Frist?

Let's see. . .Slavery at one point was as "deeply-rooted" as any tradition could be. Somehow that got overturned, though it took a bit of bloodshed to do it.

Guess one man's "deeply-rooted tradition" is another man's (or woman's) discrimination. Sounds like nothing but code words to me.

If your only argument for denying benefits to one class of people is "tradition," chances are real good that you're being a bigot.

Edub: What court overturned slavery? Oh right: It was done by the executive and the amendment process.

In any case, the old standard treated everybody equally. Every couple consisting of one man and one woman had a certain set of rights. The sexuality of the members of that couple was completely irrelevant. Similarly, a straight person in a gay relationship would not be entitled to that list of rights.

Therefore, there was no equal protection violation. Therefore, this court's logic is deeply flawed. No doubt, it will be overturned in a cycle or two by Jersey's voters.

Just how "deeply rooted" is marriage, anyway? In the Bible, where is it written that Abraham proposed to Sarah on bended knee? Did Eve demand a June wedding with Adam and go into a snit about the flowers? Did Jacob and Rachel register at Macy's? Not exactly.

Marriage is a human construction. The sooner people recognize that, the better.

Nolo: This was a legal decision, not a legislative decision. The court has to follow the law as it stands, and you simply can't make a serious case that same-sex marriage is a "deeply rooted" tradition. I don't like it either, but I think they interpreted the law correctly.

Serious question for American Hawk, are you intentionally being obtuse?

Did you read the ruling?

We're talking about some couples who have been together for 35 years, who have children and grandchildren, and your answer to them is "well you have the righ to marry someone else, so STFU already."

You wouldn't happen to be in the 5th grade, would you? Because that is the sophistication level of your argument.

Edub: What court overturned slavery? Oh right: It was done by the executive and the amendment process.

American Hawk: So a court ruling upholding slavery would fine by you because it upholds "tradition?" Gee, that's encouraging.

I understand the "original intent" argument here (or whatever you want to call it), but this line about "tradition" is totally meaningless.

As for the New Jersians will overturn it idea, try reading some polls in the state first, ignoramus.

Over 50% FAVOR same-sex MARRIAGE rights. So don't be so sure that your bigoted views are shared by everyone.

This will not be overturned by NJ voters.
Gay civil unions and/or marriage will be the status quo in many states within a few years, and most if not all in the next few decades.

Watching the media - the news channels are mainly about Iraq, the Michael J Fox/Harold Ford ads, then NJ.

The rightwing blogs are disappointed - they needed more red meat.

Am. Hawk sez "No doubt, it will be overturned in a cycle or two by Jersey's voters."

If you and I weren't pseudonymous, I would happily offer to take you up in a bet on that... I'd point out that a "poll of New Jersey residents taken in June found that 50 percent said they supported allowing same-sex couples to marry legally, while 44 percent were opposed." (From the NYT.) If a clear plurality (with MoE of a majority) support marriage, I can't see NJ voters getting up in arms about civil unions.

AH's logic seems off. Sexuality in this case is used by some to determine the legitimacy of "couplehood" and that couple's eligibility for the legal privileges that come with marriage. So sexuality is relevant; in fact, it's the only relevant factor in disabling people from obtaining the statutory privileges of marital unions. The court merely recognized that absent state laws and given the NJ Constitution's equal protection clause (its in Article I) there's no reason to alienate people from their property rights because of their sexuality.

And you'll hate to hear this, AH, but NJ voters are very progressive - this won't be overturned at the ballot. There are too many gay Republicans around for this to follow the usual script we'd see unfold in a red state. Its not a perfect state, but then again we didn't have that whole lynching problem either.

I'd like to add that I live in NJ, and know at least three same-sex couples who are raising children. Allowing their parents to form civil unions can only improve the security and welfare of those children.

Kevin, I think you misunderstood me. If I was unclear, I apologize. I think the court's analysis and decision were correct. I simply was making a comment along the theme of the comment before mine.

Again, I guess I was unclear. Not the first time, I'm sure.

Oh American Hawk:

George W. Bush has no problem with civil unions of the kind the NJ court affirmed. Please explain why he is wrong.

"President Bush said in an interview this past weekend that he disagreed with the Republican Party platform opposing civil unions of same-sex couples and that the matter should be left up to the states."

"Mr. Bush has previously said that states should be permitted to allow same-sex unions, even though White House officials have said he would not have endorsed such unions as governor of Texas. But Mr. Bush has never before made a point of so publicly disagreeing with his party's official position on the issue."

"In an interview on Sunday with Charles Gibson, an anchor of "Good Morning America" on ABC, Mr. Bush said, "I don't think we should deny people rights to a civil union, a legal arrangement, if that's what a state chooses to do so." ABC, which broadcast part of the interview on Monday, is to broadcast the part about civil unions on Tuesday."....

Looking back, Kevin, I think you mistook me for American Hawk. Trust me, we're not the same.

57-43 = Oregon.
59-41 = Michigan.
62-38 = California.
62-38 = Ohio.
66-34 = Utah.
67-33 = Montana.
71-29 = Kansas.
71-29 = Missouri.
73-27 = North Dakota.
75-25 = Arkansas.
75-25 = Kentucky.
76-24 = Georgia.
76-24 = Oklahoma.
78-22 = Louisiana.
86-14 = Mississippi.

ADD +8
Rack em up, add N.J.

Should be a prime topic at the next SCOTUS hearing!

Tom Kean on the Decision

"I still believe that marriage is and should be between one man and one woman and I would support an amendment to the state constitution reaffirming that definition. The eyes of the country are on New Jersey and the people deserve to hear from my opponent on this issue."

WASHINGTON-House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.) today issued the following statement expressing outrage at the New Jersey Supreme Court's decision to order the state to recognize same-sex marriage or its equivalent, taking the definition of marriage out of the hands of New Jersey voters:

"Beginning in 1996 with the Defense of Marriage Act and in subsequent years with votes on the Federal Marriage Amendment, House Republicans have fought to defend the will of the people each time a court has sought to redefine marriage.

"The Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi has opposed each and every one of these efforts.

"Given the actions of the New Jersey Supreme Court today and the fact that similar cases are pending in four other courts, the American people deserve to know whether a Pelosi-led House would defend marriage."

45 states acting by referendum or through their legislatures have enacted state laws or state constitutional amendments blocking same-sex marriage. Yet, activists continue to seek to use the courts to overturn these laws. In fact, cases similar to the New Jersey case are currently pending in California, Connecticut, Iowa and Maryland.

AND

STATEMENT FROM GOVERNOR ROMNEY ON NEW JERSEY GAY MARRIAGE RULING

“I believe that the best and most reliable way to protect traditional marriage is through a federal marriage amendment, as opposed to letting activist judges make policy on a state by state basis.”

More Nightmares for my poor Ally-kins!

"We're talking about some couples who have been together for 35 years, who have children and grandchildren, and your answer to them is "well you have the righ to marry someone else, so STFU already."

We shold go to Utah together.

The Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi has opposed each and every one of these efforts.

it's cute how you gals are trying to turn Nancy Pelosi into Satan's Handmaiden, but i gotta tell ya - it's also really fucking silly. nobody know who Nancy Pelosi even is.

Hey, Fitz, you know that Romney isn't OUR governor here in the Garden State, right? So.... relevance?

The real question is if this is the October Surprise that Republicans need to boost turnout. If so, it will be the third election where gay rights issues have caused the democrats to lose (1994, 2004, and now), thereby hurting the party most sympathetic to gay rights and emblodening gay rights opponents. A pyrrhic victory, indeed, especailly if a constitutional ammendment gets passed.

Thanks,

Mike

OK, Hawk, I will explain the equal protection violation to you. My wife had a friend in graduate school who had fallen in love with a fellow student, from New Zealand, and wanted to marry her; this would have let the Kiwi woman stay in the US as a permanent resident. Unfortunately, the friend was also a she, and same-sex couples can't marry. They considered having a gay male friend marry the New Zealander, but evidently the INS investigates such marriages to see if they are "sham", and they didn't want to expose the male friend to legal risk.

So you're wrong in your claim that gays have equal rights to marry people of the opposite sex. In this case, the INS would prosecute these folks for the offense of marrying someone they weren't really attracted to.

Also, that's Tom Kean JUNIOR. You know, the shameless panderer who can't answer what he'd do if he'd been asked to vote to authorize the Iraq misadventure when asked 20-odd times... not to be confused with the shameless liar from the 9/11 report commission who gave a stamp of approval to ABC's dishonest television miniseries.

Hey, Fitz, you know that Romney isn't OUR governor here in the Garden State, right? So.... relevance?

Not to speak for Fitz here, but Romney's the governor of the one state that DOES allow gay marriages (guess Massachusetts doesn't have any "deeply rooted" traditions, unlike NJ). Even more, he wants to be your next POTUS. I think that's pretty relevant.

Whether I like it or not, it seems indisputable that gay marriage simply can't be considered a "deeply rooted" tradition protected by either the New Jersey constitution or the state legislature.

Certainly gay marriage isn't a deeply rooted tradition, but what does that have to do with the content of New Jersey's constitution and laws?

Well if Roy Blunt says it, that's good enough for me. NOT! Seriously, if he had to run in any district besides Springfield, the buckle on the bible belt, he would not even be a congressman. Let alone in a position of leadership. Most of Missouri hates him. His own son, our boy-blunder governor isn't speaking to the old man because of the nasty divorce when he dumped Matty's mom after 35+ years and married a tobacco lobbyist.

If roy is in a lather, the issue is a non-starter. When's the last time he rode a winning horse?

Karl Rove does not have his A game going. Not sure the NJ ruling might have been the top story tonight, but Bush' press conference (saying we are winning in Iraq) is dominating the news.

Horrible timing for them.

The court has to follow the law as it stands, and you simply can't make a serious case that same-sex marriage is a "deeply rooted" tradition.

Again, "the law as it stands" and "'deeply rooted' tradition" are two very different concepts that you seem to be using as if one absolutely determined the other.

With the Foley debacle and now the festering Charlie Crist gay controversy in FLA, dare the GOP mention gay or "same sex" in any context?

BTW -- Crist is Jeb Bush's Republican pick for Gov in Fla and Katherine Harris' "ex" supposedly. The stud who is said to have slept with Crist worked for Harris. Crist has had his picture taken with Foley. So deliciously funny.

http://www.wonkette.com/politics/charlie%20crist

Katie was a beard? How delicious.

American Hawk: "In any case, the old standard treated everybody equally. Every couple consisting of one man and one woman had a certain set of rights. The sexuality of the members of that couple was completely irrelevant. Similarly, a straight person in a gay relationship ..."

... is either in it for strictly mercenary considerations, i.e., $$$$, or is a cruelly warped piece of psychological wreckage in serious need of therapy.

Meanwhile, you attempt to validate traditional marriage by saying that the sexuality of either one or both partners doesn't matter, as long as the couple getting married is a man and woman.

That's a really creative piece of pretzel logic you've twisted up there, Hawk ...

I wish they'd bring back the "Deeply rooted tradition" of plural marriage. My wife would like for me to have a second wife to help with chores around the house and raising the children. I can't afford a maid - but if I could get a second wife, and claim her as a dependent, that would be great. Unfortunately, this country doesn't have religious freedom for certain mormon sects (and muslims).

I also wish they'd bring back the "deeply rooted tradition" of banning usury, as is commanded by traditional Christian law. It would be great to not have to pay all that interest on my home-loan.

Another "deeply rooted tradition" of outlawing working on Sundays would be nice. I just can't seem to enjoy a weekend when my boss needs me to help meet a deadline by putting in some hours on a Sunday.

really, OBF - we should just send all those patients home on Friday evening and tell them to come back at 8:00 am in Monday.

So Roy Blunt thinks NJ should be more like....Missouri?

I think we'll pass on that one. It must be so easy to live in a place where everybody is white and rich and evangelical and intolerant of minor differences, where putting a Kerry sticker on your car will get you fired and dating someone of a different race will get you ostracized. It must be hard, though, to realize that slavery is over and a bipartisan state supreme court just unanimously affirmed that gays have a right to full citizenship. How can you feel good about your own marriage if you can't stop other people from getting married too?

How bout getting rid of those Vegas 24 hour marriages? Those seem to cheapen marriage more than anything...

So Roy Blunt thinks NJ should be more like....Missouri?

I think we'll pass on that one. It must be so easy to live in a place where everybody is white and rich and evangelical and intolerant of minor differences, where putting a Kerry sticker on your car will get you fired and dating someone of a different race will get you ostracized. It must be hard, though, to realize that slavery is over and a bipartisan state supreme court just unanimously affirmed that gays have a right to full citizenship. How can you feel good about your own marriage if you can't stop other people from getting married too?

How bout getting rid of those Vegas 24 hour marriages? Those seem to cheapen marriage more than anything...

I think you're on to something there OBF. How about bringing back the "deeply rooted tradition" of enslaving an enemy you've defeated on a field of battle? We would of course update it to include blog threads.

That way after a good day's worth of winning debates on Political Animal you could go home with a whole stable of trolls to do your chores for you, freeing up your time for more erudite pursuits.

And another "deeply rooted tradition" I've been thinking about - we need to start executing those wicked people who eat shrimp. (Lev 11: 9-12)

9 These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, them shall ye eat.
10 And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you:
11 They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcases in abomination.
12 Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.

I'm nauseous that once again the Dems will lose an election because of the immaturity and deeply rooted contempt for the values of much of the country that infects the Democratic base. Win an f'ing election and then we get the right to decide these things. I wish I could get back the money that I contributed to the DSCC and DCCC. It was just pissing money away.

The sad thing is that gay marriage can be a winner at the ballot box, if the base had the patience to wait a few years. This is a generational issue, and the opponents will steadily die off.

Roy B - our gift to the nation.

I deeply appologize.

Of course, OBF, if they brought back that 'deeply rooted tradition' of human slavery, you could buy someone to clean the house, tend to the kids, and work to pay off the home loan...Probably be able to quit your job and have nice long weekends...

Problems solved!

And John Ashcroft. I appologize for him, too.

That doesn't make any sense, sklein.

You're saying that the decision of a NJ Supreme Court has any bearing on Democratic electoral strategy? There's nothing the Dems can do to make themselves look good to the evangelicals on this issue. It's been framed in the media already; Republicans will save you from teh Gays, Democrats want to convert you to Gay.

Even if Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi went on Larry King saying they wanted a Constitutional Amendment to hunt down and execute all gays, no evangelical would change their vote. It's not a partisan issue - it's a propaganda issue.

Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.

...written after swallowing a very ripe oyster, I imagine...I mean, how bad did the stomach cramping have to be to earn a write-up in a major religion?

Really - the whole fucking planet just rates a "Mostly harmless" after all.

Unresolvable conflicts over personal morality aside, this perpetual political fight over same-sex marriage is, at its very core, an argument over nothing more than legal semantics.

Same-gender couples should be allowed to legally sanction their union. To deny them that right is to unconstitutionally deny them equal protection under the law.

You have a problem with calling such unions "marriage", that's OK, too. All you have to do is change the nomenclature of the license and then amend its enabling statutory provisions accordingly to reflect that change.

That's the short version of the New Jersey Supreme Court ruling - nothing more, nothing less.

So, really, what's the problem here? And in a larger context, regarding the apparent crass willingness on the part of some people to intrude into the personal lives of others, I can only offer the wit and wisdom of singer/songwriter John Hiatt:

"You know what my father said?
Well, I'm not going to tell you
Some words that I try to live by.
It's none of your goddamn business!"
- "Shredding the Documents" (1995)

SKlein - concern troll of the day
No one's buying what you're selling

The twit gets it wrong:

The NJ Supreme Court has, in the past, held off issuing rulings until after the end of the session. It just may do that this time -- given the incendiary nature of a ruling on gay marriage just before a national election.

