes you feel more comfortable to call it a civil union, fine with me. Why should I not want to use the appropriate word? Except for the wingnuts (and you, thank goodness are anything but), everyone here is tip-toeing around the polygamy problem. Marriage in the Bible is clearly defined as including polygamy. Can't be argued away, nor rejected, especially not on a Biblical basis. Yet the opposition of all and sundry here (not open to it myself, one partner is quiet enough, in a good way, thank you).

I demand equal treatment under the law. If my fundamentalist sibling and his side of the family don't want any truck with me, fine. Same for his church. But I do not want my partner being denied my estate, him excluded from my hospital bed because my brother and his family so choose. Already had to go to court against him and his ilk once on this issue (won, too). It is non-negotiable.

Again, I can only speak for myself. With the weight of science and medicine behind me, the experience of much of Western Culture, knowledge of history (Celtic marriages were not limited to only men and women, for instance) I just plain am unwilling to be put into a closet. This has nothing to do with finding peace with my homosexuality through society's approbation. I am comfortable with my sexuality, just as I eventually accepted that where others get tans, I get freckles and burned.

It has everything to do with fairness.

Ultimately, we can do much harm and cause much anger and pain in our Christian community. Or we can accept that SSM will come and live together in peace and community. Some churches will close their doors to us forever, some will leave their own churches to find community with such people. Fine. Good. The same happened back when women became human beings in the eye of the church. It happened when blacks and whites were permitted to marry. It happened when some priests refused to deny communion to the divorced who remarried...

I hope I don't sound too angry here, I truly appreciate your attempt at dialog. Start on the basis of today's medical and scientific knowledge, I think it will help. We are not sick we do not see ourselves as inferior, only oppressed.

"However, it is all but guaranteed that the next time the same fallacies will be brought up all over again like it's never been properly explained why the difference between a black man and white man is meaningless while the difference between a man and a woman carries a lot of meaning for most of us."

Uh, one of the reasons why the whole interracial thing keeps getting brought up is because the folks who said black and whites shouldn't be able to marry were just as sure of themselves and just as sure it would be terrible for society as the folks opposed to gay marriage. It's sort of a pragmatic, utilitarian point.

Another reason it's repeatedly brought up is because, here's a newsflash for you, folks don't accept the argument that opposition to gay marriage is substantively different than opposition to interracial marriage. Just becuase you think a particular point of debate has been refuted, doesn't mean anyone else will agree and stop making it.

Mike

Mike, here's a good (liberal) explanation why the interracial marriage comparison is completely lacking in any sort of merit, whatsoever:

http://www.slate.com/id/2204661/

If the standard is "well, people strongly opposed changing interracial marriage laws, and now they strongly oppose changing inter-gender marriage laws, therefor its a valid comparison", then any number of other analogies would work as well:

"People used to oppose allowing atheists to teach students and now they oppose same sex marriage. We were wrong then, we must be wrong now."

"People used to oppose letting women into medical school and now they oppose same sex marriage. Things change."

"People used to oppose men with hair past their earlobes and now they oppose same sex marriage. Standards evolve."

Any of those arguments would be just as valid and just as illuminating as the interracial marriage argument.

Matt R, marriage has always been a civic institution between a man and a woman (or a number of women). in every society. Which is completely bizzarro - who knew that Christianists had infiltrated pretty much every human society even going back to before the time of Abraham, much less Jesus. I mean, even the Spartans who saw homosexual relationships as foundational to their survival as a nation of warriors were forced by those nefarious Christianists into restricting marriage to a man and a woman. Truly incredible the influence those Christianist have had, I tell ya!

Rod is of course correct that the state can and does legislate morality, and that laws are in some sense moral statements. But this insight is tangential to the marriage debate, because the reasons the state excludes other forms of relationship from ots definition of marriage are not primarily moral. The state is not asserting that two people of the same sex who wish to marry have an immoral or amoral intent; they simply want something that the state does not treat the same as a relationship between a man and a woman. The state recognizes corporations and gives them the advantage of legal liability because it believes that this arrangement increases society's economic well-being by allowing large amounts of capital to be amassed. The state recognizes marriage because it believes that this recognition promotes important interests such as procreation and better childrearing; it promotes social order because married people are more lawabiding, harder working and more stable generally.

SSM would promote some of the interests that justify marriage: it promotes compassionate unions which increase its citizens' happiness and arguably contributes to social stability in the same way regular marriage does. These advantages must be weighed against the oll effects of dilution, of watering down the specialness of regular marriage and weakening the institution. Nothing to do with morality as most people use the term (although if course the assertion that social order and stability itself are good is a moral judgment).

The significance that religious people attach to marriage is their own. In what has been a Judeo-Christian society the religious and political understandings of marriage has been similar, but they needn't be this way forever. C. S. Lewis suggested over 60 years ago that social developments such as easy divorce would soon make it desorable for the Church to start recognizing marriage separately from state recognition, so that certain pairings would be considered by the state to be married, but by the Church not to be truly married.

The democratic choice of the people is the way to resolve this issue, and for the moment the majority view seems to be that the damaging effects of SSM would be too great to allow it. There are no "rights" involved since the state defines the institution according to its own interests, any more than I have a "right" to be a citizen of any country I want because otherwise I am being treated unequally compared to people born in that country.

Toral,

Gay marriage would not turn straight people gay, depress the number of traditional marriages, or increase the number of divorces of traditional marriages. To suggest otherwise is to implicitly claim that a sizable number of "straight" people are secretly gay and would at the chance to marry another gay person.

You don't really believe that, do you?

One more thought: it also seems to me that one of the fundamental differences between liberals and conservatives is how we view/deal with exceptions. I think that we can all agree that our past tendency to villify, ostracize and exclude people who by nature, choice, accident or whatever live lives which fall outside of the norm was wrong. However, it seems that conservatives see exceptions as exceptions we can/should usually make accommodations for without revising what is normal. The sentiment of that old legal maxim "hard cases make bad laws" is kind of the guiding principle. Liberals, OTOH, seem to want to expand normal to include the exceptions. IOW, they see a law which doesn't fit the hard cases as intrinsically flawed, rather than as an unavoidable reality of life. However, to me this seems like saying that stairs are intrinsically flawed because there are relatively few people who can't climb them, therefor we shouldn't have stairs.