If it were wise, it would do just that.

Bob

Posted by: rmck1 on October 25, 2006 at 9:57 AM | PERMALINK

Where's our "expert" today?

Bwah hah hah hah hah!

Osama--your reflexive dismissla of the voters at issue as undifferentiated "evangelicals" nicely illustrates my point. First, it is a problem with non-evangelicals as well. There are non-evangelicals that are uneasy with gay marriage and even more uneasy with being told that their unease doesn't matter. Second, a key elements of the supposed Democratic landslide is that discouragement or defction of a portion of the evangelical base. They are now reminded why they need to get over their disappoinment, hold their nose, and vote for the Repubs.

Osama--your reflexive dismissal of the voters at issue as undifferentiated "evangelicals" nicely illustrates my point. First, it is a problem with non-evangelicals as well. There are non-evangelicals that are uneasy with gay marriage and even more uneasy with being told that their unease doesn't matter. Second, a key elements of the supposed Democratic landslide is that discouragement or defction of a portion of the evangelical base. They are now reminded why they need to get over their disappoinment, hold their nose, and vote for the Repubs.

Its inevitable that anyone who is against this decision will be labeled a bigot by the knee-jerk, immature, "progressive" "thinkers" here. I really don't understand the thinking that has gotten us to this point. In the 60's and 70's stupid and naive social scientists promulgated the bizarre opinion that men and women were essentially alike and only societal tradition caused the observed differences in behavior and acumen.

As has been well said, "This is an idea that is so dumb only someone with a graduate degree could believe it."

As we progressed forward in biological sciences we began to understand how wrong that thesis was - ( i.e. "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus). However, the large group of voters that gradutated from college with these twisted ideas firmly formed in their brains continues to effect public policy.

Should marriage be changed to allow same sex unions? It is a question that defies the imagination. In order not to hurt the feelings and alleviate the strange mostly hypothetical rights of a few, it tramples some of the basic underpinnings of society. It is not that any single marriage is hurt by what amounts to an undefining of marriage, its that the institution as a whole is cut down. The stability of any society depends monumentally on being able to reproduce a next generation. This is dependent on the fostering of well established homes. The ignorance of those who think they can chip away at the foundations of society - and not make drastic changes in society - is astounding.

I'm nauseous that once again the Dems will lose an election because of the immaturity and deeply rooted contempt for the values of much of the country that infects the Democratic base. Win an f'ing election and then we get the right to decide these things.

Huh, and I always thought that the honest, mature thing to do that respected the electorate was to campaign on your values, not to hide them until you had the the political power to implement them, and then spring them as a surprise on the public.

The sad thing is that gay marriage can be a winner at the ballot box, if the base had the patience to wait a few years.

Why is that a sad thing? All that means is that we are providing the opportunity for Republicans to firmly commit themselves to a losing position before it becomes clear to them how much of a loser it is.

"Hey, Fitz, you know that Romney isn't OUR governor here in the Garden State, right? So.... relevance?"

Probably about the same as when Jay, I think, posted a link showing an economic upturn ...

... in Great Britain.

Society has survived many changes that people predicted would tear it limb-from-limb and result in the destruction of western civilization.

I am confident that it will take more than granting equal constitutional protections to those who love differently to destroy our culture.

Besides, the more we know about biology, the more we realize that homosexuality is genetic, it isn't a choice afterall.

Hansen,

Nowhere in the spew to make any supported argument supporting the position that mixed-sex marriage ought to be the exclusive rule. You make a bunch of vague, spurious, unsupported claims (that allowing same sex marriage would "trample the basic underpinnings of society" or "cut down" the whole institution of marriage), while admitting that no actual families or marriages would, in fact, be harmed by the change.

Don't forget the classic Jay-ism of all time:

"t wasn't a nuclear bomb that was dropped on Japan. I was an ATOMIC bomb."

Besides, the more we know about biology, the more we realize that homosexuality is genetic, it isn't a choice afterall.

Whether it is a choice or genetic really ought, IMO, to have no bearing on the policy issues (and, in any case, committing to life with someone is a choice regardless of whether sexual or romantic attraction is or not, and one that can be made—and often has been, historically—with only minimal, if any, regard to sexual or romantic attraction.)

Hotspur wrote: "With the Foley debacle and now the festering Charlie Crist gay controversy in FLA, dare the GOP mention gay or "same sex" in any context?"

Count on it. The Republicans have one hope and one hope only (barring the mythical October Surprise): to energize the base any way they can. And nothing energizes the fundamentalist base like homosexuality. Count on a whole lot of hand-wringing and whining over the next couple of days. Definitely a bad time to be a gay Republican politician or political aide.

sklein wrote: "I'm nauseous that once again the Dems will lose an election because of the immaturity and deeply rooted contempt for the values of much of the country that infects the Democratic base."

Oh, give me a break. This is just nonsensical, on a whole lot of levels.

- "the Democratic base" did not bring this lawsuit.

- "the Democratic base" did not hand down a verdict in this lawsuit.

- "the Democratic base" as a whole is not pushing for gay marriage.

- the majority of voters support legal recognition of gay relationships.

- the ruling explicitly leaves to the legislative branch how to grant these rights and what to call the resulting relationships.

- the ruling expresses no "contempt" for anyone, nor has anyone else associated with this case or any other similar cases.

- the only "immaturity" here is in this post of yours.

"Win an f'ing election and then we get the right to decide these things."

When it comes to matters of fundamental rights, you don't wait to "win a fucking election."

"I wish I could get back the money that I contributed to the DSCC and DCCC. It was just pissing money away."

Since neither the DSCC nor the DCCC had anything to do with this lawsuit or with this issue, this is just nonsense.

Should marriage be changed to allow same sex unions? It is a question that makes closeted Republicans salivate. In order not to hurt the feelings and alleviate the strange eliminations of a few, it tramples some of the basic underlings of polite Republican society. It is not that any single marriage is hurt by what amounts to an under financing of marriage, it's that the institution as a whore is cut down. The stability of any society depends monumentally on being able to reproduce a next generation of Congressional pages. These are dependents from well established foster homes. The ignorance of those who think they can suck away at the foundations of society - and not make drag changes in society - is asspounding.

Dicely,

It is very hard to make a stand for a large principle. The anti-principle side can always bring up some specific hypothetical to unfairly appeal to the intellect and the emotions of the judges of the debate. While I admit that no currently made marriage would be hurt by allowing same-sex marriages, it would be another block removed from the edifice that is human society.

Do I have some magic wisdom which enables me to see which
shuffling of the basic tenets is good, which is harmless and which will destoy society? - I do not. I just think it makes no sense to brazenly declare that redefining marriage will have a net positive effect when so much is unknown about it. I wish I could write clearer but this will have to do for now. BTW -nice parody of my writing style, it did not go unnoticed.

Chris - I was tweaking Hansen.

Talk about "stupid and naive":

I hadn't realized that progress in the biological sciences (perhaps research carried out by John Gray, Ph.D.?) had demonstrated that men are in fact, from Mars, and women from Venus.

I also hadn't realized that, when my grandmother got remarried at age 75 she was cutting down the institution of marriage because society depends on marriage being limited to people who can reproduce. No doubt that's why the infertile, the elderly, and those incarcerated for life are denied the right to marry, and why lesbians who indicate that they can find a sperm donor are given the right to marry.

Honestly, John Hansen, do you even try to think through the obvious implications of what you write?

In the 60's and 70's stupid and naive social scientists promulgated the bizarre opinion that men and women were essentially alike and only societal tradition caused the observed differences in behavior and acumen.

As we progressed forward in biological sciences we began to understand how wrong that thesis was - ( i.e. "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus). However, the large group of voters that gradutated from college with these twisted ideas firmly formed in their brains continues to effect public policy.

It is not that any single marriage is hurt by what amounts to an undefining of marriage, its that the institution as a whole is cut down. The stability of any society depends monumentally on being able to reproduce a next generation.

Posted by: John Hansen on October 25, 2006 at 7:11 PM |

John Hansen wrote: "Its inevitable that anyone who is against this decision will be labeled a bigot by the knee-jerk, immature, 'progressive' 'thinkers' here."

Nah, just by a few of us who are less tolerant of idiots and bigots than some of the more polite folks here. The reason we call you a bigot is that you exhibit all of the signs of bigotry. If there is a valid reason to oppose same-sex marriage, I've yet to hear it, and I've been involved in dozens of these debates.

"I really don't understand the thinking that has gotten us to this point."

That's been evident for some time.

"In the 60's and 70's stupid and naive social scientists promulgated the bizarre opinion that men and women were essentially alike and only societal tradition caused the observed differences in behavior and acumen."

Nice oversimplification, there. And a nice irrelevant tangent.

"Should marriage be changed to allow same sex unions?"

Yup. Next question?

"It is a question that defies the imagination."

LOL.... Only if you have a seriously limited imagination. It doesn't really defy anyone's, of course, which is why it is a topic that is not going away and why same-sex marriage will eventually become the norm in the U.S.

"In order not to hurt the feelings"

Not really. "Hurt feelings" have nothing to do with fundamental rights.

"and alleviate the strange mostly hypothetical rights of a few,"

ROFL.... Gee, and you wonder why people call you a bigot? I don't see the need to comment any further on this sentence.

"it tramples some of the basic underpinnings of society."

Really? And your evidence for this is ... what, exactly?

"It is not that any single marriage is hurt"

No shit, Sherlock.

"by what amounts to an undefining of marriage,"

LOL.... Ah, so the union of two loving and caring individuals who promise to love and support each other until death does them part is somehow "undefining" marriage. Strange, I thought that was the definition of marriage. You must be using a different dictionary.

"its that the institution as a whole is cut down."

And your evidence for this is ... what, exactly?

"The stability of any society depends monumentally on being able to reproduce a next generation."

It's certainly an arguable point. Care to actually back it up? And once you've done that, care to tackle the much more difficult task of showing how same-sex marrage affects this in any significant way?

"This is dependent on the fostering of well established homes."

Ah, you mean like those with happy same-sex couples?

"The ignorance of those who think they can chip away at the foundations of society - and not make drastic changes in society - is astounding."

In contrast, I'm not even remotely astounded by the bigotry of fools and idiot. It is, alas, all too commonplace.

It is very hard to make a stand for a large principle. The anti-principle side can always bring up some specific hypothetical to unfairly appeal to the intellect and the emotions of the judges of the debate.

The principle of equality before the law except where there is a demonstrable reason for discrimination is not "anti-principle".

You want to discriminate in the law. You present a good reason for it, then.

While I admit that no currently made marriage would be hurt by allowing same-sex marriages, it would be another block removed from the edifice that is human society.

And I counter by saying instead that not restricting marriage choice would reinforce the edifice that is modern, free human society where people are free except when there is good cause to restrict that freedom, and equal except when there is good cause to make distinctions.

Why should I see it as a "block removed" from any edifice except the lingering ruin of oppressive, superstitious tyranny?

Do I have some magic wisdom which enables me to see which shuffling of the basic tenets is good, which is harmless and which will destoy society? - I do not.

So, the bottom line isn't that there isn't any reason that you can see to discriminate, or to limit human freedom, its just that you fear change?

BTW -nice parody of my writing style, it did not go unnoticed.

Huh?

There was a writing style?

Any bans on same-sex marriages should require that the person performing the ceremony at any marriage perform a gender check on both bride and groom prior to the ceremony. Good impersonators abound.

It is very hard to make a stand for a large prick. The anti-prick side can always bring up some specific hypodermic to unfairly squeal to the intellect and the emotions of the judges of the date. While I admit that no currently made marriage would be hurt by allowing same-sex marriages, it would be another cock removed from my edifice that is human insobriety.

Do I have some magic jism which enables me to see which shuffling of the basic testicles is good, which is harmless and which will best toy society? - I come not. I just think it makes nonsense to brazenly eclare that refining the flower of my love will have a net stocking affectation when so much is unknown about its erotica. I wish I could bite cleaner but this will have to doodoo for now. BFD -nice parody of my sexual style, it did not go unbuttoned.

John Hansen wrote: "It is very hard to make a stand for a large principle."

Actually, most people find that it isn't hard at all, particularly when that larger principle has to do with fairness and fundamental rights.

"The anti-principle side can always bring up some specific hypothetical to unfairly appeal to the intellect and the emotions of the judges of the debate."

Actually, what we can bring up is science, studies, and reality. The play to emotion is almost exclusive on your side, other than the appeal to basic fairness.

"While I admit that no currently made marriage would be hurt by allowing same-sex marriages, it would be another block removed from the edifice that is human society."

So you claim. Thus far, you have entirely failed to support this claim with anything resembling logic, reason, or data.

"Do I have some magic wisdom which enables me to see which shuffling of the basic tenets is good, which is harmless and which will destoy society? - I do not."

No shit. All you have is ignorance and bigotry and unsupported assertions.

"I just think it makes no sense to brazenly declare that redefining marriage will have a net positive effect when so much is unknown about it."

Actually, very little is unknown, since gay relationships have been studied for decades and gay marriages and civil unions have been available in several locations for years.

"I wish I could write clearer but this will have to do for now."

Trust me, you're never going to get any clearer. Your objection is not based on fact or reason; it's based on emotion and bigotry. You have nothing else and you will never have anything else.

Dicely,

BTW -nice parody of my writing style, it did not go unnoticed. -- Huh?

You usually write in a very clear, but almost legal brief fashion. I tend to be wordy and vague. I thought by starting off with what was a fragment you were mocking my overwordy style.

John Hansen wrote: "BTW -nice parody of my writing style, it did not go unnoticed."

To which, cmdicely wrote: "Huh?"

He was undoubtedly referring to Will's post above.

I stand corrected. Sheesh... I'll have to echo cmdicely's "huh?"

found at tpm,

October 25, 2006 -- 07:56 PM EST // link)

Cheney: Water-boarding is fine. "It's a no-brainer for me."
-- Josh Marshall

Katie was a beard? How delicious.

Can you imagine a straight man having anything to do with her?

I thought by starting off with what was a fragment you were mocking my overwordy style.

No, I was just doing my all to frequent (in blog comments, at any rate; more serious writing I review more carefully before setting it free) trick of not typing what I meant, putting "to" instead of "do you".

So, the bottom line isn't that there isn't any reason that you can see to discriminate, or to limit human freedom, its just that you fear change?

No, I see plenty of reason to discriminate, but most of that is reasoning which comes after faith. My basic understanding of the importance of preserving marriage comes from my Christian heritage. That is how I first arrive at this position.

But after accepting that premise by faith, I can go on to see the logic of it.

One of the first observations is the radically different way which men and women behave. I assume that this is built in to the basic way we were formed.

My deduction from this is that it is best for children to be raised by a combination of a father and a mother. This does not say that every random male and female will make better parents than any two males or any two females, but I think I can deduce from this that society ought to promote the union of man and woman as a family unit. Thus I have every right to discriminate based upon this.

For hundreds and hundreds of years this has been the way that society has gone forward. Now some intellectual theories have been put forward that same-sex marriage will raise children just as well and studied for not much time at all, and people want to declare that it only makes logical sense not to discriminate in this case?

Any bans on same-sex marriages should require that the person performing the ceremony at any marriage perform a gender check on both bride and groom prior to the ceremony. Good impersonators abound.

I think, to be rigorous, all people signing the marriage license as witnesses should affirm, under penalty of perjury, to personal inspection of both spouses.

I mean, what good are witnesses if they can't attest to what is, apparently, the principal qualification for marriage, the presence of the appropriate plumbing?

Definitely a bad time to be a gay Republican politician or political aide.

Is there a good time?

And given the increasing ingenuity of plastic surgery they should be required to consumate the marriage in front of a state-sanctioned board of expert witnesses.

I was going to post something witty and urbane on this thread re: gay relationships:

Then I read this post -

It is very hard to make a stand for a large prick.

I fell out of my chair and I hurt way too much to continue.

John Hansen wrote: "No, I see plenty of reason to discriminate, but most of that is reasoning which comes after faith."

In this case, that isn't "reasoning." It's based solely on faith and emotion, which places it outside the boundary of "reason."

"My basic understanding of the importance of preserving marriage comes from my Christian heritage. That is how I first arrive at this position."

Does your Christian heritage also require you to support the eight types of marriage documented in the Bible, including such innovations as concubines, polygamy, and the like?

"But after accepting that premise by faith, I can go on to see the logic of it."

But you cannot then go on to articulate that "logic." Why is that?

"One of the first observations is the radically different way which men and women behave. I assume that this is built in to the basic way we were formed."

So far, you have yet to document or support this "radically different way which men and women behave." Once you have done that, you can document how such "radically different" behavior is relevant to a discussion of same-sex unions.

"My deduction from this is that it is best for children to be raised by a combination of a father and a mother."

There are three problems with this: the first is that your "deduction" is not supported by the available data. The second is that child-rearing is not now, nor has it ever been in the United States, a prerequisite for marriage. The third is that same-sex couples will continue to raise children regardless of whether they are allowed to marry or not. Hence, your argument is both incorrect and moot.

"For hundreds and hundreds of years this has been the way that society has gone forward."

Which society? Different societies have had radically different definitions of marriages. It is simply false to pretend that marriage has always been the same or that it has not been redefined frequently in the past.

"Now some intellectual theories have been put forward that same-sex marriage will raise children just as well and studied for not much time at all, and people want to declare that it only makes logical sense not to discriminate in this case?"

This sentence makes no sense, I'm afraid. In any case, you are simply incorrect about the length of time that same-sex relationships and same-sex child-rearing has been studies. It is not "not much time at all;" it's decades.

PaulB

Please tell me, what are "has been studies"?

Disputo wrote: "Is there a good time?"

Not recently, certainly. The Log Cabin Republicans periodically raise the hope of changing the party from within and returning to a more Libertarian laizzes-faire attitude, but they are far outnumbered by the bigots.

John Hansen wrote: "Please tell me, what are "has been studies"?"

Typo. It should be "has been studied." I can easily find such studies dating back to the 1970s.

According to the Bible, the following marriages are all good and proper (courtesy of religioustolerance.org):

1. Polygamous Marriage -- including Esau, Jacob, Ashur, Gideon, Elkanah, David, Solomon, Rehoboam, Abijah, Jehoram, Joash, Ahab, Jeholachin, Belshazzar. Herod also had multiple wives, but I suppose that's hardly an endorsement of the practice.

2. Levirate Marriage -- A woman who was widowed without leaving a son would be required to leave her home and marry her brother-in-law.

3. A man, a woman, and her female slave -- Abram, Sarah, and Hagar, where Sarah gave Hagar, her slave, to Abram so that he could father an heir.

4. A man, one or more wives, and some concubines -- A man could keep numerous concubines in addition to one or more wives. The Bible makes it quite clear that these were of lower status than wives and could be dismissed when no longer wanted. Many of the polygamists above also had one or more concubines.

5. A male soldier and a female prisoner of war -- e.g., the Midianites.

6. A male rapist and his victim -- According to Biblical authority, a female virgin who is not engaged to be married and who has been raped must marry her attacker, after he pays her father 50 silver shekels.

7. A male and female slave -- A slave owner was free to assign female slaves to male slaves as wives.

Naturally, John Hansen supports all of these, right?

So what does the Bible say about same-sex marriage? Nothing.

PaulB

By pointing out your typo I was just pointing out your unwillingness to try and parse my last sentence in my argument. To be clearer it should have read something like -

Now some intellectual theories have been put forward that same-sex marriages will raise children just as well as man-woman marriages, and this proposition has been studied for not much time at all. It surprises me that people take such little evidence and declare that there is no logical argument against there position.

BTW - decades is a very short time in the course of effects which take more than one generation to become noticeable. We are not dealing here with something that can be measured in a short time span. We are talking about what makes a society sustainable. No experiment lasting decades can answer this question. History helps us though. I believe that part of the fall of the Roman empire was the lax morals regarding sexual morality and the decline of the family as a unit.

I believe that part of the fall of the Roman empire was the lax morals regarding sexual morality and the decline of the family as a unit.

No,no, no

It's worth noting again that all of the arguments being bandied around today regarding same-sex marriages were also raised 50 years ago with respect to interracial marriages.

1. Biblical support for the prohibition? Check.

2. Assertions about attempting to "redefine" marriage? Check.

3. Accusations of "activist judges?" Check.

4. Widespread popular opposition to such marriages? Check.

5. Attempts to pass a Constitutional amendment prohibiting such marriages? Check.

6. Vague assertions about the breakdown of society? Check.

7. Vague assertions about "harming" the institution of marriage? Check.

8. Assertions about the supposed "harm" to children of an interracial marriage? Check.

There is literally nothing new in the argument we are having on this subject.

I believe that part of the fall of the Roman empire was the lax morals regarding sexual morality and the decline of the family as a unit.

Yes, hedonism is what emptied the treasury. It wasn't all that war-making expenditure.

A man, a woman, and her female slave

Sounds fun. Who do I write to for more information?

John Hansen wrote: "By pointing out your typo I was just pointing out your unwillingness to try and parse my last sentence in my argument."

John, I knew precisely what you were trying to say. My comments above still stand. Everything you have written today is directly contradicted by the available data.

"Now some intellectual theories have been put forward that same-sex marriages will raise children just as well as man-woman marriages, and this proposition has been studied for not much time at all."

My response still stands, John. 30 years is not "not much time at all." In fact, it is ample time to reach fairly decisive conclusions.

"It surprises me that people take such little evidence and declare that there is no logical argument against there position."

The fact that you appear to be wholly unaware of the quantity or the substance of the available evidence is a sign of your own ignorance, John, not a sign of the lack of evidence.

"BTW - decades is a very short time in the course of effects which take more than one generation to become noticeable."

Sigh.... Not when it comes to matters like this. If a child is going to be materially impacted by being raised by a same-sex couple, such damage is almost certainly going to show up in the first two decades. After that, the influence and impact of such a rearing is slim to none, overwhelmed by other factors.

Moreover, since same-sex couples will continue to rear children, regardless of whether they are allowed to marry or not, and since child-rearing is not a requirement for marriage, your argument is still entirely moot.

"We are not dealing here with something that can be measured in a short time span."

Actually, we are, if you're talking about the impact of same-sex couples on child-rearing. If you want to talk about some nebulous societal harm, you'll have to do a hell of a lot better than you have done thus far.

"We are talking about what makes a society sustainable."

No, actually, we're not. You have made some wild assertions in this direction, but you have entirely failed to support them.

"No experiment lasting decades can answer this question."

LOL.... Gotta love this Catch-22. Since we cannot study it, we cannot have it, and since we cannot have it, we cannot study it! Heads, I win; tails, you lose.

"History helps us though."

It does, indeed, since we are not even remotely the first society to allow same-sex marriages and relationships.

"I believe that part of the fall of the Roman empire was the lax morals regarding sexual morality and the decline of the family as a unit."

ROFL.... No comment necessary, other than to point out that your "belief" in this matter is not supported by any available evidence.

Yup,those Romans may have gone broke, but they dressed well and looked faaabuuulous!

How many comments about the "way things are" or "have always been" constitute a clear refutation of the premise "Everyone has 20-20 hindsight". The willfully blind were always exempt.

A typical traditional wedding vow (the typos are in the original):

Groom: I call upon all present to witness that I take you to be my lawful wedded wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health while we both shall live.

Bride: I call upon all present to witness that I take you to be my lawful wedded husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health while we both shall live.

Officiant: (Groom) will you take (Bride) to be your lawful wife, will you love her, honor and keep her in sickness and in health and forsaking all others keep only unto her so long as you both shall live.

Groom: I will. I (Groom) take you, (Bride) to be my lawful wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health while we both shall live.

Officiant: (Groom) will you take (Bride) to be your lawful wife, will you love her, honor and keep her in sickness and in health and forsaking all others keep only unto her so long as you both shall live.

Bride: I will. I (Bride) take you, (Groom) to be my lawful husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health while we both shall live.

Can anyone point me to any part of this wedding vow that could not be stated by a same-sex couple? That would necessitate a complete "redefinition" to be used by a same-sex couple?

John Hansen on October 25, 2006 at 8:39 PM:

We are not dealing here with something that can be measured in a short time span.

Yet it is possible to deduce that "it is best for children to be raised by a combination of a father and a mother" versus parents of the same sex...Do you realize you just admitted that you have no valid data to support your conclusion, John?

We are talking about what makes a society sustainable...

You must have missed that 300-million US population mark announced recently.

I believe that part of the fall of the Roman empire was the lax morals regarding sexual morality and the decline of the family as a unit.

Then you also admit that you lack knowledge of history as well...Here's a wee primer for you. Note some interesting parallels to current times in the theories cited.

Disputo wrote: "Sounds fun. Who do I write to for more information?"

Well, first you have to find a woman with a slave. After that, I'd suggest talking to John Hansen, since he is obviously prepared to support you since such relationships have Biblical support.

I believe that part of the fall of the Roman empire was the lax morals regarding sexual morality and the decline of the family as a unit.

Funny, I believe it was due to a number of factors, not the least of which were the the draining of the public treasury in support of foreign wars, corrupt politicians who lined their own pockets, and reliance on mercenary troops. Sound familiar?

I love your romanticized notion of the Roman family, though. Did you know that family members were often sold into slavery, that unwanted babies were killed by exposure, and that marriage was based primarily on economics and politics and not love or "family values"? Mmmm, nuthin' like the good 'ol days.

What's interesting is that John Hansen is dancing around an assertion that our dear friend Chuckles made some time ago: that society would die out if same-sex relationships were allowed because everyone would want to be in a same-sex relationship and we'd have no more children. Establishing the silliness of such an assertion is left as an exercise to the reader.

John, of course, has not jumped quite that far off the deep end, but he's definitely getting there. Note the assertions about "what makes a society sustainable." If same-sex marriages are permitted, somehow that is going to lead to fewer children and an unsustainable society that will eventually die off?! The mind boggles.

Windhorse wrote: "and that marriage was based primarily on economics and politics and not love or "family values"? Mmmm, nuthin' like the good 'ol days."

Yup, which just exposes the ultimate silliness of the argument about the "redefinition" of marriage and the silliness of the assertion by others that marriage has "always" been the way it is today. Marriage has been "redefined" countless times over the years and it has been wildly different in any number of societies over that same time period.

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Let's go back to John's first sentence here: "Its inevitable that anyone who is against this decision will be labeled a bigot by the knee-jerk, immature, 'progressive' 'thinkers' here."

Knee-jerk? Check. Immature? The jury's still out, but I would argue that writing such a sentence as your first introduction on this thread is hardly a sign of "maturity." Thinker? Clearly not.

So ... bigot? Yup, by the standard dictionary definition of that word.

Well, first you have to find a woman with a slave. After that, I'd suggest talking to John Hansen, since he is obviously prepared to support you since such relationships have Biblical support.

Excellent. I never dreamed that my fav sex fantasy passed biblical muster. I'll get on this right away.

There is a lot about Andrew Sullivan that I find deplorable, but he has penned a few essays on this topic that I feel are worthy of consideration. Two of them are:

Marriage or Bust

Here Comes the Groom

Take a few minutes tonight and read them.

My favorite argument against same-sex marriage is that gay people can marry just like straight people, they can marry people of the opposite sex, because sham marriages are good for the institution.

The facts are that there are couples who have been together, live as married couples, their entire communities (including churches and synagogues) accept them as married, they have children together, some even have grandchildren-- and they pose a danger to marriage how?

I hate to bring up examples like this one, but we don't ban murderers or rapists or child molesters from marrying or having children but same-sex couples are going to destroy marriage?

Sorry, but the people who are "destroying marriage" (aka redefining it) are straight people. Modern marriage is now defined as a relationship between equals, women are not the property of men and neither are children, which is how the door to same-sex marriage was opened in the first place.

No, I see plenty of reason to discriminate, but most of that is reasoning which comes after faith.

Really, that how come you present none of that reason? Even if faith plays a role in developing your reasons, you ought to be able to state this.

My basic understanding of the importance of preserving marriage comes from my Christian heritage.

We're not arguing about the "importance of preserving marriage", we're arguing about whether excluding partners of the same sex from being in the same marriage is actually preserving marriage.

That is how I first arrive at this position.

I don't really care if you arrived at the position by having fairies plant ideas in your head. How you came to it is irrelevant: what is relevant is the reasons you can present to justify the discrimination you advocate.

But after accepting that premise by faith, I can go on to see the logic of it.

What you present bears only distant resemblance to "logic", and its premises are often suspect or outright factually mistaken.

One of the first observations is the radically different way which men and women behave.

The differences between individuals within each of the groups "men" and "women" are far more significant than the differences between the groups; ergo, while the general differences between the way men tend to act and the way women tend to act might, arguably, suggest that in general a marriage (presuming, for a moment, strict monogamy for simplicity's sake) will work better if one partner is a man and one is a woman, they present no reasonable basis for an absolute restriction of marriage to one man and one woman, or to situations of one man and one or more women, or one or more men and one women, or one or more men and one or more women.

I assume that this is built in to the basic way we were formed.

Certainly, some of it has an innate component, though much sexual difference in typical behavior is a product of social milieu and differs in different social contexts.

My deduction from this is that it is best for children to be raised by a combination of a father and a mother.

That conclusion does not follow, at all, from its premises. Some of the reasons are already mentioned above in the notes on the various premises you cite, but nothing in any of them says anything about raising children in the first place, so your jump to this is completely unjustified leap of assumption, not anything that can fairly be called a "deduction".

This does not say that every random male and female will make better parents than any two males or any two females, but I think I can deduce from this that society ought to promote the union of man and woman as a family unit.

But, as you note, at best your argument might point loosely toward such pairs being desirable as a kind of vague generality, not in every specific case; who are you to say that the natural inclinations of attraction (and remember that heterosexual orientation is quite the majority) don't correspond well both the the generality that such pairs are usually the best, and at the same time correspond better than any blanket rule could to the exceptions to that general rule? IOW, even granting that, as is certainly the best you could ever remotely argue from the premises you've stated, mixed-sex pairs are usually the best monogamous partnerships for marriage, simply allowing people the choice to marry who they choose is in any way worse than permitting only mixed-sex pairs?

Thus I have every right to discriminate based upon this.

No, you haven't provided anything like a justification for public discrimination against mixed-sex pairs here.

For hundreds and hundreds of years this has been the way that society has gone forward.

"Hundreds and hundreds"? So what? Over the thousands of years of human society, there have been many, many different marriage and similar arrangements used in many different societies. Some of which, even before the modern era, have included same-sex pairings (some of which were of opposite socially constructed gender, some not.)

The enslavement of blacks by those of European descent, too, was a formalized discrimination that, by the time it was abolished, had been how society had functioned for "hundreds and hundreds" of years, and which all kinds of vague justifications could be marshalled, but which ultimately boiled down to bigotry.