I think this must be why so many of these arguments seem to devolve into liberals bringing up every imaginable exception to the rule and thinking they are making actual arguments. Conservatives, however, don't see exceptions as arguments; they see them as exceptions we can always make some sort of accommodation for once we get the real core of the issue worked out. Of course, sometimes if we get to the core of the issue, we'll discover that the supposed exceptions actually fit within that agreed upon central point. Other times, getting to the core of the issue will reveal that the exceptions really are exceptions and must be dealt with more creatively. However, we don't know unless we're willing/able to get to the core of the issue. Which is hard to do when throwing every possible exception up is treated as substantive rather than as a distraction.

"Me"
Let me give you another perspective...
No, the arguments are not based on the "exceptions," rather the point is, there are so many exceptions at this point, that what you call "normal" is no longer that!

Some more thoughts...

The basic argument goes like this:
1. Our country is founded on the idea that for freedoms to be protected, we must not have 'mob rule.' In fact, the minority opinion must be heard for 'freedom' to really be free.

2. Right now there is a minority that is not allowed access to rights and privileges, when we have made "exceptions" for many others at this point.

3. And rights are not an either/or thing... You can define marriage the way you wish, just don't impose a definition, for all of society, in a way that closes that to just "me" and "my group." Another way of saying this... seperate IS NOT equal.

To use your stair analogy... No one is saying 'get rid of stairs.' In fact most people use stairs. But instead, 'provide access for everyone.' (Which, by the way, is what we do in real life... most climb stairs, but we also provide a ramp or elevator access)

What happened in California (and other states) is very clear... a majority voted on the rights of a minority, and chose to restrict said rights... this is unconstitutional. Period.

actually, the civil rights movement existed not because people of color were viewed as exceptions or not normal. It existed because people of color were viewed as property and not fully people. I don't see anyone advocating for the idea that homosexuals are property or not fully human. What I do see being argued is the idea that homosexuals are exceptions to the norm when it comes to romantic relationships. As a whole, heterosexual relationships are inextricably and unavoidably tied up in reproduction and tying the sexes to each other. Marriage as it has always existed regardless of culture, time, religion or location has been designed to contain, encourage and support these two normative realities. Homosexual relationships simply don't fit within that norm. They present an exception to the normative dynamics of heterosexual relationships which marriage was designed around. How do we deal with these exceptional cases? There's a world of difference between that issue and viewing human beings as property with no right to self-governance who can be sold, tortured, mutilated and killed at will. One can argue that there is still too much bigotry against homosexuals, but let's not try to pretend that our current view or treatment of homosexuals in custom or law is in anyway analogous to enslaved africans. Since we're all capable of creating written explanations of our thinking, it's silly to act like any of us here is that dumb.

Me,
No need to argue in circles here...

But, again, don't mis-characterize the point:
Civil Rights was about people who were treated inhumanely BECAUSE of the very fact that they were seen as the 'exception' in society. The norm was white, European, male.

No, not exactly the same... but the same principle;
The rights of everyone depend on the rights of our 'exceptions.'

MattR, you cannot be serious! Do you actually believe what you say? Really? Really? Incredible.

The civil rights movement had NOTHING to do with fighting against being seen as exceptions. It was about being seen as inferior. Exception does not necessarily equal inferior nor does inferior equal exception. They are two different, although sometimes co-existing ideas. And simply because an idea was misused in the past, doesn't mean that all uses of the idea are invalid. Logic. It's a good thing. Seriously. I feel like the professor in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: "What are they teaching in schools these days?" Crickey!

MarkR, I realize that I read your words uncharitably. I'll respond properly in a minute, but please don't take what I wrote above too seriously.

MarkR, After I thought about what they are teaching in schools these days, I think I know what the problem is. I see exceptions as being either real (a person with no legs really is an exception to the rule of how the human body is designed) or not real, but perceived (the skin tone of a black man, OTOH, is not in the least an exception to the normal design of the human body). Perhaps you are working from the post-modern view that since our knowledge of reality changes, we can not make valid distinctions between "real" reality and perceived reality. It's all perceived. Therefore, since the perception of difference in regards to african americans was wrong before, our perception of difference when it comes to homosexuality can be assumed to be wrong as well. Or at least, since we can't know for sure, we are best off taking the most expansive view of the issue as possible.

I do not agree with this view of reality. I totally recognize the need, as shown by past errors, to be suspicious of what we are sure of. However, to me, this means being more scrupulous in my logic and precise in my thinking in order to avoid falling into these sorts of errors. There is reality, and to the extent that we are able to figure it out and align ourselves with it, we must do so.

This is why I find the idea that racial discrimination was based on the idea of "exception" to be incredible. First of all, one of the defining features of an exception is that it is rare. Obviously, being white is a comparative exception, being dark skinned is not. So, from the get go, the idea of non-whites as exceptions is erroneous. Whatever the perception may have been, there was no validity to any idea of non-whites as "exceptions".

The problem therefor doesn't lie with the notion that there are exceptions to the rule, but with choosing what is viewed as an exception poorly. The fact that this mis-perception was used to justify killing, enslaving and oppressing people highlights the importance of viewing reality rightly.

That's why your claim of "exception" as the basis of racial bigotry and slavery made about as much sense to me as saying that people drilled holes in patient's heads to let out demon spirits because they were practicing medicine.

It was the ancient greeks who employed the use of a good dilemma to force a thoughtful examination of issues. It provided them with a means to measure the effectiveness of a principle -- could it provide unambiguous answers? When it could not, then it called to attention the underlying logic - usually assumptions - which rested on fuzzy notions lacking clearly definition.