Now some intellectual theories have been put forward that same-sex marriage will raise children just as well

I dunno about you, Mr. "Christian heritage", but in the Christian community I'm from, while we certainly hold that openness to children is a component to the complete mutual giving associated with marriage, and of course raising any children that do come along is an important duty of parents, the fundamental central, indispensable, core purpose of marriage is a partnership of mutual service between the partners, not raising children.

and studied for not much time at all, and people want to declare that it only makes logical sense not to discriminate in this case?

No, again, you've got it backwards. You need supported reasons (not assumptions) to justify public discrimination—the absence of discrimination where none is demonstrably justified is the core of the principles of freedom and equality.

When you argue for public discrimination based on assumptions, not supportable reasons, don't be surprised when people call you a bigot.

BTW - decades is a very short time in the course of effects which take more than one generation to become noticeable.

Well, once you've got those longer studies that justify the discrimination you are arguing for on the basis simply of unsubstantiated assumptions at the present, then you can make a legitimate argument.

I believe that part of the fall of the Roman empire was the lax morals regarding sexual morality and the decline of the family as a unit.

That's about as reasonable as believing the extinction of the dinosaurs came from the same cause.

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Donald, you're wasting your time. MMF is undoubtedly an automated spam posting and the owner of that script couldn't care less whether he's annoying anyone or not.

cmdicely wrote: "That's about as reasonable as believing the extinction of the dinosaurs came from the same cause."

LOL... What I wouldn't give to see Gary Larson's take on that....

Daaamn...Note to self: nothing pisses Dicely off more than a poorly constructed argument...

PaulB Did you seee the Far Side I linked earlier?

How about this "argument" then?

A: All homosexual acts are evil.

B: All same-sex marriages are homosexual acts (at least 99%).

C: All same-sex marriage is evil.

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Here it is again. The link was on another thread.

Hansen, you are making assertions not in evidence. you are welcome to hold any damned fool notion you want. You can worship at Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster for all I care. Just admit that the positions you hold are your opinion and not assertions of fact. That is all you have to do to gain a scintilla of credibility, you know.

Paul B:

This gets so tiresome, doesn't it? Every time there is any progress made on recognizing the essential bigotry against gay relationships being legally recognized for what they are and have been for some time now we get the so called traditionalist argument with the logic faith does not explain but somehow shows the way to. Yet we cannot be told what that explanation/reasoning/logic is without referencing that faith. A perfect circle which is the very definition of faith based reasoning. You cannot argue against it and to point out its inherent circular unsupported nature is to be called a religious bigot yourself. Complete and utter irrational emotion being cloaked as reason that does not care what harm it does so long as it is pandered to.

You have as usual whenever this crap comes up done a superb job of lancing the boils being passed off as reasoning, as have cmdicely, grape crush, and Global Citizen. For a group that claims to be following the words of Christ, a man noted for his love, respect, and refusal to judge his fellow human beings these so called defenders of traditional Christian heritage are really showing themselves for the false followers that they truly are. They get all Old Testament on everyone while claiming to bask in the love of God, a warm love whose message came from Christ and not the Old Testament. What always gets me most about these false Christians is how poorly they understand the contents of the Holy Book that they claim to follow so closely because it is the literal word of God and especially the acts and the message of the man in whom they profess their Faith in as Christians. Their message of hate and contempt for their fellow man and their willingness to judge and harshly all those that are different betrays the heart of the teachings of Christ. That has always sickened me about how such self described noble defenders of the faith from we godless secular heathens out to destroy all of God's works are in truth describing themselves and will never see it, until it is too late, if even then.

Lord, I hope that last John Hansen post was a parody.

"How about this 'argument' then?"

I'm glad you put that word in quotes since what you provide is not, in fact, an argument.

"A: All homosexual acts are evil."

And the evidence for this is ... what, exactly? And how are you defining "evil?" And why is this relevant to the discussion?

"B: All same-sex marriages are homosexual acts (at least 99%)."

Not even remotely, since sex is not now, nor has it ever been, a requirement for marriage.

"C: All same-sex marriage is evil."

LOL... No comment necessary. As I said, I hope that was a parody, since if not, it is ample confirmation of your bigotry.

I fixed it for you, Hansen:

A: All homosexual acts are evil.

B: All Homosexuals were created by God.

C: Therefore God is evil.

Nope. "Good" and "Evil" is not dependent on "faith". Neither is "murder", "stealing", etc.

I can play the sylogism game too - although I have misgivings about any game involvig -gism on this thread.

Oh but they are faith constructs. That you can not see this is frightening.

Let's take murder as an inherent evil. What about justifiable homicide? Legal after all does not automatically equate with ethical. Your Christ implored you to turn the other cheek. So where does justifiable homicide come into the equation?

A: All premarital sex is evil.

B: All dating involves at least some level of premarital sex (at least 99%)

Therefore;

C: All Dating is evil

Syllogisms are fun, particularly when you misleading reduce a complex enterprise down to one element in order to attack and condemn it. Using that method you can construct an argument for just about anything being "evil."

Scotian wrote: "This gets so tiresome, doesn't it?"

Yes. I haven't seen anything new on this topic in years. It's just the same tired, old, rehashed, and long discredited arguments over and over again, ad nauseam. I find it interesting that I'm somehow not supposed to call a bigot a bigot, even when they quite clearly are, as is the case with John Hansen.

"Every time there is any progress made on recognizing the essential bigotry against gay relationships being legally recognized for what they are and have been for some time now we get the so called traditionalist argument with the logic faith does not explain but somehow shows the way to."

It really comes down to the same thing every time -- "it's wrong because I believe it's wrong." Now if that's the position, I can at least understand it, even if I don't agree with it. And I certainly cannot argue with it, since matters of faith, by their very nature, are largely immune to logic, reason, or data.

Where they fail is when they try to find a justification, any justification, for their attitude so that they don't have to admit to their bigotry (although some of them are unabashedly and unashamedly bigots, so that doesn't always apply). Logic goes out the window; data doesn't enter into it; it's nothing but appeals to emotion and vague, wholly unsupported assertions about some unverified harm, either to children or to society or both. And when you try to pin them down, you ultimately get nothing, as we did here. It definitely gets tiresome, but still rewarding when you can conclusively establish the bankrupt nature and the inherent bigotry of their arguments, not to mention exposing their ignorance of the available data.

"You have as usual whenever this crap comes up done a superb job of lancing the boils being passed off as reasoning"

That's why I do this. I don't have a prayer of convincing John Hansen of, well, anything. He's a bigot, he has always been a bigot, and he will continue to remain a bigot. I'm just passing along information that can be cut and pasted elsewhere in other debates of this nature.

"What always gets me most about these false Christians is how poorly they understand the contents of the Holy Book that they claim to follow so closely because it is the literal word of God and especially the acts and the message of the man in whom they profess their Faith in as Christians."

Yup. The bottom line about the Bible is that, to the best of my knowledge, everyone picks and chooses which Biblical restrictions, injunctions, and directives they follow. There might conceivably be an ultra-conservative Orthodox Jew somewhere who can legitimately claim to follow the Old Testament teachings religiously (no pun intended), but I'm skeptical of even that. Everyone else, even those fundamentalists who believe that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, pick and choose, sometimes without even knowing that they are doing so. That's one of the reasons I routinely post the information about the types of marriage supported in the Bible.

Once you have this fact firmly in mind, the question becomes, "Why should your picking and choosing be given any more weight than my picking and choosing, particularly since the Bible is resolutely silent on the subject of same-sex relationships (other than the three or so that are spoken of approvingly)?" And, of course, why should a Biblical admonition carry any weight in a secular society, absent any data to support that admonition?

Cmdicely, as usual, cuts to the heart of the matter: if you want to deny someone their fundamental civil rights, you have to have a good reason for doing so. The burden of proof is on those who wish to deny this right. Thus far, they have entirely failed to meet this burden.

The one thing that sustains me is that all indications are that this is temporary and that the bigots will die off and be replaced by their more tolerant offspring. It won't happen in my generation, perhaps not even in the next generation, but almost certainly in the generation after. In the meantime, the bigots can do, and have done, a lot of damage, particularly around state constitutional amendments, but they have still failed to stop the tide and they are likely to continue to fail to do so.

My very favorite syllogism of all time:

A: God is love

B: Love is blind

therefore,

C: Ray Charles is God.

Windhorse, and don't forget the one about marriages:

A. Adultery and divorce are evil.

B. Most marriages will experience one or the other or both.

Therefore:

C. All marriage is evil.

Ludicrous, isn't it?

PaulB - I like to argue biblical translations with them, the evolving nature of language, the fact that no translation is ever 100%, maybe the original authors were divinely inspired, but what about the translators?

Between us, I think we got the bases covered.

John Hansen wrote: "Nope. 'Good' and 'Evil' is not dependent on 'faith'."

Actually, they are, which is why certain acts are "evil" based on one religious view and "neutral" or even "good" based on another. Now if you want to argue that there are certain acts that are intrinsically good or evil, regardless of any religious basis, you might be able to come up with a debatable point, but you will not be able to do with homosexuality.

Global Citizen wrote: "I like to argue biblical translations with them, the evolving nature of language, the fact that no translation is ever 100%, maybe the original authors were divinely inspired, but what about the translators?"

Oh my, yes. We didn't even have to go there this time since Hansen didn't bring it up, but the Biblical injunctions on homosexuality are classic examples of the problem of Biblical translation, since few of them stand up to any sort of rigorous scrutiny.

>>> This was a legal decision, not a legislative decision. The court has to follow the law as it stands, and you simply can't make a serious case that same-sex marriage is a "deeply rooted" tradition. I don't like it either, but I think they interpreted the law correctly.

Kevin, What you've stumbled over here is the importance of how broadly or narrowly the issue is defined. If you define as "deeply rooted in tradition" marriage between a man and a woman, then yes, same-sex marriage is not deeply rooted in tradition. But if you simply define marriage between two people as that which is "deeply rooted in tradition," then the genders of those involved are rendered irrelevant.

Look at Bowers v. Hardwick. Justice Burger, in the first paragraph of the decision (if I recall correctly), defined the issue as whether homosexual sodomy was protected in the Constitution. Well, framed like that, then of course it's not. Could he have framed the issue more broadly? Such as whether sexual relations between consenting adults are protected? Of course.

An article I read somewhere along the line wondered how the wiretap case that established "reasonable expectation of privacy" (I forget the case name -- someone help me out!) would've come out if, instead of looking at whether there was a reasonable expectation of privacy in telephone calls, the court had looked at whether there was a reasonable expectation of privacy when making calls to bookies from public pay phones.

Anyway, you get the point (I hope) -- what you're saying is a reasonable argument, Kevin. But it ain't the only one.

Yeah Paul, I almost posted that old saw but I wanted to be a little inventive. I mean, most people find dating pretty innocuous and yet when pressed, many "decent" people will decry premarital sex.

I was hoping to illustrate the ridiculous choices you can be faced with when making these silly arguments.

Even if you believe homosexual acts are evil, the truth is that people cannot be reduced to their sexual acts. The obscenely anti-Christian thing about that kind of thinking is that it utterly rejects and makes a mockery of the intrinsic value of God's creation in man.

By reducing someone's total moral value to their sexuality and then condemning it, you are essentially denying all the enormous good and beauty in that person, and pretending those God-given qualities don't exist. A false image is created in place of the real person who has been created in the image of God, just to satisfy a self-righteous urge that itself usually comes from a place of hatred, judgment, or fear.

Windhorse wrote: "By reducing someone's total moral value to their sexuality and then condemning it, you are essentially denying all the enormous good and beauty in that person, and pretending those God-given qualities don't exist. A false image is created in place of the real person who has been created in the image of God, just to satisfy a self-righteous urge that itself usually comes from a place of hatred, judgment, or fear."

Nothing to add to this; just wanted to note that I loved it and may steal ... er ... borrow it someday.

PaulB - I addressed Biblical Literalism at length over a year ago. You might enjoy it.

That's right, you have to borrow it. If you steal it that would make you an evil "stealer" -- which would force us to disqualify you from getting married...applying for a driver's license in the state of Nevada. ;)

After all, driving is a "deeply rooted tradition" that goes back all the way to the time of chariots....

"or applying" that should read

I already cannot get married, Windhorse, since I'm one of those "evil" gay men that Hansen so despises. I think that gives me free rein to indulge in those other lesser sins, since I'm already going to Hell.

G.C., good essay. I doubt it would convince a literalist, since they would simply maintain that yes, the various translations, even the ones that conflict, are, in fact, guided by God, even if the translators themselves did not know it. It's depressing how few of those people really have read the Bible and have taken the time to try to understand the message, the context, and the historical and cultural perspective of the various passages and books.

On an unrelated topic, I think there's one of those "small world" moments between us, G.C., since I used to live in Kansas City in the mid-1970s and early 1980s, and dated a woman (before I came out, obviously) who was a nurse at Research Medical Center.

Is she still a nurse at Research? If so the odds are really good that I have made her cry.

(Did you catch my crack about my Uncle Billy and Aunt Richard? They provided the model my marriage has been built on.)

When men like Hansen are do vehement in their hatred, me thinks they do protest too much.

Thanks for the compliment, by the way.

Lord, I hope that last John Hansen post was a parody.

Thanks PaulB for recognizing that someone was forging my name. All the John Hansen posts from that post at 10:00 until this post were someone faking. I thought it was an obvious fake also.

Sigh... that's all too common a problem here, alas. Some of the parodies work and are funny. Most are not. And the Al and American Hawk trolls are really getting tired.

I'm starting to come round to the viewpoint that Kevin should start having authenticated users. It wouldn't stop all of the trolling, but at least it would stop crap like the forgeries in this thread.

G.C., I don't know. I lost touch with her years ago.

PaulB - I post with a real, working email. Now I'm curious. If you want, email her name to me.

Global:

> I can play the sylogism game too - although I have misgivings
> about any game involvig -gism on this thread.

*chuckle* I'll never look at the word
"syllogism" the same way again :)

Anyway ... I'd like to move beyond the issue on principle (needless
to say, I support equal human rights for all) to examine for a minute
the political implications of the ruling in the upcoming election.

It's actually a very politically astute ruling. It's going
to be hard to demagogue as the work of "activist judges,"
because it explicitly directs the legislature to decide on the
question of gay marriage. The minority dissented on that (I think
correctly), but the majority made a good point that a court can't,
in itself, grant social acceptance. That cut the legs out from
under one of the key right-wing talking points in this debate.

It's going to be a wash vs a vis Kean and Menendez. Kean (or
Menendez, for that matter) can inveigh against gay marriage all they
want; the legislature has 180 days to put that question to voters.
But Tom Kean Jr. is *not* going reject a position favored not only
by the majority of NJ voters -- but also by George W. Bush. Perhaps
that might play in one of those buttfuck (heh) states, but not in
socially progressive NJ. The legislature will ultimately decide
the definition of marriage and whether civil unions shall remain
for the time being "separate but equal" from marriage.

On a broader level, it separates the notion of "protecting marriage"
(which I personally believe is absurd, but which public opinion
polls and the success of recent state referenda show is a popular
position) from the notion of granting equal rights to all. Sure,
it's a semantic argument which will madden conservatives -- who will
call the quest for civil unions a stalking-horse for gay marriage.
But it frames the issue helpfully. It's very easy to want to protect
something valuable and treasured. It's a bit more difficult to look
on a class of people and deny them rights because of who they are.