In the case of a marriage between a Heterosexual and CAIS "woman" (a person with male XY chromosomes, internalized testes, breasts and a vagina but without uterus or ovaries) we are confronted with the need for a precise scientific definition of Man and Woman. To be enforced, Prop 8 requires that the State of California have such a definition - and the Constitution requires that everyone be equally protected under the law.

There is no doubting that the CAIS "woman" can lawfully marry a person of the opposite sex in any states, including California. So the question is what sex is she/he? You can't place the CAIS woman's civil rights on hold while you think this one through -- that's not equal protection.

So what we discover is that we do not have a legal definition of Man & Woman, nor do we have the means for legal defining those who are Intersex (remember, there are many types of conditions that create ambiguous sexual identities besides CAIS.) In other words, an entire minority exists in legal purgatory - and that is an intolerable state of affairs.

So, which characteristics definitively determine sexual identity, and which ones do not?

quote: "These "exceptions" and "hard cases" amount to the rights of between 5 and 8 million adult people in the U.S. Their children, siblings, and parents are also affected."

Talk about psuedoreasons. We live in a country of over 300 million. The number you cite is a small fraction of the population, and most gays don't have children in the first place. So yeah, they are the exception to the rule.

But I guess you must know a lot about psuedoreason since your description of social conservatives and your strange predictions of the future are so far off the mark. Protecting wishful desires about what you think social conservatives are all about and all. At least your posts are good for a laugh.

rr

"But if marriage means something deeper than that -- that is, if marriage has a purpose that we can discover, but not alter -- then the two are only superficially alike."

What if SSM is actually part of that discovery, that ongoing revelation of the purpose of marriage?

"me", I appreciate your civil tone. Too many people on both sides of the problem are anything but civil.

We are confronted with several aspects of the problem in these discussions, several of which are not, in my opinion, subject to reduction through semantics.

Still, within the limitations of language, we are trying.

Then there are the others, dear me. You do not frighten me. They do. Remember, please, at all times and in all aspects of these discussions with gay people the simple facts, as reported here by Steve Waldman:
"Second, there were twice as many hate crimes based on sexual orientation (16.6%) as there were based on Christianity..."
You can read his excellent comment here:
http://www.beliefnet.com/Search/Site.aspx?q=waldman+hate+crimes
and here the fbi's own table:
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2007/table_01.htm

No matter how much we wish to discuss this matter rationally, there remains the plain and simple fact that here in Europe, I have full civil rights and human status. In the US, I am threatened with physical violence. We can't wish this aspect of reality away.

An important and relevant aspect of my perspective on this discussion is, of course, that I live in Europe. Here, regardless of how one designates the term, we have had legally recognized committed gay partnerships (marriage, civil union, partnership) for many years, in some nations, decades. The fact that none of these nations have suffered ill effects (rather the opposite if we start splitting statistical hairs regarding heterosexual divorce declining) is sufficient answer to the conservative position of not making a change just because we can. The change has already been made within Western Culture (of which the US is a member) and no harm was done.
We can add Canada into the equation, now, too.

So that argument is not applicable here, if we take the conservative view of the matter. Well, I suppose you could argue that the US is a special case, an "exception" within Western Culture.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

On a very fundamental level, I am opposed to oppressing minorities qua minorities. Here, perhaps, our views of the American legal system differ. Not much we can do about that, except to point out that over time, the legislature and courts have tended towards protecting minorities from majority tyranny. At what point is a minority too small for you to grant us rights? I know the Christian right (sorry, I have to catalog you someplace and if you were arguing purely from traditional Platonic reason, you would be neutral-pro gay marriage) likes to categorize us as a vanishingly small minority, but that dog won't fight.)

After all those "official" fbi statistics, let's look at this somewhat more informal site:
http://www.realsexedfacts.com/homosexuality.html

They argue that there is hard statistical data ranging from 2% to 10% of the population in the US being gay. That is an enormous spread, were a student of mine to set up a study which returned such responses, I would have a repeat offender in my course the following semester. In short, nobody knows with certainty - I don't mind registering as a member of a gay partnership in my European home, would not under any circumstances tell a US government official I was gay in the US.

Of course, we also have the phenomena that the republican party maintains upwards of 2 million plus gays and lesbians voted for McCain, CNN, a rather more conservative 1.3 million.
http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#val=USP00p3

Will anybody here seriously argue that the majority of gays voted for McCain and Palin? Any takers? Anybody? How about if I add in a second genuine 2 carat zirconium stone with real gold plating...sorry, just thinking about Palin makes me feel like I know her from Home Shopping Channel...

So, ok, sorry to be long winded, have to recover from that mental image. Let's be absurdly generous and allow that 30% of the gays went for them. Let's see, hmm, that means roughly 4.3 million gay votes.

OK, I shall stop there. You see where this is going. Basically, the "minority" argument is a red-hearing. Hard cases make bad law is aimed at a vanishingly small number of incidents, not millions of people. Apart from my moral distaste at categorizing a minority as undeserving of human and civil rights. Comes from living in a country which was trounced by the Nazis, I suppose - we tend to err on the side of caution when it comes to civil rights.

Basically, tho', the problem is quite simple: You don't want me to have a marriage because it offends your since of the American status quo. Fine. I can answer your objection. Beg the government to do that which the rest of Western Civilization does - separate civil union (married in the eyes of the State) from marriage in the church. I will promptly civil-unionize my partner, followed by marriage in a Christian church which is not opposed to loving gays committing to each other that I may show the world my commitment to him...and to keep my brother and his family from a) gaining legal power of attorney over me should I become ill in the US and b) prevent people who tell me I am going to hell (whilst rubbing their hands with delight) from getting even one cent of my estate and c) guarantee his legal status in our family. Not every Christian hates us, just the fundamentalists. He has already been told that the moment I die (not expecting it anytime soon, am healthy and HIV-) he will be thrown out of our house, kicked out of the family foundation, etc. Remember, what for you is a hypothetical exercise, is, for millions of gays, bitter reality. I guess the fact that we are fighting for this right should demonstrate that we are capable of loving, committed relationships, else why bother? All this "marriage light" nonsense people keep raising here puzzles me. For the last five years of my life (wonderful years), were my love to leave me, I should have lost half my belongings, he would have taken the right to carry my title (like anyone cares in 2008), would still legally be entitled to family rights...and, had we children, we both would still be on the hook to not only care for them financially, but also emotionally. Excuse me, but if that is reality here in the case our "gay marriage" were sundered, how on earth can Americans judge this a threat? From all I have read, my obligations to both my hypothetical ex-partner (never going to happen) and our hypothetical children far exceed that which heterosexual divorced couples now have in the US. Perhaps it would be better for you to fix up American heterosexual marriage to our levels of caring for the children in gay unions. I mean that quite seriously.

Well, way too much. "me", I can not approach this purely clinically - for me it is not a dry question of semantical analysis, but my life.

Two questions for you, if you don't mind. One, how do you answer Plato's "Symposium"?

Two, if all the millions of homosexuals in the US are a "hard case" by your standards, at which level must a minority be present in order to not be a "hard case"? If we agree on 4.3 million gay voters, then the actual population must be enormously higher. How high? Shall we say 50% of those who are gay answered the surveys honestly? Not likely, as you well know, but heh - let's allow 50%. OK, then we have 8.6 gay voters. How many of those eligible vote? Let's say we all took it seriously this time (even those who voted republican) and 75% voted. That is way more than normal, but heh, let's continue pretending...so now we have well over 10 million eligible gay voters. How many gays are too young or ineligible to vote? Enough. I don#t regard a singularity of one as grounds to discriminate under the US Constitution, just curious where you place the limits. And yes, I shall definitely be counting the various obscure but protected class Christian sects on my hands whilst you are doing it...sorry, that was snarky. Long night grading mid-terms. I am trying to be civil and not always succeeding.

Rod, this dratted software does so eat text! Gosh, I know you are working on it, please continue. Thanks!

Kevin J Jones,
Ah, then you reject all incidences of sodomy? Also in heterosexual marriage? Are, then, women who are post-menopausal to deny their husbands? If we allow your exact argument, that is precisely what you are saying - sex within heterosexual marriage is only permitted when it is expressly and exclusively limited to sexual intercourse within the three day period each lunar month during which a woman is capable of conception, must only involve and encompass unimpeded vaginal ejaculation by a husband known to be virile and may not, under any circumstances take place at any other time of the month...nor, as I mentioned above, after the woman's fruitful time of life has ended. Actually, any other physical activity outside of penetration and ejaculation are, by definition forbidden. French kissing, too.

Oh, you are not familiar with the proper definition of sodomy? You thought that only applied to me?
So sorry. If you want to argue contra naturam, you'd better be sure of your definitions, else you will end up forbidding already married heterosexual couples almost everything and those heterosexuals who wish to marry but who are clearly not mutually fertile, marriage itself.

Sigh. I don't mind fundamentalist Christians, per se. I do object to people waging arguments based on poor reason and faulty theology.

You want to forbid my love, fine - beware, however, the spirits you call to your aid...they may not be quite as easy to dispose of as you may wish.

A Walker,

Goodness, had I your imagination, I should not be teaching, but writing scripts for American Soap Operas.

1)As I and others above have mentioned, in no country has the provison of gay marriage (civil unions, partnerships, whatever name you desire) resulted in either the lessening of responsibilities in heterosexual marriages nor yet a decrease in our responsibilities to each other. This is not something anyone is asking for.

2)No one is removing penalties, in fact, here where I live, the one and only focus of the court when a marriage involving children is to be dissolved, is the child or children's best interests. Same goes for the partners. If this is not the case in the US, where only heterosexual marriage is practiced, then you need to address that issue. Why not bring the protections for children at least up to the level the enjoy in gay partnerships here in Europe? Be a big step forward. Another red herring from you.

3)We are not asking that marriage be opened up to any possible configuration, this argument was quite well rejected by the California Supreme Court. Another piece of denigrating nonsense and one, in light of the biblical permission for polygamy, which is on very thin ground theologically.

I strongly suggest you focus on the one single point where we are in agreement - that heterosexuals frequently are doing an abominable job of protecting the children they created, despite all the protections and rights and privileges which marriage grants them. I firmly believe that we need to change the legislation in the US and bring it in line with the European and Canadian perspective: When you bring a child into this life, you are responsible for his or her welfare. This responsibility may not be abrogated through divorce.

Hey Panthera,

Active heterosexuals are wildly reproductive at a 98% rate of incidence (that's billions of people), and we can't change our biological nature. Therefore, the basis of the marriage contract---the biological reality that heterosexual sex produces billions of children worldwide who require long-range provision and care by the people who sire them---remains intact.

To note that heterosexual fertility is limited to a few days each month doesn't help your argument one bit. From that schedule/cycle heterosexual couples produce multiple children who require long-range provision and education. Gays, on the other hand, reproduce zero children. Therefore, since nature has not tasked gays with the procreation and education of billions of citizens, the traditional marriage law doesn't apply.

Your little "exceptions" (e.g., oral sex, sex activity during infertile days) are irrelevant to the overall reality here. Heterosexuals continue to reproduce billions of people and thus need a strong social contract to protect those individuals from abandonment and economic destitution.

Hey panthera,

"Gay marriage" legally rewrites the contract stipulations of traditional marriage. So of course it lessens the responsibilities in heterosexual marriages. It altogether alters them.

First, the easy divorce stipulation of gay marriage means the marriage contract for all is temporal by design, which is harmful to children who require stable long-range care from the heterosexuals who sire them. (The traditional "life-long" duration of the marriage contract was based upon the life-long care of children.)

Second, since gay marriage is not based around the project of family-raising, that will legally be so for heterosexuals, and that's bad news for billions of children worldwide who will be born from heterosexuals yet have no legal right to be cared for by those same heterosexuals.

Third, the basis of gay marriage is "love" or "cohabitation," which of course legally opens up the contract to anyone who "loves" or wants to "cohabitate," whether temporally or permanently.