This undercuts periennial African-American resentment at the gay
community's use of the rubric of civil rights to argue for gay
marriage. Churchly African-Americans feel that skin color is
not something one can hide from, but that the gay "lifestyle" is
"chosen" -- therefore the equation is as invalid as it would be
for extending equal rights to, say, sexual predators or murderers.
Civil unions do not recognize that gays are "the same" as everyone
else and deserve the right to marry. It merely codifies a set of
legal privileges for people who behave in a certain way that's not
criminal. While sure, you could argue that there's precious little
difference in calling it "marriage," it does make the issue easier
to frame in terms of granting equal rights to a class of citizens.
The issue is no longer "they're going to cheapen and demean the
meaning of marriage." The issue is "they're goint to grant civil
rights to a group that has suffered centuries of discrimination."

It's going to be hard to mobilize conservative voters to turn out
to vote on this issue, when the NJ legislature has directed them
to do just that. The ruling presents no grave threat of redefining
the cornerstone of civilization by judicial fiat (as could be
argued if the minority opinion had full sway). The right's going
to try to twist this, but every time they say the phrase "gay
marriage," we respond with "equal rights." Sure, they're desperate
this cycle and they'll huff and they'll puff and they'll try to
demagogue the pants off this thing. But we can respond in a calm,
cool way that the NJ court has merely directed the people to decide.

Bob

I already cannot get married, Windhorse, since I'm one of those "evil" gay men

You're not one of the "good" ones? ;)

Yeah, I know that you're gay. An underlying assumption of my lame attempt at humor was actually that everyone has the right to marry but I was arbitrarily denying you that right on the basis of some peccadillo particularly repugnant to me.

From a Christian perspective, marriage is the one sacrament in which the conferers are also the conferees. In other words, the sacrament of marriage is given by two people to each other and not bestowed upon them by a priest or minister, who is there simply to witness and officiate. So broadly speaking (with all sorts of qualifiers, I know, Chris) the All-That-Is recognizes the pure intent of two individuals wishing to enter into matrimony no matter what the state might think.

Because there is a reality more fundamental then the law, the state can refuse to recognize gay marriages all it wants, that doesn't change the fact that individuals are entering into same-sex marriages that are valid and real in the eyes of God, in my opinion. Sacramental authority comes from God, and what God hath joined let no man put asunder.

Another observation:

I love how the social wingnuts huff and puff against Roe v Wade by saying it's not right for the federal courts to decide this for everybody, and that the states should be allowed to decide abortion.

... but then ...

When the issue turns to an anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment -- it's the opposite. "This is too important to let each individual state decide ... "

Federalism in the case of Roe -- Statism in the case of gay marriage.

Which goes to show that "judicial activism" is only a matter of whose ox is being gored.

Bob

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ATTENTION WORLD:

If the Republicans miraculously win the election after everything that has happened in this country and the media claim that 'values voters' turned out in rage against gay marriage, you must realize that the elections are rigged.

The media is being given a script to explain away another stolen election.

This undercuts periennial African-American resentment at the gay
community's use of the rubric of civil rights to argue for gay
marriage. Churchly African-Americans feel that skin color is
not something one can hide from, but that the gay "lifestyle" is
"chosen" -- therefore the equation is as invalid as it would be
for extending equal rights to, say, sexual predators or murderers.
Civil unions do not recognize that gays are "the same" as everyone
else and deserve the right to marry.

from Bob

This arguement has always boiled my blood. As a gay man, I know that it would be possible for me to walk into a room and appear to everyone to just be a white man. Fine. But if I walk in holding my partner's hand a new identity is added. And I admit that holding his hand is a choice. However, if I were a black person, I could not walk into a room and be seen as a white person. So my question for the anti-gay African-American community is: Do you really want to walk into a room and be seen as a white person? I guess, if you subscribe to the above reasoning, the answer must be yes.

Daaamn...Note to self: nothing pisses Dicely off more than a poorly constructed argument...
Posted by: grape_crush

Which is precisely why I so enjoy his writing. Even in the rare circumstance when I don't completely agree with his stance, the clear-headed logical argument is such a pleasure.

I've already been flamed for my assertion that most of this really boils down to economics and that through most of recorded human history marriage has been a political and economic proposition rather than a romantic undertaking.

I haven't changed my mind on the issue.

I'm likely one of the least homophobic persons you could wish to meet. I've always maintained that the principle difference between heterosexual and homosexual relationships are the personal pronouns employed.

The decision in question repeatedly references economic benefits and that remains the root issue.

Michael Buchanan:

Oh I completely agree with you. If I were a gay man, I'd find the argument totally insufferable as well. I equate the quest for gay marriage as a simple extention of the civil rights this country has belatedly extended to women and blacks -- a seamless fabric of painfully gradual liberation in the name of full human equality.

It bugs the living hell out of me that we have to game this out and compromise in the name of not agitating the intolerant loonies in the upcoming election. As far as I'm concerned, the minority on the court is absolutely correct. "Separate but equal" is not equal.

In a way, this new decision -- the civil union option -- is like the Plessy v Ferguson compromise. It's only a way-station. In another generation or so when gay marriage has become fully accepted, we'll look back on it with some of the same contempt, I'm sure.

What it boils down to for social conservatives (of any race, but of especial resonance for blacks, since the black church was so instrumental in that civil rights struggle) is the issue of choice and free will. Nobody believes that a group should be oppressed because of who they are (hence the universal *cognitive* support for racial civil rights across the ideological spectrum), but to people who have been socialized into resisting "unnatural" sexual impulses -- they cannot consider those impulses part of who they are. They are externalized -- the work of the Devil, the weakness of the flesh, not a part of the immortal soul. Hence being gay is a "lifestyle choice," not an identity. This is also why the closet for these types is such an excrutiating torment. Being "that way" *cannot* be a part of who they are.

Have you ever heard of a website called mysecrets? It was in the NYT a month ago; set up by a Midwestern Prot fundementalist church, it's like a cyber-confessional booth. People log on and leave anonymous posts about their sins, listed by category. You should read the "sexual" thread -- the amount of closeted fundies appears enormous. Story after story of rising stars in the churches, pastors, pastors' assistants tormented by homosexual desires, some acted on, most not. These poor people have *no chance* of integrating these desires into their whole beings. To do so would mean to reject the teachings of their religion. What a crushing dilemma for them, seriously ...

African Americans also have an especial issue with a culture of both free sexuality and machismo that makes homosexual denial a serious problem. You've probably heard of "going on the DL," and the consequence this has for the wives and girlfriends of these crypto-bisexual men who wind up with AIDS from them. So it's especially ironic that the "lifestyle choice" dogma from Free Will Protestantism aids and abets this syndrome. Because these men have yet another excuse to deny "who they really are" -- to externalize it, point fingers at it, fervently deny it is a part of them.

And in so doing -- deny their own responsibility in unsafe sexual behavior.

What a colossal irony *that* is, eh.

Bob

My recent observations bring me to the following conclusion:

Homophobic people have no problem with gay sex, hell, they probably love it.

Homophobic people have a problem with honesty.

CFShep:

Oh I agree with you on both counts. Chris Dicely has always been one of my favorite posters; someone I learn most from. But in all honestly, he can tend to write his posts pretty fast (I'm sure he'd own up to this), so sometimes all those complex embedded clauses wind up a little like spaghetti code. I've stared at a few cmdicely posts for minutes at a time, trying to unravel the syntax and guess the missing and/or botched connective tissue.

Not a major sin when the content of his ideas and style of his arguments are so uniformly good -- but a venial sin, nonetheless.

As for marriage: No argument from me. The history of marriage is the history of an economic (and sometimes political) institution. Marrying for love didn't become a popular nostrum until the rise of the industrial bourgeoisie. Prior to the rise of a broad middle class, life was too solitary, poor, nasty, brutal 'n' short for sentimentality to have much to do with family life. You took your pleasure where you could find it. There was no childhood to speak of, either (another Victorian invention) -- the infant and childhood mortality rates were so high, kids were often not named for years.

I have my own pseudo-sociobiological theory of romantic love -- which is neither love itself nor sexual attraction, but rather a catalyst to draw people together outside of one's protective family, clan and trial circles, for the sake of expanding the gene pool. Only after life got stable and comfortable enough, could the vapors of such an affected affection (hee -- affectionate affectation?) be allowed its own space to develop -- as it can so easily turn so toxic to self and others (heartbroken suicide, jealous rage). So previously it was the property of the bards and the aristocracy -- until, once again, the rise of a broad middle class.

Well sheesh, I think that's quite enough on *that* subject for one message, don't you think?

Bob

That’s what so lurid about this decision. Here you have a Court not just being politically activist in the public policy sense; but being activist in the strategic sense. How exactly all the incidents of marriage are well within the courts purview – yet the nomenclature something to be left to the legislature?
Its like saying the court will rewrite the property laws to define all private property to be owned by the state; yet it will allow the legislature to come up with a new term for property (if it wishes).

This courant mealy in this culture war demonstrates two things:
#1. The shameless political-ization of the courts… beyond mere activism and into adroit players in manipulating public opinion.
#2. The absolute need for incidents of marriage clauses in all State constitutional amendments.

Most of those who oppose same-sex unions, whether marriage or "civil unions" (I'm talking to you, John Hansen), use the same language bigots used to deny interracial marriage 40 years ago. How did that work out?

John Hansen, do you think inter-racial marriage weakened the institution (whatever the hell that means)? The fact remains that common law requires government to bestow legal rights equally. The argument that same-sex couples don't qualify was the same argument opponents of inter-racial marriage used decades ago. It doesn't hold water.

Okay, here's a modest proposal (sorry if someone else has advanced it, above--didn't have time to read all of the posts): Let local or county governments simply get out of the "marriage" business and instead of issuing marriage licenses register domestic partnerships. Let the various churches and their analogues monopolize the "m" thing and get government out of the area in which it no longer belongs. Once the churches--and the churches alone--find themselves answerable to their constituents for same-sex marriage/no SSM, all citizens and residents will be able to vote with their feet on this issue instead of forcing it into the political arena. Too simple? Probably. But I can dream.

Here you have a Court not just being politically activist in the public policy sense; but being activist in the strategic sense.

Uh, no, Charlie (Cheney/Doug M/ThomASS/ThomASS1...), what the court decided was that legal rights bestowed upon married couples could not be denied to other couples because of sexual orientation. It's called common law. Look it up. The civil case asked them to look at it, and they decided. Just because their decision doesn't jive with your homophobia, doesn't make them "activist".

Did the NJSC try to write a new law? No, they asked the legislature to codify a law that did not deny these rights based on sexual orientation. It's what courts do, Charlie.

Of course, in your view, the court's only role is to decide elections in favor of Republicans. No activism there!

Fitz:

The only thing you wouldn't consider the manipulation of public opinion is public opinion you happened to agree with.

The court has *responded* to public opinion. The fact of the matter is that NJ has become accustomed to gay people. The court didn't create that; the culture did. So it's applying equal protection and coming up with a remedy that's bending over backwards to try to be sympathetic to the strong religious sentiment out there that would never accept the idea of gay marriage.

So it threw that issue to a plebiscite. What in god's grey earth is your problem with this?

Fitz -- sorry about it. Society is out of step with *you*. Since you're another intolerant religious fuck -- you won't be happy until the rest of *us* are forced to submit to *your* religious dogma.

Sorry, pal. Ain't gonna happen. Why don't you consider instead clawing yourself up into the 21st century and joining the rest of us?

Hey, *we're* tolerant people. We'll accept you just as you are just fine :)

Bob

Let local or county governments simply get out of the "marriage" business and instead of issuing marriage licenses register domestic partnerships. Let the various churches and their analogues monopolize the "m" thing and get government out of the area in which it no longer belongs.

This is absolutely correct. Inevitably, there will be churches that would agree to marry same-sex couples, and the rightards would be in a snit about that, as well.

MeLoseBrain?:

Fitzie isn't Charley. Fitzie is a Catholic grad student (I'm pretty sure) with a very, umm, distinctive way of expressing himself.

You can tell Fitzie, for instance, by all the typos. Guy can't spell for shit :)

Bob

"sorry about it. Society is out of step with *you*. Since you're another intolerant religious fuck -- you won't be happy until the rest of *us* are forced to submit to *your* religious dogma."

That’s why Mass. is sitting on a voter initiative to amend its constitution to role back the tyranny in that state huh?

Funny that this "up from the people" movement of yours keeps coming "down from the courts"

Meanwhile - you need to play games with what you call these new "unions" in order to not "upset" a culture that hasn’t bowed to the higher order of your 21st century.

I guess you got a first class ticket on the freight train of history…huh Bob?

Hey, *we're* tolerant people. We'll accept you just as you are just fine :)
Bob

Bob, you recently outeed "Guy" as the "Charlie/Cheney/Doug M/Thomas/Thomas1..." troll (interesting that we never heard from him again). Don't you think "Fitz" fits that profile?

Fitzie:

I'm not talking about Massachussetts; I know very little about the controversy there. I'm talking about New Jersy. NJ already has some of the toughest anti-discrimination laws on the books, as well as a civil partnership law. It's also a socially liberal state with some pockets of old ethnics who are doubtless livid on this issue, but otherwise the expanding suburban demographics favors the position on this issue that I articulated.

New Jerseyans don't take kindly to denying a class of people their civil rights. It's really that simple.

If you don't consider gay unions marriage -- don't call them marriage. You'll have an opportunity to vote on the question within 180 days.

Again -- just what exactly is so "activist" about this remedy?

Bob

“Cast in that light, the issue is not about the transformation of the traditional definition of marriage, but about the unequal dispensation of benefits and privileges to one of two similarly situated classes of people.”...

But (of coarse) the classes are not similarly situated in the least. Indeed, the court fails to distinguish the brute biology that fails to “situate” these distinct classes of people in any remotely similar way

Men and women are members of a class that can produce children. While any member of that class may not or cannot produce a child, they remain members of a class that can produce children. Same sex pairings can never produce children. They are members of a class that can never produce children. Therefore same sex “marriage” necessarily severs marriage from procreation. It both androgynizes the institution and separates it from any necessary link to childbearing.

Gosh Bob...

N.J. only recently enacted a domestic partner regime that denied significant right that married couples enjoy...

That was the legislature acting on its own accord...(perhaps with the expectations of people to compromise and still perserve marriage in word and law? ...No?)

Now here comes the courts saying ...you have to do even more....

Not democracy bob...not "up from the people" bob...Not grass roots bob.... not popular will bob....

This is being driven by the courts.
Thats activism...bob

Fitz:

Bullshit. Many gay couples raise children -- either from previous relationships before they discovered their sexual orientation or artificial insemination. Gay couples could also adopt. One of the main reasons those seven couples sued the state iuvolved acquiring precisely the sorts of benefits for childrearing already enjoyed by married couples.

Having a family is precisely why this is such a signficant issue on a state level. If gay couples were truly entirely "sterile" and "androgyous," they wouldn't care whether or not the state sanctioned them.

MeLoseBrain?:

No, not at all. "Guy's" mannerisms (and I wasn't the first to discover him) were identical to Charlie's. Fitz' style of typo-ing common words is likewise a dead giveaway that this is a different individual.

Bob

Fitz:

By that definition, Brown v Board of Education was "judicial activism."

It was also morally correct.

Once again -- the court merely ordered the legislature to draft a package for gay people of equal parity to straight people.

It's called equal protection under the law. Look it up in the Constitution; it appears in both the Fifth and the Fourteenth Amendments. Also in the NJ Constitution.

Fundamental rights don't submit to popular will -- because otherwise, they could be taken away by a mob. That's kind of why we have constitutions in the first place.

Activism, shacktivism. You just disagree with the decision, because you feel you have a religious imperative to deny people civil rights.