Finally, you said that heterosexuals are doing a bad job of protecting children. This is true, but only recently as the unavoidable consequence of easy divorce. The rewriting of traditional marriage law from *permanent* to *temporal* (via easy divorce) has produced that result. Heterosexual biology forces us to have kids, but when the law doesn't mandate that we must take care of them, this leads to mass abandonment. This is why heterosexuals need to (1) reinstate stiff economic penalties for divorce and (2) mandate that gays find a different contract suitable to their very different biological needs. Forcing homosexuals and heterosexuals to abide under the same contract law when their realities are entirely different---and thus require different legal stipulations---is a social and legal disaster.

Dear Franklin,

Your distinction between "morality" and "people acting immorally and irresponsibly" is a non-distinction. They are the same thing. Immorality, by definition, is "people acting immorally and irresponsibility."

For example, you said: "We are not really 'legislating morality'. We are legislating the societal response to a situation for which we have a moral judgment." Friend, that's a distinction without a difference. All laws legislate some moral code or principle. There is no value-neutral laws.

Next, I am arguing that redefining marriage is irresponsible because it will destroy society by placing women and children into chronic poverty and abandonment.

Next, it is wrong for people to divorce their children as they do, whether it was your parents who did it or someone else's. As a child, you had a normative right to be raised into adulthood by the people who sired you. Likewise, your parents, not some neighbor down the road, assumed responsibility for raising you when they had sex together. Traditional marriage law would have given both you and your faithful parent legal recourse against the abandoning parent! In contrast, the new gay marriage has no such legal stipulations or considerations for protecting women and children.

We cannot allow the gay marriage contract to be the same contract that heterosexuals use, as the heterosexuals have entirely different material risks requiring different legal protections. This is self-evident, concrete, and impossible to rationally deny.

A Walker,

(1) Gay marriage promotes the families of gay people! You do know that gay people have biological children too, yes? And that is legal in all 50 states for gay people to raise their own children, yes? So why deprive them of two parents?

As an aside, are you one of those people who think children raised by gay parents will turn straight kids into gay kids?

(2) Gay marriage does not remove penalties nor legal obligations for adandonment. Equal protection requires gay and straight marriages to have the same legal responsibilities and enforcement. Where did you get such a silly notion that there exists separate contractual standards for emotional, medical, and monetary support?

(3) Gay marriage still retains the definition of two people. Polygamists will need to fight an entirely different battle of based on numbers, not sexual identity. As for pets? Please. How can you equate gay people with animals? Besides, marriage requires consenting adults and animals can not consent.

As for a comment you made in another post, that gay marriage will "destroy society by placing women and children into chronic poverty and abandonment". So, let me get this straight. You really believe that straight married couples will suddenly leave their families - for what? - when gay marriage is introduce?

Okay, so what has happened in Massachusetts FOUR YEARS after gay marriage became legal-- has divorce, crime or poverty appreciably increased relative to the other states? Not at all.

To Franklin:

My argument is that marriage code, as the legal means for ordering a healthy society, must address the reality of heterosexual sex and protect women and children from abandonment.

You could say that my argument is utilitarian. Traditional marriage law provided utility and legal recourse to women and children that the new gay marriage code does not and cannot. The fact is this: the coupling scenario for heterosexuals and homosexuals is so different as to require two different contracts.

Next, divorce is spousal and child abandonment, and it produces severe economic consequences for faithful partners and their children. Traditional marriage law existed to protect against such victimization by levying severe economic penalties against the party who committed breach of contract. Such protection was first removed via "no-fault divorce" in 1970, and will be permanently removed by re-defining marriage as nothing beyond a "romance" or "cohabitation" contract.

Your dad is a fine example of what I'm saying. A man's failure to care for his wife and children *needs to be penalized by law,* for such behavior victimizes both mother children. Marriage law should therefore stipulate that the victims be able to seek legal recourse against such breach of contract. But gay marriage allows one parter to flee the other without any penalties! This works fine for gays but is devastating to heterosexuals and their children.

As for poverty, if you were poor with two able-bodied working parents, you were even more poor with one able-bodied working parent. And it needs to be stated that single-parenting is extraordinarily challenging, both economically and psychologically.

Finally, children indeed have rights in that society always recognizes that (1) children have a right to provision from adults, as they cannot care for themselves and (2) the people who sired the child---not the neighbors down the street---are responsible to give that provision. This is formally recognized in traditional marriage law.

A) "the reality of heterosexual sex and protect women and children from abandonment" -- Gay marriage does not change the LEGAL protections of traditional marriages nor the children created as a result. All it does is permit people of the same sex to marry -- nothing else changes.

B) "The fact is this: the coupling scenario for heterosexuals and homosexuals is so different as to require two different contracts." -- In regards to the law, that is a false statement because the contracts are the same in Massachusetts and Connecticut (and California while it was legal.)

Since the law and recent history of three states proves that you are wrong, you must provide actual evidence to the contrary. But so far, all you have done is reiterate your fears. Please, show me the law(s) that say gay marriages have different contractual obligations.

Gay people do have children through the normal process, and also by In Vitro fertilization, Sperm Donors and Surrogate Mothers. That is reality. Furthermore, there is NO LAW that forbids gay people from having and raising children. Prove me wrong if you can! Cite the law you claim exists!

As for risks of pregnancy, your argument falls flat when you consider traditional marriage is granted to infertile couples. Fertility is non-factor when states to issue marriage licenses. They simply do not care.

Therefore, infertile traditional marriages already destroy the social fabric - if we use your logic - and thus the only moral thing to do would be to make illegal all infertile marriages by traditional means. Yet you would do no such thing! You do not actually believe the very argument you make!

As for polygamists, they must demonstrate the argument for multiple partners. Gay marriage makes no such claim - although the Old Testament does. Plenty of god-fearing roles models from the good book had several wives. You have more to worry about from the Bible than Gays when it comes to polygamists using precedent to establish such marriages as legal.

Lastly, Gay marriage has not changed the legal responsibilities of spouses in traditional marriages in Massachusetts, Connecticut and California. THAT IS FACT.

You STILL have not provided one single example of law that supports your false arguments.

A Walker, with respect, you keep reiterating your opinions, expectations or predictions. You have yet to offer a response to the call for evidence. I get your assertions, I get your motivation for them, and I have no problem with you or them. What you have not done is acknowledge the rebuttal: your conclusions are obvious to you, and you only. Show us your evidence and logic.

You are completely wrong about one thing: children, as important as they are, are only one of several legal components of a marriage, all of which can and do exist and are covered by the law in the absence of children: joint property, inheritance/beneficiary designations, joint debt, other contracts which permit the marriage contract as bona fide certification of a relationship.

And to everyone reading this thread who has shown concern over "cohabitation contracts", they already exist. Otherwise legal adults with no other relationship with each other sign such a contract. It's called a lease or rental agreement, and is legally binding on the signatories (tenants) individually and severally.

A Walker, "SSM allows partners to leave for any reason without penalty."

Not true. If one partner has children and the other does not, then the legal obligations are the same for Traditional & Gay marriages. No new "harm" is created by gay marriages. Consequently It is not marriage law that needs to be addressed, but adoption law and rights for step-parents - both straight and gay.

W
Heya R. Hampton,

Gay people do not procreate through the "normal process," for the normal process involves the sexual union of male and female.

Next, just because we can use surrogates and sperm donors, doesn't mean we should, or that we should rewrite marriage law around these rare occasions. Just because we can create male breastfeeders doesn't mean we should, and doesn't mean we must reorder society's laws and norms and bathrooms around these rare exceptions. Society must order itself around the vast norms of things, not every rare exception.

Next, infertility is a rare medical defect among heterosexuals. Societies create our legal codes around the vast norms of things, not the rarest exceptions. The fertility of heterosexuals is biological, assumed, and so widespread as to be unstoppable. As a result, a social contract is required for all those infants which will be born. Gays have no similar need for a contract, for their sex acts do not turn partners into economic dependents.

Finally, gay marriage law in Massachusetts and Connecticut (Calif prohibits gay marrige) is based on mere romance and can be easily ended when the romance ends. That code, when applied to heterosexuals, is economically devastating to women and children (for heterosexual sex acts create long-range grave economic risk to women and the infants born of heterosexual sex).

No, R. Hampton.

Rare exceptions to the rule do NOT force society to reorder it codes away from the rule. Marriage law is formulated around on the vast RULE of heterosexuality, since heterosexuality is the machinery which procreates and educates the citizenry.

Heterosexual sex acts place heterosexual partners at grave long-range economic risk---thus the need for a contract between them. Gay sex does not have this situation, and thus does not need a contract.

It's self-evident and undeniable.

Infertile heterosexuals are about as common as gay people, so if you make an allowance for one based on size, then you must do it for the other. And like gay couples, the Infertile traditional marriage means it "is based on mere romance and can be easily ended when the romance ends." -- which you say is immoral.

Truth be told, your reasoning has nothing to do with population size. You said it yourself many times. For you, it's all about morality and what we "should do" according to your beliefs.

Yet you fail to realize the significance that these things are legal: Surrogates, Sperm Donors, In Vitro Fertilization, Divorce, Adoption, and Gay people having children. It doesn't matter if you like it or not, it is law. Because it is law, straight and gay parents - and traditional and gay marriages - face EXACTLY the same legal obstacles of step-parent rights.

Again, if adoption laws were changed so that step-parents had the same rights and obligations to their spouse's children as their spouse, then your fears would be addressed -- solving problems resulting in Gay Marriage - and more importantly (in terms of numbers) - Traditional Divorce.

"That contract is obviously short term and is easy to get into and out of with no grave economic consequences for either party. That legal code works for gays only, not for heterosexuals."

Property law applies equally to Traditional & Gay marriages. Therefore the splitting of assets is (would be) determined by each state, but uniformly to its citizens. Thus if two people marry - one rich and one poor - only to divorce a few years later from a childless marriage, the sexual preference of the spouses makes no difference.

For example, under the Pennsylvania Divorce Code, marital property is often divided between the parties on a 50/50 basis, although circumstances may warrant a disproportionate division (based on 11 factors set forth in §3502). However "equitable” means fair, not equal so a spouse may get more than 50% - like:

* The contribution by one party to the education, training or increased earning power of the other party.
* The opportunity of each party for future acquisitions of capital assets and income.
* The sources of income of both parties, including, but not limited to, medical, retirement, insurance or other benefits.
* The contribution or dissipation of each party in the acquisition, preservation, depreciation or appreciation of the marital property, including the contribution of a party as homemaker.

As you can see, the Pennsylvania law makes no distinction between gay or straight. The law protects everyone equally.

Hey R Hampton:

I realize that the law would treat gay marriages and childless marriages in the same way. The problem with your point there is that heterosexuals rarely every have childless marriages. Heterosexuals have children, and children require expensive long-term care. This makes the enterprise of heterosexual marriage entirely different from the enterprise of gay unions.

Next, I don't know why you keep bringing up the defect of infertility/medical sterilization as an argument. We don't make contract law around the rare defects and exceptions to the norm. Why? Because the situation of the exception is NOT the situation of the norm. Thus, to treat them as if they are the same thing is absurd. Marriage law for gays does *not* anticipate or stipulate the life-long family enterprise that is at the center of heterosexual marriage. As a result, the gay marriage laws would be detrimental to heterosexuals for they (1) have short-term expectation, (2) are easily dissolvable, (3) don't account for the grave long-range economic risk facing spouses and children, and (4) open up marriage to any cohabitating pairs or groups.

Next, the fact that heterosexual sex acts incur long-range economic risk is the basis of the life-long marriage contract. That is the very core of why marriage exists at all, and what its function is. It follows logically that people who don't have any material risk associated with sex acts don't require a marriage contract. Gays have no need for entering that same contract. Moreover, the heterosexual marriage law cannot be re-written around the non-reproducer scenario without it producing grave economic harm to the heterosexual dependents in traditional marriages.