The Constitutions, federal and state, were written precisely to protect us from people like you.

Bob

Fundamental rights don't submit to popular will -- because otherwise, they could be taken away by a mob. That's kind of why we have constitutions in the first place."

Gosh Bob- But it was "popular will" that drafted and ratified those amendments to begin with???

We have constitutions in order to argue what is a "fundamental" right in the first place, they call it "popular sovereignty" or for you (the ill-educated) democracy...

"Activism, shacktivism. You just disagree with the decision, because you feel you have a religious imperative to deny people civil rights.

The Constitutions, federal and state, were written precisely to protect us from people like you."

Yep, the old "thou shall not steal" is a religious tenet also bob, (as well as damn good public policy) Same with marriage bob…damn good public policy.

You can call it a civil right, and assume the argument without having it (like the court did) All your doing is making it more likely that any compromise will be avoided precisely for fear of this kind of activism. (the 14th amendment & two more were adopted precisely with African-Americans in mind bob) & more states will adopt super DOMA amendments like eight more will this November.

Fundamental rights don't submit to popular will -- because otherwise, they could be taken away by a mob. That's kind of why we have constitutions in the first place.

The Constitutions, federal and state, were written precisely to protect us from people like you.

"Cut!" -- and that's a wrap! Thank you people for all your hard work, it's been a good thread. If this thing does well we'll see you all next year on "Son of Same-Sex Marriage."

Gay people can't have kids?

I guess that means the 8 gay couples in my neighborhood are raising...um, well, they look like children, they act like children, some of them go to school like children. Hmmm...oh, wait, I forgot, you don't give one shit about these children. You probably think they should be forcibly removed from these homes where they are loved and cared for because you don't like their parents because they fit into a CATEGORY that offends you. (If that isn't the very defintion of discrimination, I don't know what is.)

When you follow this kind of they-must-be-breeders-to-marry reasoning what you're really doing is seperating out ALL the heteroseuxals who can't or don't have biological children-- couples who don't want children, ones who need AI assistance, who have adopted children, etc.-- and putting them in the same camp as the all the gay folks. Because these families have more common with a lot of gay couples than your must-be-able-to-fuck-to-breed-to-be-married folks.

Surveys indicate that public attitude toward gay marriage changes based on question wording and whether the word "marriage" is used. Results like these (http://publicagenda.org/issues/red_flags.cfm?issue_type=gay_rights) suggest that many people are still wrestling with the implications of same-sex marriage, so surveys on this issue should be interpreted cautiously. Want to know more about what the public thinks about same-sex marriage and other issues surrounding gay rights? Check out Public Agenda’s Issue Guide on Gay Rights (http://publicagenda.org/issues/frontdoor.cfm?issue_type=gay_rights).

Public Agenda (http://publicagenda.org/index.cfm) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan group devoted to public opinion and public policy.

Fitz:

Why are you an enemy of gay people? Did a priest molest you too? If so, I am sorry.

Or maybe you are in the closet yourself and coming out strongly against gay marriage means that no one would ever suspect you are meeting in rest stops for anonomous gay sex. If so, I am sorry.

Maybe you are part of an organization that requires you to espouse these beliefs in order to be a member in good standing. If so, I am sorry.

If none of those things are true, then please tell me what you want me, as a gay person, to do? Would you accept secondary status in your own country? If so, I am sorry.

Zoe

(Follow the bouncing ball)

Men and women are members of a class that can produce children. While any member of that class may not or cannot produce a child, they remain members of a class that can produce children. Same sex pairings can never produce children. They are members of a class that can never produce children. Therefore same sex “marriage” necessarily severs marriage from procreation. It both androgynizes the institution and separates it from any necessary link to childbearing.

Mike

Self-pity is the worst kind of narcissism.

Yo Fitz,

Last time I checked, virgins can't produce children

Are you saying God is dead and could not give us a modern miracle?

Also, two lesbians have produced children using technology. So you are dead wrong.

And by the way, I prefer Michael. I am gay, ya know.

OK, that's it, as a Jew I am declaring on behalf of my people that we are taking our book back from the Christians. That includes all of OUR traditions that all the Christians now claim to be their own and are using to oppress other people. It is part of our tradition as Jews that we recognize that the world changes, that culture evolves, and that ideas about things like marriage change as well. A huge part of our history is discussing and debating that change and not making people of today prisoners of the past. People, as well as institutions, can and do change.

Marriage has probably changed more in the past 100 years or so than it ever has, it is only because we now view marriage as an equal partnership between two people that same-sex marriage is even a possibility. Women and children are no longer the property of men, men are no longer allowed to legally beat their wives and children and men are no longer the ones in charge.

The fact is that a lot of Christians talk about their beliefs as though those beliefs should be enshrined into law. But the fact is that the largest Jewish denomination in the US strongly supports and performs same-sex marriages, the 2nd largest is welcoming and in the process of doing the same. So why aren't our religious beliefs and practices enshrined into law?

Michael Buchanan:

Fitz's problem is that he's a militant Catholic :)

Fitz:

Here's the thing: People have a sentimental attatchment to the idea of marriage. When you frame the issue of gay rights in terms of gay marriage, people don't like this because they feel it's altering an institution that, granted, is an extremely important pillar of our society. So a goodly percentage of people will indeed vote to define marriage as they've always known it.

But something changes when you frame the question instead in terms of treating people equally. Most people aren't really homophobes, and an even greater number believe that gays are entitled to being protected against gay-bashing and most forms of workplace discrimination. In fact, most Christian conservatives will strongly repudiate the idea of discriminating against or oppressing gay people when asked. Nobody endorses treating people unequally based on who they are rather than what they do. And if what they do they keep to themselves -- few people are busybody enough to want to criminalize what goes on in people's bedrooms.

In fact, a lot of these people call themselves small-government conservatives.

So framed this way, civil unions is only a way to treat gay couples equally in terms of the benefits they need to raise children. The numbers might fall off a bit from the previous category, but there's still a majority of people who support civil unions. A much higher number than who would support gay marriage.

So if NJ finds a way to offer civil unions without endorsing gay marriage -- then this is in itself a compromise that honors the deep American value of fairness and non-discrimination without in any way jeopardizing what is fundamentally a religious institution.

This way everybody wins.

Everybody except the bigots who live to deprive other people of what they enjoy for themselves, that is.

And you know what? Same with the segregationists. Fuck them.

Bob

angry Jew:

Excellent post. Mazel tov.

Bob

Let the various churches and their analogues monopolize the "m" thing and get government out of the area in which it no longer belongs.

Uh, why? Historically, marriage has been at least as much of a civic function as religious function for most of the history of Western civilization. What basis is there for saying government doesn't belong in it? Sure, since the church/state split, the religious and civic institutions of marriage have diverged, as is to be expected, but neither the religious side nor the civic side has a naturally exclusive claim on the term "marriage".

You keep repeating the same thing but what you're saying doesn't make sense-- although you're right that there is "one class" of people who "produce children" and they're called women.

Biologically men have a role at the very beginning, clearly, but you don't and can't have children. So get over yourself and the fact that you cannot control the reproduction and marriages of others and find yourself a hobby or something.

The fact remains that there are couples who are married, who have been together for a long time, some who choose to raise children, and their families deserve the same rights and responsibilities as other families. (One of the families in the NJ case has been together for 35 years and has children AND grandchildren.) You don't have to like it or accept it but that isn't how the world or the law works.

cmdicely:

Don't nitpick :)

Bob

Sorry Zoe

It is impossible for a woman to bear a child without the aid of a man. The aid of another women is useless. Only the presence of a man & women pair can produce offspring that is the natural child of those two individuals.
It is properly understood to say that redefining marriage to include same sex couples necessarily separates it from childbearing.
This is so because it opens it to a class (same-sex couples) that are everywhere and always incapable of childbearing. While maintaining the present definition limits marriage to the class of men and women that is the only distinct class that can produce children.
Its not terribly complicated - people understand it intuitively and support it in vast numbers. Few courts thus far have reasoned otherwise.
The states interest in marriage largely hinges on its focus on the bearing and rearing of children. So far it has chosen to offer those protections and benefits to a limited class of people. In this case those of the class capable of childbearing.

This is solidly objective. The term necessarily is a philosophical one. It means it follows by means of internally consistent logic by definition. The class of people marriage is reserved for can produce children (as a class) While same -sex couples cannot produce children.(as a class)
As marriage currently is defined it is reserved to the one class of people that can produce children

If we add to the definition of marriage a class of people (same-sex couples) that everywhere and always cannot bear children...it becomes impossible to state "marriage is necessarily related to childbearing"
This reasoning is philosophically unassailable enough to be reduced to a logical proof.
Now- you are correct to say that I have a bias. The bias I am illustrating is one that wishes to maintain the necessary connection of marriage to childbearing by limiting it to the class of men and women.
Otherwise marriage becomes in substance (not merely incident)a display of affection and commitment with no necessary connection to childbearing.

Fitz:

Where do the hermaphradites fit in to your equation?

How about this "argument" then?

A: All homosexual acts are evil.

controversial premise.

B: All same-sex marriages are homosexual acts (at least 99%).

Most is not the same as all, so the categorical statement of this premise (relied on to support the conclusion) is false.

C: All same-sex marriage is evil.

The conclusion is not established, due to the flaws noted in the premises.

Men and women are members of a class that can produce children. Therefore same sex “marriage” necessarily severs marriage from procreation.

What a fatuous argument. According to your logic a post-menopausal woman could bear children if only she had a fertile womb -- so she's allowed to marry.

Your laughable explanations about a protected class aside, in essence that's no different from arguing that a lesbian couple could have children if only one of them had a dick.

As for marriage being severed from procreation, while religious people may be interested in tying the two together the state is not, and recognizes the marriages of all sorts of people who never could and never will produce children.

If you're serious about promoting this idea of a "procreative class" having exclusive rights to marriage then let's drop the sophistry and get right on it: the list of people who will no longer be allowed to marry in order to protect the integrity of the institution for the rest of us will include the elderly and post-menopausal women, sterile couples, quadripelegics, and women who've had hysterectomies.

cmdicely:

Less facetiously ...

Obviously there's a very clear distinction. The state his no business discriminating against gay people, based on the fundamental values derived from the Declaration and enshrined in the Constitution.

Religions feel that they have an *imperative* to discriminate against both homosexual conduct and a homosexual orientation.

That is a very real and practical distinction.

Bob

cmdicely:

Where's your sense of humor today? You're nitpicking a *facetious syllogism* now?

Windhorse:

Took the words right off my keyboard :)

Bob

>>all those complex embedded clauses wind up a little like spaghetti code

Dear Bob,

I have this problem from time to time as well. By this I mean that I tend to commit this problem myself. So I tend to be able to decipher all those complex embedded clauses without getting too lost along the way.

I confess that I simply don't use 'Preview' as assiduously as I should and that a lot of crap slips through which wouldn't see the light of day if I were proofreading it a bit better.

American Hawk on October 25, 2006 at 5:32 PM |

What court overturned slavery? Oh right: It was done by the executive and the amendment process.

If you weren't such an ignoramous, you would know that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court found slavery in Massachusetts to be unconstitutional. That was in 1783, several years before the founding of the United States and three years after the adoption of the state's constitution.

The provision that the SJC used in 1783--"all men are born free and equal"--was the same provision that the SJC used to determine that barring same-sex couples from marriage was unconstitutional. That was in 2003.

You "Mighty Righties" are so stupid.

Cyn,

I think that's true of most of us, I'm afraid ...

I never preview as much as I ought -- and I routinely curse myself for the most minor error.

In fact, I've annoyed somebody by sticking trivial corrections below my posts.

Oh well ...

Bob

It all makes sense now. You've been living underground the past 50 or so years. Maybe you're a real Rumplestiltskin?

If we add to the definition of marriage a class of people (same-sex couples) that everywhere and always cannot bear children...it becomes impossible to state "marriage is necessarily related to childbearing"

Um, where have you been the past 50 years? Modern marriage is NOT necessarily related to childbearing anymore. Some people have kids, some people don't, it's a choice either way, but it is not a requirement of marriage to have or raise children. Your argument that marriage is about children is about 30 years old and predates birth control. Please, start telling all hetero married couples that their marriage is about children and to start breeding-- you'll win a lot of friends that way.

I understand if you want it the other way-- it is better if parents are married-- but that would mean that same-sex couples should be able to marry. Not to mention not all married couples who have children are de facto good parents.

Stick your fingers in your ears and say LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA all you want but the fact remains that same-sex couples (and plenty of hetero couples) do have and raise children together that aren't bioloigically related to one or both parents. Here are some modern terms you might have missed-- artificial insemniation, adoption, stepfamilies, sperm donation, egg donation...

Ross and Rachel had and raised a baby without marriage.

Should that be outlawed as well, Fitzie?

Men and women are members of a class that can produce children.

Pairs of humans are members of a class that can produce children, too.

While any member of that class may not or cannot produce a child, they remain members of a class that can produce children.

Again, that's true of "pairs of humans" as a more general class, as well.

Same sex pairings can never produce children.

Neither will pairings between men and women that are not fertile, by definition. So, inasmuch as your argument justifies opposite sex marriage without reference to the general, or more specifically mutual, fertility of the couple, so does it justify marriage between pairs of humans without reference to the sex of partners.

OTOH, to the extent that it justifies prohibiting same sex marriage, it justifies prohibiting marriage between opposite sex partners that are not demonstrably interfertile.

It both androgynizes the institution and separates it from any necessary link to childbearing.

There is no "necessary link" to childbearing in the existing civic institution of marriage. There is some consideration of the possibility of childbearing in the structure of the institution, but not as a core feature of the institution, more as an ancillary of the general laws for establishing support responsibility for children whether born in or out of wedlock.

The civic institution of marriage is centered around a relatively durable, mutually-supporting, committed partnership of the two parties. That's what the obligations and benefits are centered around. The parts that relate to childbearing, which are mostly just the presumption (in some places absolute, in other rebuttable) of paternity, are simply a manifestation of that, not the central core of the institution.

Your bizarre concept of marriage would remove the couple from consideration almost entirely, viewing them as simply a means to manufacture offspring, rather than the focus of the institution. It respects neither the features and purposes of civic marriage, nor, IMO, the most important parts of the Christian conception of marriage.

cmdicely:

But the most important part of the *Christian* conception of marriage is "be fruitful and multiply."

It's right there in the Bible!

Bob

Shorter Fitz-- same-sex marriage shouldn't be legal because of my limited, antiquated beliefs about marriage. I don't care about families unless they superficially look just like mine and I believe that I am entitled to have those beliefs enshrined into the law. Why? Just because.

I'd like to know when the rest of us get to vote on the validity of your marriage? What does marriage really mean to you? If you practice what you preach then you should have at least a dozen children since marriages should be measured by how many children they produce. Right?

Oh I agree with you on both counts. Chris Dicely has always been one of my favorite posters; someone I learn most from. But in all honestly, he can tend to write his posts pretty fast (I'm sure he'd own up to this), so sometimes all those complex embedded clauses wind up a little like spaghetti code.

Well, I tend to write long sentences with complex structure even in my better-editted writing...but yes, my blog comments tend to be quickly written and minimally (if that) reviewed (with the exception of the occasional carefully reviewed piece, but its not like I mark those specially), which can sometimes produce confusing (or amusing) errors, especially given my propensity for longer, more complex sentences.

cmdicley

As marriage currently is defined it is reserved to the one class of people that can produce children. Your example of infertile or post menopausal women are (even though barren) still remain part of a class (when coupled with a man) that can produce children. Ergo - Marriage can be said to be necessarily linked to childbearing.