Why do gays need legal contracts for their sex acts when the don't have any economic risk associated with it?

Why do gays need legal contracts for mere living together, when countless people live together but aren't "married"?

As for civil rights, they only pertain to comparing apples with apples. As we all know, homosexual sex acts do NOT incur grave material risk and thus don't require contract law. In contrast, heterosexual sex incurs grave material risk and thus requires contract law. From a legal and practical perspective, that's apples and oranges.

Plus, a black person is black 24 hours a day, every day of his or her life. A gay person is only "gay" when he or she hit the sheets with a partner (a few hours of one's lifetime). So, your claim that this is a civil rights issue is misguided.

And another question I want answered from you, R. Hampton.

Why do gays need a contract when they aren't being held responsible for the long-term material and economic care of each other? (Put another way, why do gays need a contract when their union doesn't produce dependents?)

I can't find a reasonable legal basis for gay marriage at all. Some mention the right to visit an ill partner in the hospital. But, really? Is that the best basis for why gays need a legal contract punishable by law?

Dear Franklin,

We must use logic and reason to decide these things.

Anyone with logical capabilities can grasp the basis of marriage law: heterosexual sex acts place partners at immediate long-range economic risk and legally conscript them into a long-range, child-rearing family enterprise.

Moreover, people with basic skills of logic and reason can see that homosexual sex acts do *not* incur any comparable long-range economic risk or enterprise, and thus don't rise to the level of requiring contract law. In other words, *there is no basis for gays to contractualize themselves* as heterosexuals do.

So I'll ask you the same question that R. Hampton won't answer: Since contracts have to do with partnerships involving grave economic and material risk, and since gay sex does not incur grave economic or material risks nor enroll one in a mandatory long-range enterprise, why do gays need marriage contracts?

2) Marriage is not a requirement for the legal recognition of the parent-child relationship. All it takes is the parents' names on the birth certificate, adoption papers or declaration of legal guardianship. The only document that 100% of the time shows a biological relationship is the birth certificate.

3) ...why do gays need marriage contracts?

Bad question. Why are contracts of any sort needed? The answer is simple: because while the vast majority of them will not need such recourse, some of them will require the intervention of a legal process. In the meantime, your focus on "grave economic or material risks" is incomplete, because the purpose of a contract is to define the privileges, obligations and sanctions of a legal relationship. Other laws recognize the relationship and ascribe benefits to it. Your insistence on focusing only on the negative consequences of a minority of contracts ignores the full picture.

"In Census surveys between 1970 and 1985, 6.1 to 8.6 percent of married women age 40 to 44 reported never having had children."
http://spectator.org/archives/2007/02/08/ending-childless-marriage-as-w

That's double the number of gays in American, who are estimated to be between 2% to 3% of the population. So childless Traditional marriages are (would be) AT LEAST twice as common as Gay marriages. But more importantly, these immoral, solely romantic arrangements - which have existed since long before America's birth - can be easily broken due to the lack of children. And the consequence has negligible. Or would you claim otherwise?

A Walker, you will find the rebuttal to your last post in my post at November 26, 2008 11:29 AM, in the second part of the paragraph from which you quoted me, which was reiterated and clarified in the following post: because the purpose of a contract is to define the privileges, obligations and sanctions of a legal relationship. Other laws recognize the relationship and ascribe benefits to it.

I see no reason to continue in the face of your wilfull refusal to comprehend or even acknowledge rational and logical rebuttals to your assertions. Be well.

I dunno, R Hampton. I'm the child of immigrants. One of the things I grew up with was a keen view of becoming that from which we have escaped and found freedom to pursue our agendas. It wasn't until much later in my adulthood that I appreciated that POV as motivation for my parents' decision to only speak English with me and my siblings, even while continuing to converse in their native languages between themselves and with other family members of their generation.

It started with my mother's stated attitude: we will raise our children to be Americans. It gained clarity over time as I witnessed bigoted reactions to her foreign accent. It came to full bloom as I watched my society embrace diversity, only to turn it into a club enforcing superficial and often false notions of tolerance and acceptance. LGBT is the most prominent modern focus of it all, and is as much a victim as it is a beneficiary of it.

Hey R Hampton,

The 6.1 to 8.6 percent of American women who have not yet had a baby can be broken down into (a) some who will still give birth (b) some tiny few who are infertile and (c) some who have aborted all their babies

Additionally, we must remember that American women have a lower birth rate than most of the world's women. The rate for women worldwide will be much closer to the medical infertility rate, which is much, much smaller than 6 percent.

In other words, you keep listing a tiny exception to the BILLIONS of heterosexuals who can't help but procreate and whose sex acts *legally conscript* them to the long-term enterprise of child-rearing at grave personal economic risk.

So, again, the very basis of heterosexual marriage simply doesn't apply to gays in any concrete biological, legal, anthropological, and societal way. The idea that gays *need marriage* is based on fantasy and myth-making, not objective reality. There is no basis or necessity for gay coupling contracts.

Next, you cite the situation in which partners are step parents. Please explain what objection you have to this and why.

Finally, I have no interest whatsoever in "imposing my moral code" on anyone. *All *ALL* of my arguments are based on the economic vulnerability of women and children as well as the necessity of permanent stable homes for the next billion infants that heterosexuals are currently procreating and *ought to be held legally responsible for.* You are the one that has no argument at all and therefore must fabricate a need for gays to have a contract when no such need actually exists.

You say that gay marriages leave one partner without any obligation to take care of their spouse's children. But the truth is that is the normal situation for step parents in traditional marriages. That is the law as it exists today, without any help from gay marriage. From the American Bar Association:

What is a stepparent adoption?
A stepparent adoption is one in which a child's biological parent marries someone who wishes to adopt the biological parent's child and is able to do so because the other biological parent consents or because consent is unnecessary. If a biological parent does not consent to the adoption of a child, the child cannot be adopted by another person unless a court first finds that the biological parent is unfit. If a parent is found unfit, that person's parental rights are terminated, and the child can be adopted.
http://public.findlaw.com/abaflg/flg-3-3e-8.html

Of course, some states prohibit gay people from adopting which would make it impossible to have gay marriage with both parents having full legal obligations, even if the gay step-parent wanted to assume the considerable burden. Yet another discriminatory practice.

R Hampton: if 6% to 8% of traditional marriages are childless, then your argument can not logically hold for gay marriages which would be no more than 3%

A Walker: First, those marriages don't know if they will continue to be childless, as regular sexual activity for heterosexuals is wildly procreative. So, you can't use this argument. MOREOVER, even if infertility rates were that high, society still wouldn't reformulate our marriage law around the "infertile couples" scenario, for that scenario doesn't create dependents, doesn't produce material economic risk for the adult partners, and doesn't have the same family enterprise resulting from sex. In a word, it wouldn't require any contract at all, same as gay cohabitation.

R Hampton: If you make an exception because 6% of the married population is too small to do much harm, then 3% is smaller still and more worthy of an exception.

A Walker: We don't "make an exception," as we don't know and can't predict who will actually make it to menopause without a child. And for sure we don't re-write or re-define marriage contract law around non-reproducers (!), as the scenarios are too different and reproducers don't need contract law anyway. (An infertile couple's sex doesn't carry grave material risk or conscript the partners to life-long child-rearing.)

Finally, to retool something you said, it is indeed very destructive for society to bear HETEROSEXUAL romantic arrangements that do not address the long-term enterprise of child-rearing and which can be easily broken without severe penalty. This is why the gay marriage law is absolutely dangerous to heterosexuals and the children they produce.

Moreover, the very stipulation of the gay contract is that the State would recognize gay romances and would permit their contract to end without penalty when the love dries up. What a disaster that would be if applied to heterosexuals.

Ever heard of no-fault divorce?

Mrs. T

"even the segregationists didn't claim that interracial marriages weren't marriages"

Tell that to Mr. and Mrs Loving who were told very succinctly (and very accurately, apparently) that they were NOT married by the arrestinng officer.

Continue with your previous delusions.

alan,

"I hold out hope that there are enough old embers of Christendom to support a revival in Christian moral thought."

I, too, would like to see such a revival. Your post does not fall under it, though.

Morals have to do with how we treat other people. The Christian bible says that treating others equally ("do unto others as you would have done unto yourself") is "the sum of the laws and the prophets".

For example, when you call others "degenerates", it tells us you would like it (nay, require it) to be said about yourself. It is hardly an example of "Christian moral thought", imo.

Here endeth the lesson.

Dear "me",

Your belief that one of the "purposes' of marriage is to bridge the gap between men and women.

Your comments that, "women can do pretty much whatever they want without getting overly involved with men. She can work to support herself. She can reproduce. To a certain extent she can raise a child without a man. And women are a lot of trouble for men. They are confusing and intimidating. They will take your money if things don't turn out well. Especially now that getting sex is so easy, more and more men are deciding that women aren't worth making permanent commitments to." will do nothing whatsoever to bridge that gap.

I also disagree with your other "purpose", namely, "building a society where any children born are born into marriages between their biological parents". I fail to see how my (legal) marriage has in any way been a "threat", "disruptive" or a "risk to society", let alone prevents biological (or adoptive, for that mater) parents from doing a good job of raising their children.

You said you hoped your post "made sense". Sorry, but no, it doesn't.

"I don't get the idea of marriage as a right."

Finally you get to the nub of it, "me". There is no "right" to marry mentioned in the Constitution - not even for heterosexuals.

Now, speak to me of liberties, of the freedom to marry the person of our mutual choosing.

All citizens are (supposed to be) 'guaranteed the right to liberty. And to the pursuit of happiness.

America is known as the land of the free, not the land of people with rights. Sweet land of liberty. Let freedom ring.

Explain to me why it should be changed into the land of some free people? Or liberty for some? Freedom for some?

Freedom of religion anyone? Then speak to me of the ever-increasing number of faiths that DO marry same-sex couples. What of THEIR religious freedoms (note, NOT rights)?

God says; This is a SIN! And I BELIEVE IT TO BE SO as well!!

"Your Name:"

Please stop posting. You obviously do not understand the Christian perspective on this as you only quote the OT without any discussion to the historical practices of the Church and the Scriptures of the NT. Homosexuality, like adultery, incest, polygamy etc and abortion have been opposed by orthodox Christianity from its very inception. Unlike Roman society, their focus on heterosexual life-long marital unions and opposition to abortion were just a few of the factors that promoted the expansion of the % of Christians in a pagan Roman culture. Furthermore, in the Book of Acts a council of the Apostles determines that Christians should still refrain from sexual immorality, though they need not be circumcized and follow all of the strident moralistic laws laid out in the OT. It is on these evidences that Christianity has opposed homosexual marriage for almost 2000 years. Ironically, in your attempt to enlighten us and promote understanding, you stuck your foot in your mouth from a Christian perspective. As you said: "So much "God says" talk, and so little understanding."

As the Crunchy Con wrote, YES you can legislate morality. The Constitution (both nationally and at a state level) and the People that give those documents and the govt. authority do legislate morality with every legal decision, wether it is seen as "neutral" or not. If we allow same-sex marriages, we are legislating morality. If we allow polygamy, we are legislating morality. If we allow relaionships between adults and minors, we are legislating morality. If we allow prostitution, we are legislating morality. If we allow gambling, we are legislating morality. If we allow abortion, we are legislating morality. The morality being legislated is that as a society we will sanction and condone the occurrence of these things.

If we do not allow these things, by the expressed voted will of the People who gives the govt. and consitution authority, then we are also legislating morality. There is no difference, and since the govt. is in the business of legislating morality already by not allowing polygamy, pedophilia, incestuous marriages etc. because of pertinent social interest, there is no legal mandate that the People refrain from doing so with same-sex unions.