Certainly you can further reduce the classes of people allowed to marry into fertile and infertile. Same-sex pairs would qualify as a class of infertile. Never the less it still stands that men & women as class are capable of producing offspring while same sex couples are not. Even infertile couples remain members of the class of a man & a women (certainly they don’t lose there gender due to infertility) so it is correct to say they are members of a class that is capable of childbearing. (even if the particular couple cannot conceive) Same-sex couples are always and everywhere incapable of childbearing.
So it is correct to say that redefining marriage to include same-sex couples necessarily severs the connection between marriage and procreation.
It is a fact of elemental biology that the class of people that marriage is traditionally limited to (i.e. men & women) are capable of childbearing.

angry Jew:

As Fitzie is a militant Catholic, doubtless he shares Pope Benedict's desire for a "smaller and purer Church."

Oh, he'll try like hell to out-reproduce us, no doubt about it.

But he'll also out-stupid and out-obtuse us so even the greater numbers of non-breeding seculars among us will assure that his "smaller and purer Church" becomes merely another manifestation of Darwinism in action :)

Bob

But the most important part of the *Christian* conception of marriage is "be fruitful and multiply."

It's right there in the Bible!

"Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the Earth, and subdue it" is in the Bible, but its not (literally, certainly, and even metaphorically it doesn't seem more than tangentially to be addressing this) about marriage.

I love it! A catholic arguing biology!

If a virgin can have a kid, a lesbian certainly can also. And I guess if God wills it, He could give a gay man a big enough rectum to do it as well. I think Arnold Schwartzenegger already made that movie.

Angry Jew

1/3 of all children are born out of wedlock the illegitimacy rate is 70% in the African-American community. Yes I want all families to look the way they should.

Your not the only one who's angry.

You want to see angry, go visit a prison. 80% of inmates grew up without their Fathers in the home. (its more a predictor of incarceration then race or income)

I'm angry as well.

I don't think Fritz is a real person, he just keeps repeating the same collection of phrases like it means something. Are you a bot, Fritz?

We can say this over and over too-- gays and lesbians are not infertile, we do and can have children. Most gay and lesbian couples who do have marriage ceremonies do so because of their intent to start a family. Nearly every gay or lesbian wedding I've been to has happened because they started talking about having children and wanted to marry first.

You can say the same thing over and over but it does nothing to rebut the FACT that marriage is no longer exclusively about children anymore and gay and lesbian couples can and do have children.

Fitzie:

I love this "as a class" obfuscation you pull out of your butt to make an irrelevant equivalency between fertile and infertile hetrosex couples.

Why should the fact that I want to marry a *woman* make any dime's bit of difference in your "marriage exists to facilitate reproduction" argument if I happen to be sterile -- and my chances of having a kid would be identical if I was gay and decided to marry a man?

You're pulling this reproduction argument out of your large intestine, my friend. It's completely irrelevant for all the reasons Zoe so eloquently states.

Gay couples raise children. The state has an interest in fostering family units that can do just that. Think of all those poor kids out there just waiting for adoption ...

And you want to *limit* the supply of loving families who could give those children good homes?

What kind of an anti-child monster *are* you?

Bob

Those same studies will also bear out that prisoners are more likely to be from POOR families where there were drug/alcohol and abuse issues in the home as well. Not having their father in the home is a red herring raised most frequently by right-wingers. But the truth is that men who are in prison have a list of problems is a lot bigger and not necessarily solved by having their father and mother in the same house when they were growing up. Having a stable home environment and married parents are not always synonymous.

By the way, nice distraction technique-- what the hell does any of this have to do with same-sex marriage anyways? You want to punish the people who want to marry and have kids because there are people who don't marry and have kids?

Life isn't that simple-- although clearly your perspetive on life is. You wouldn't happen to be in college, would you Fritz?

Fitz on October 26, 2006 at 11:50 AM |

As marriage currently is defined it is reserved to the one class of people that can produce children. Your example of infertile or post menopausal women are (even though barren) still remain part of a class (when coupled with a man) that can produce children. Your example of infertile or post menopausal women are (even though barren) still remain part of a class (when coupled with a man) that can produce children.

This is stupid. On the assumption that your infertile and post-menopausal women have uteri, they cannot--merely when coupled with a man--produce children. They would need to get eggs from other women, have those eggs fertilized, and implanted in their uteri. That would require an IVF--in vitro fertilization--procedure, much like the procedure that lesbians would go through to become pregnant. But, unlike infertile and post-menopausal women, lesbians who are fertile and pre-menstrual can use their own eggs for the procedure. But infertile and post-menopausal heterosexual women can marry their preferred partners--men--whereas lesbians cannot marry their preferred partners.

Your contention is also stupid for the fact that women who have had hysterextomies cannot have children--even by IVF--but they can marry men.

Grow up. All of your proposed distinctions are silly.

Zoe
Zoe
"gay and lesbian couples can and do have children."
Impossible- they may acquire children, or one or the other may have a child with a separate man or women, but the gay or lesbian couple cannot have children. I know this hurts your feelings but better that than continue deluded regarding elemental biology.
Mike
“I love it! A catholic arguing biology!”

I realize that contemporary thought regards these teachings as quaint and repressive. I realize that the contraceptive mentality of modern culture was meant to make marriages stronger, women more respected, teenaged pregnancy less common, STDs more rare, and sexual health more common.

One of the common refrains of the divorce revolution was “what does the couple next door getting divorced have to do with your marriage.

Bob
“What kind of an anti-child monster *are* you?”

My logic is unassailable, so you resort to name calling?

Every child has a natural mother and father. I wish to maintain the standard the privileges those couples that can produce children and give them a stable home within marriage.

As marriage currently is defined it is reserved to the one class of people that can produce children.

False. The one class of partners that can produce children is mutually fertile partners of opposite biological sex. Marriage, as defined in law throughout the United States, is not limited to that class, but is instead limited to a set that overlaps that class, excluding some pairs that are within the class (either by age or by consanguinity, etc.) and including pairs who are outside the class (either because they are not mutually fertile, because they are not of opposite biological sexes despite being of different legal sexes, or because, as in Massachussetts, they are, in fact, of opposite biological sexes.)

Your example of infertile or post menopausal women are (even though barren) still remain part of a class (when coupled with a man) that can produce children.

No, a couple that is completely infertile does not remian part of the class that can produce children. They are, by definition, outside of that class. That's what "infertile" means.

And a "woman" who is legally a woman because she was born with ambiguous genitalia, recieved sex assignment surgery at a young age to become female, and was raised as a female despite having XY rather than XX sex chromosomes is no more capable of bearing children with a man than any man is. Nor is a woman who is legally a woman after an adult sex change, nor are men who are legally men for similar reasons. Nevertheless, there is no bar to these people marrying people of the opposite legal sex in most existing jurisdictions in the US that prohibit "same-sex" marriages.

Ergo - Marriage can be said to be necessarily linked to childbearing.

No, the civil institution of marriage cannot be (accurately, at least) said to be "necessarily linked" to childbearing, because neither childbearing, nor even the theoretical capacity to bear children is a necessary prerequisite to legally valid marriage, even in those jurisdictions (an overwhelming majority in the US) that prohibit marriage among parties of the same legal sex.

Never the less it still stands that men & women as class are capable of producing offspring while same sex couples are not.

At the same time, it remains equally true that "pairs of humans" as a class remain capable of producing offspring, while "mutually infertile opposite sex couples" do not. Pairs belong to many classes, and any pair of humans can belong to a "class" of pairs that includes all pairs capable of bearing children (if nothing else, the class "pairs of humans"), and any pair that is individual that is specifically incapable of bearing children is also a member of a class that is categorically incapable of bearing children (if nothing else, the class "pairs of humans incapable of producing children together").

You present no reason to consider the class "pairs of people of opposite sexes" to be special among the supersets of the set of "pairs of mutually fertile couples" such that marriage should be allowed within that group without reference to membership in the narrower group, but not allowed in any group broader than your proposed class.

Not having their father in the home is a red herring raised most frequently by right-wingers.

I think having at least one absent parent is probably a real and substantive issue; though, of course, none of the right-wingers pointing to it seem to reach the natural conclusion that their proposed policies of longer and longer sentences, less opportunity for parole, and more disabilities for ex-felons participating in society, without any renewed focus on rehabilitation that works, is, therefore, a recipe for forging the next generation of criminals, rather than fighting crime.

Angry Jew

So called gay “marriage” does two things necessarily. (that is it follows axiomatically from the very definitional change)

#1. It androgynies the institution.
#2. It separates it from any necessary connection to procreation.

You can have this type of yuppie coupling as our ideal, but it fails to promote (and indeed undermines) the integration of the two sexes as a essential part of marriage. Most people are heterosexual and only opposite sex pairs can concieve children. Your standard explicitly states that a child’s natural Father (or Mother) is non-essential to marriage. That any combination of adult is sufficient.
It further reinforces and locks in the notion that all family forms are inherently equal. They are not.

Yes, there is a philosophical maxim that reads – “If it’s everything it’s nothing”. We cant defend what we cant define. You are attempting to severe marriage from its historical and biological heritage, this will have a net effect. (leaving aside the already discernable effects in Europe) That effect is that marriage is outdated and any family form including single parenting is acceptable.

Of coarse I’m going further than that. Mine is not a defensive crouch. I find you to be deeply inhumane and narcissistic in your demands. 40 years of a sexual revolution has given us 50% divorce rates, 70% illegitimacy rates and falling rates of marriage overall, cohabitation and un-chosen childlessness. The social scientific evidence for divorce and Fatherless-ness is in. It leads to sky high crime, depression, suicide, violence, gang activity, and a perpetual cycle of child abandonment.
For you to throw the entire institution up for redefinition is the height of self absorption.
We can and must rebuild the social institution of marriage. Its important that all children are born into married households with their own natural parents. This standard should be advanced not undermined. The institution of marriage is infinitely more important than a vehicle for your inclusion.

Every child has a natural mother and father. I wish to maintain the standard the privileges those couples that can produce children and give them a stable home within marriage.

Something tells me you know very, very little about same-sex couples or the way people build families where there are fertility issues.

At the risk of being taunted by an ignorant, arrogant person who has questionable ideas about biology and marriage, I'll tell you my plans. My wife and I are planning on having children and we already have a very dear friend who will be the father. Our children will know their father, will have a relationship with him, there will never be any secrets or mysteries about their family and they will be surrounded by grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles. They'll have a bigger family than most.

I'll also tell you about a friend of mine. She and her husband have a 3 yo. When she gave birth to him she had serious medical problems and had to have an emergency hysterectomy. It has been heartbreaking for them. The want more kids so they are now waiting to adopt a child that is not biologically theirs and the child will not know his/her biological parents. It happens with adoption, but the bottom line is the child gets a loving home.

Anyways, I'm not sure why I am feeding this troll. Someone please make me stop.

Fitzie,

When do you start arguing in favor of the anti-divorce bill. Divorce is much more prevelent than homosexuality. Oh wait, there is no such bill.

You seem to be singling us gays out for some strange reason. Could it be politically motivated?

to satisfy a self-righteous urge that itself usually comes from a place of hatred, judgment, or fear.

A very good explanation of the origins of evil.

Fritz--

I'm surprised you haven't said that women's lib is destroying America. Damn those women and their desire to be equals, to have careers! Why can't they just stay down where we tell them?

I suppose you thought it better when unhappily married people stayed together forever, for the sake of their unhappy marriage and children? The divorce rate is high because UNHAPPY people aren't staying married. Sorry, but not a bad thing in my book.

You can declare wanting to be married and raising children selfish and self-absorbed all you want, but it doesn't make it so. The clock is not turning backwards and your hysteria and hostility towards people and their families isn't going to bring back these wonder years that never existed. Your idea of rebuilding by restricting and angrily pronoucing that there is only one acceptable model isn't going to help your cause.

I really, really hope you don't have children and I feel deeply sorry for them if you do.

Fitz:

Well it really wasn't a personal attack; more like facetious hyperbole to make the important point that by preventing civil unions, you're limiting the supply of potentially good homes for a lot of orphans and children in foster care. You really need to explain yourself on this, if you call yourself a family-values Christian.

Your logic, Fitz, with all due respect is just atrocious; everybody has ripped you up on it. While it's of course true that every child has a mother and father, a great deal of families are made up of more than the nuclear type.

What you manifestly have not done is to demonstrate why we need to "privilege" the biological parents, when so many families lack one or the other -- and where lesbian couples are often the biological mothers of the children they wish to raise in a state-recognized partnership.

There is absolutely no basis -- not moral, not legal, not expedient -- for privileging the biological mother and father when it comes to sanctioning families. Not unless you want to outlaw reproductive technology, adoption, stepfamilies, divorce ...

Sadly enough, though -- my guess is that you'd probably like to.

Well, the state has no business entertaining your normatives, my friend.

The state has an interest in dealing with this fallen ol' world as it exists, and not how you'd like it to exist.

Bob

Fitzie,

When do you start arguing in favor of the anti-divorce bill. Divorce is much more prevelent than homosexuality. Oh wait, there is no such bill.

You seem to be singling us gays out for some strange reason. Could it be politically motivated?

Don't forget poor blacks and women, he appears has a beef with them too.

Fritzie is all about the oversimplisitc scapegoating, isn't he?

"My logic is unassailable"

LOL... Not only is it not "unassailable," it's non-existent, not to mention internally contradictory. You still have not dealt with the undeniable fact that neither the religious nor the civil institution of marriage require child-rearing, nor have they ever, to the best of my knowledge.

Neither the religious nor the civil official in charge of the ceremony ask the couple whether they intend to, or are able to, have children. The traditional wedding vows make no mention of children. The civil laws governing marriage make no mention of children as a prerequisite to marriage.

Moreover, as already noted above, same-sex couples will continue to have and raise children regardless of the outcome of the same-sex marriage debate, which means that your entire point is moot.

"You can call it a civil right, and assume the argument without having it (like the court did)"

The court did that because that particular issue is already settled, in this case by the Unisted States Supreme Court, which long ago affirmed and reaffirmed that marriage is indeed a fundamental right.

See, I’m not the only one who thinks this way kids
In Recent Supreme Court ruling on same-sex “marriage” courts do specifically reject the most egregious illogical conclusion of Goodridge, that procreation is some kind of bad faith post-hoc invented reasoning to hide the “real” reason marriage is a husband-wife institution.
From the Washington State Decision
“Plaintiffs also rely on Goodridge, where the Massachusetts court rejected the argument that procreation justified limitation of marriage to opposite-sex couples. The court said that “{t}he ‘marriage is procreation’ argument singles out the one unbridgeable difference between same-sex and opposite-sex couples, and transforms that difference into the essence of legal marriage.” Goodridge, 440 Mass. at 333. The court held that “it is the exclusive and permanent commitment of the marriage partners to one another, not the begetting of children, that is the sine qua non of civil marriage.” Goodridge, 440 Mass. at 332.
“But as Skinner, Loving, and Zablocki indicate, marriage is traditionally linked to procreation and survival of the human race. Heterosexual couples are the only couples who can produce biological offspring of the couple. And the link between opposite-sex marriage and procreation is not defeated by the fact that the law allows opposite-sex marriage regardless of a couple’s willingness or ability to procreate. The facts that all opposite-sex couples do not have children and that single- sex couples raise children and have children with third party assistance or through adoption do not mean that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples lacks a rational basis. Such over- or under-inclusiveness does not defeat finding a rational basis.”
Note the court appropriately applies Loving, etc.

The plurality makes strong criticisms of the concurrence and two of the dissents at the outset of its opinion, including charging the main dissent with “sadly overstep[ping] the bounds of judicial review” for suggesting that supporters of marriage laws are bigots. Besides calling the lower court decisions “transparently result-oriented” and a reflection of “the dominant political ideas of their local community,” the concurrence says: “[t]hough advanced with fervor and supported by special interests loudly advocating the latest political correctness, the arguments (and the dissenters) cannot overcome the plain legal and constitutional principles supporting Washington’s definition of marriage.”
The opinion employs a traditional legal analysis, deciding that sexual orientation is not a suspect classification and that there is no fundamental right to marry a person of the same sex. The plurality was very deferential to the reasons the state advanced in support of its marriage law. The concurrence was even stronger, arguing that the marriage law was supported by compelling interests because of “its exclusive link to procreation and child rearing.”

40 years of a sexual revolution has given us 50% divorce rates, 70% illegitimacy rates and falling rates of marriage overall, cohabitation and un-chosen childlessness.

Well if all those effects are the consequences of the sexual revolution -- which you've cited no evidence for, by the way -- then the opposite must be true as well. Thousands of years of sexual repression have given us the subjugation of women as property and chattel, routine domestic violence enshrined into culture as acceptable, family victims of incest and abuse with little recourse, women unable to choose the course of their lives, and rigid hierarchical power structures that took advantage of this oppressive system to solidy their own power while secretly flouting the "rules" themselves.

Just to name a few of the bad effects of the former system.

Humans culture is changing, as it always has. The definition of marriage is changing, as it always has.

As marriage currently is defined it is reserved to the one class of people that can produce children. Your example of infertile or post menopausal women are (even though barren) still remain part of a class (when coupled with a man) that can produce children. Ergo - Marriage can be said to be necessarily linked to childbearing.

This is a form of the fallacy of Appeal to Common Practice. As Chris showed above, while marriage and childbearing have an associative link, they have no necessary link.

My logic is unassailable, so you resort to name calling?

Your logic is clearly assailable, as many posters in this thread have shown. In fact, your logic is pretty damn weak.

Your point is?

That you're a cut-and-paste whiz who doesn't know how to source his material?

(clap, clap, clap)

SCOTUS has written a lot of things, using them as a stand-in isn't going to get you anywhere here. (Espcially if you're trying to mimic the "logic" of Scalia.)

Sorry, but your own debating skills are clearly failing you here. Try again.

zoe kentucky:

I, for one, find your posts quite eloquent and moving -- especially the one where you described your plans for a family.

Whether Fitzie will ever hear them himself or not -- that needed to be said.

God bless you both -- and the same for your friends who are adopting.

You are a living repudiation of the narrow-minded bigotry that clothes itself in poorly rationalized religious cant.

Thanks for those posts.

Bob

I am glad to see this debate still going on. I enjoy an intelligently discussed thread where the name callers have dropped out.

I am repeatedly called upon by intelligent people in this thread to make a cogent rational argument for my positions. Let me try to do this now.

I think the call for same-sex marriage fits into the even bigger picture of the progressive's call to androgynize (sp?) society. The big threat that I see from same sex marriage is the denial of gender and the contribution it makes to society.

When I slightly alluded to this in a previous post CM Dicely said something to the effect that the differences in "...behaviour and acumen..." between the individuals in the classes men and women were much bigger than the general distinctions between the groups. This analysis may hold in any one single attribute like - mathematics ability - or - leadership skills - but it does not change the fact that in the great aggregate there are distinct masculine and feminine characters. It is part of our biology, and is a great and beneficial attribute of mankind.

The progressive approach to try and reduce the difference between male and female to genitalia is stupid and naive. This is the threat I see to society.

To function correctly society needs to encourage good masculine behavior from its men and uphold a good feminine ideal for women. This does not mean that everyone has to be a perfect masculine man or a perfect femine women, but the ideals need to be present to encourage good behavior.

Dispense with the masculine ideal for males and you end up with a society of grown, physically strong, testoterone driven men who have the moral character of teen-agers. They do not know how to have strength tempered by love and tolerance. I look at the model of Bill Clinton who was raised without a strong masculine influence in his life. What an able and capable leader and administrator! But a man who in his personal life had no control, no personal strength of character. ( Incidentally, many prominent historians claim part of the reason for the fall of the Roman Empire was a general lack of moral character in its citizens )

Dispense with the good feminine ideal for women and you end up with a lot of women who are confused about their sexuality. They want to act liberated, but their misunderstanding of masculine sexuality and their natural feminine nature allow them to be taken advantage of. They do not learn how to become women of character with their sexuality integrated into their life, but end up confused between their natural feminine desire to be loved and their call to be feminist.

These things are important, because sex is so much a part of who we are. In my opinion, the Bible has a lot to say about sex, marriage, and gender, not because it is a book written by patriarchs who wanted to control women, but because God knows the struggles that we face because of the effect of sin on this very integral part of our lives.

For centuries man in his innate wisdom has recognized that tradition, law and culture should do something to encourage the proper place for sexual expression and as a consequence of sex, the raising of children. That the law should help encourage the appropriate distinctions that exist between male and female, It is only modern man who in his arrogance tries to say that way sex and marriage are carried out really does not matter and we can publicly manage it any way we damn please. This is ignorance and another step on the road to the dissolution of civil society.

Now I fully recognize that there are those who for whatever reason, do not naturally fit the ideals of masculine or feminine character. You may ask, isn't it cruel to hold up as an ideal, something that they would seem to never be able to meet. Shouldn't there be a celebration of their particular character trait. Why are you so cruel to label their difference as a flaw?

Its no more cruel than the difficulty that someone who has any other character defect would meet. To argue by the extreme, we don't celebrate molesters because they have a weakness to the pornographic images of small children.

I consider homosexuality a sin just like the many other sins which cause a man or woman to fall short of God's image for the perfect man or woman. It is not something that should be celebrated and encouraged, but neither should it be persecuted more than any of the other character flaws of man.

I think the overall evidence of history stands in favor of the proposition that man is correct to use the civil government to encourage proper expression of sexuality in the confines of a marriage. I think the overall evidence of history is that the best hope for man is when children are raised in an environment which illustrates the proper exercise of the masculine and feminine natures of mankind.

I think those who wish to dispense with all of the guidelines on marriage, the ones who want to radically change this longtime institution are those who need to state their evidence that marriage should be changed. I have not seen any good evidence of that on this thread.

So called gay “marriage” does two things necessarily. (that is it follows axiomatically from the very definitional change)

#1. It androgynies the institution.

"Androgynies" is not a word. The closest real word I can think of that you might have meant is "androgynize", which means "to treat with male hormones, usually in large doses", which is not something that allowing "same-sex" marriage would do.

Assuming, alternatively, you are trying to verb the adjective "adrogynous", well, besides the neologism, that doesn't work either: mixed-sex marriages are already androgynous, to wit, "having both male and female
characteristics".

#2. It separates it from any necessary connection to procreation.

The civic institution of marriage, as has been repeatedly pointed out to you in this thread, does not, in its current form, even barring so-called "same-sex" marriage, have any "necessary connection" to procreation anyway, so it is absolutely impossible to separate it from such a connection.

You can have this type of yuppie coupling as our ideal, but it fails to promote (and indeed undermines) the integration of the two sexes as a essential part of marriage.

Well, yes, by definition allowing same sex marriage makes "integration of the two sexes" not an essential part of marriage. So what?

Most people are heterosexual and only opposite sex pairs can concieve children.

Most people are fertile, and only fertile people can produce children. So why shouldn't fertile individuals of any sex be allowed to marry without regard to whether the particular pair can make children with eachother? That seems as logical, based on your apparent standard, as your proposed alternative, that marriage should be restricted to opposite-sex pairs without regard to whether the pair can have children without each other? Why—even granting, arguendo, that your whole idea that we should take one necessary but not sufficient component of mutual fertility as a prerequisite for marriage—should sex be the important component, not individual fertility?

Your standard explicitly states that a child’s natural Father (or Mother) is non-essential to marriage.

Since children are, in both the Christian and the civic conception, not necessary for a valid marriage, it is true, in both conceptions, that neither a child's father nor a child's mother is necessary to marriage.

In the civic conception, marriage often defines the legal parentage of children that arise during the marriage regardless of, or in some jurisdictions merely prior to challenge to, the biological parentage.

This presumption, designed to foster security and guarantee that children are provided for, is a relatively minor incident of marriage, and is equally applicable to same-sex female marriages (particularly where it is conclusive), and simply irrelevant to same-sex male marriages, in which offspring born of the body of one of the partners simply won't occur.

That any combination of adult is sufficient.

No, sex is not the only limit on the combination of adults that may marriage and removing it does not imply or suggest that any combination of adults is sufficient, it means that sex isn't the important factor in deciding which pairs are permitted.

It further reinforces and locks in the notion that all family forms are inherently equal.

No, it removes legal barriers to a very narrow class of family forms, it does not affect any form outside of that class.

They are not.

Perhaps they aren't, but this is not demonstrated in any sense relevant to the family forms actually at issue here.

Yes, there is a philosophical maxim that reads – “If it’s everything it’s nothing”. We cant defend what we cant define.

Yes, so? No one is suggesting marriage be undefined. Sure, the parameters might change, as they have thousands (if not millions) of times in jurisdictions simply in the history of the Christian (and post-Christian secular) West.

You are attempting to severe marriage from its historical and biological heritage,

Um, no. The changes proposed would not severe it form its historical heritage (marriage, as a formal social institution, has no "biological heritage"). They would, of course, change its rules, but that is not at all uncommon in its "historical heritage".

this will have a net effect. (leaving aside the already discernable effects in Europe) That effect is that marriage is outdated and any family form including single parenting is acceptable.

Single parenting is already legally and socially permitted and widely practiced in the United States. If anything, allowing same-sex marriage would reduce the number of people who have no choice but (formally, at least) single parenting.

Of coarse I’m going further than that. Mine is not a defensive crouch. I find you to be deeply inhumane and narcissistic in your demands. 40 years of a sexual revolution has given us 50% divorce rates, 70% illegitimacy rates and falling rates of marriage overall, cohabitation and un-chosen childlessness.

The sexual revolution had very little to do with any of that; divorce rates have gone up because divorce has become more widely available (similarly, marriage becoming more widely available would be likely to increase the rates of marriage.) Chosen childlessness is increased by an economy in which women are more able to (and, increasingly, by economic pressures more required to) work outside of the home.

We can and must rebuild the social institution of marriage.

I agree.

Its important that all children are born into married households with their own natural parents.

I disagree. Its important that as many children as practical be raised in stable, committed, preferably married households with two parents, wherever they are born, and regardless of whether their parents are their "natural" parents or not. But that's, while socially important, not the most important aspect of marriage, which is principally an institution for the mutual support of the partners, not a mechanism to chain them as a factory for producing offspring.

The institution of marriage is infinitely more important than a vehicle for your inclusion.

Inclusion is an important way of strengthening the social institution of marriage, both as a vehicle for the mutual support of the parties, its principal role, and as a vehicle for providing stable, healthy environment for the raising of children, its secondary social role.

Who said anything about changing it? We just want everyone to have the chance at it.

Nice Job John

Try these two links (for further pro-marriage material)

The first is an argument from a Libertarian expressing why marriage is essential to small government
http://www.policyreview.org/apr05/morse.html

The second is an argument by a gay man, and illustrates how the marriage radicals have undermined this foundational social institution. It is from a sociological/Historical perspective and denotes the true meaning of the sophistry illustrated by these bloggers.

http://www.policyreview.org/jun05/harris.html

Fitz, I think you and John would make a nice couple.

John Hansen:

Wow ... I hardly know where to begin.

I'll start, though, by saying that every single thing you wrote is either simply flatly wrong or can be severely problematized.

And your psychohistoricizing is dubious at best, and reminds me of nothing so much as Ann Coulter (I was waiting for you to use Hillary as the example of the modal overmasculinized feminist archetype :)

I just don't know if I have the heart or the energy atm to take your post apart paragraph-by-paragraph.

But somebody certainly should (and doubtless will) do it.

Bob

1. You can agree for any allowance you want to try and win what you want. Problem is the cultural left has a pedigree. They think marriage is archaic and patriarchal.
When Senator Daniel Patrick Monihan published his famous “Report on the Negro family” the cultural left called him a bigot.
When Dan Qualye eschewed Murphy Brown for making single Motherhood “just another lifestyle choice” the cultural left called him a bigot.
This Blog is replete with articles from the NYT and other sources of the cultural left about single women and men “choosing” to raise youngsters on their own. No moral condemnation is made or even suggested.
Illegitimacy is not a problem in New Delhi,. The correlation with a declining marriage culture is not income, couples live on a bowl of rice and stay together.
I’m afraid the illegitimacy rate is still 70% among the underclass. The lesbian couple next door implicitly states that marriage is androgynized and Fathers are not important.
If the cultural left has embraced monogamy and repented from their sexual revolution its news to me. My law school “family” law department was made up of two lesbian strident feminists and a polymorist. None of them asserted anything except all family forms are inherently equal, and the traditional family is archaic and patriarchal.
The important thing is not the answer to the question, but who writes the question. Your happy to know that your having your debate on your terms. The capacity of the public for sustained debate on any topic is limited. It’s a precious commodity. Your activists and activist judges have succeeded in pressing this issue. No matter what happens you move your ball down your court.
How do we provide a child with his natural mother and father living together under the same roof? Or.. What is the social utility of traditional morality? Or.. How has the feminist project undermined and alienated relations between the sexes? Or…What accounts for the disintegration of married intact families since the 1960’s? Or… How do we best alleviate and rebuild this broken structure? Or, what accounts for the decline in marriage and increase in cohabitation in Scandinavian countries that have adopted same-sex “marriage”? Or… How can we hope to build a marriage culture around a androgynized definition that separates a Childs natural parent from any necessary connection to his or her child? Or… why is the cultural left suddenly conceding the importance of the family unit when it has spent years calling it archaic a patriarchal? Where were these same people during the divorce revolution? Where were they when Senator Moynihan issued his report on black family disintegration? Could this sudden concession on the importance of marriage and monogamy be a momentary faint in a well documented history of considering all family forms as being inherently equal?
I disagree. I say that allowing SSA couples to marry will do irreparable harm to the institution of marriage by showing that marriage is outdated, any family form is adequate; a Childs own Mother & Father are not inherently necessary to that Childs future and proper upbringing and either sex is ultimately irrelevant to the institution.

BTW -

Please let's not have no more nitpicking on the admitted fact that "Androgynize" is not a word according to the dictionary. Several years ago a famous writer wrote a short story about an androgynous society. In this ideallized ( to him ) world there were no male and female, everyone shared the same physical chraracteristics. He considered this a worthwhile goal.

Those who would press toward this type of world are "androgynizing" society.

It never fails. The anti-SSM commentators here keep making fallacious arguments based on nothing more than their misinterpretations of history (that is when they are not creating it up out of whole cloth) where marriage is concerned, this idea that to procreate is an inherent fundamental requirement to marriage (which btw makes the argument that my wife and I are not able to be married since I had a vasectomy prior to our marriage because I did not want any child to have the one in four chance of inheriting my blood disorder as a dominant genetic medical illness) is unsupported by any historical fact, and in general are making arguments that have no real substance to them for all the wordage they put into their claims.

Fitz/John Hanson, neither of you have made a case for anything other than your own bigotry and sense of self supremacy where your religious beliefs are concerned. You are aware I trust given your fixation on the importance of religion and Christianity that there are Christian sects that do permit SSM, so you have no problems placing your interpretation of Christianity above those of other sects, which is religious chauvinism bigotry. So you are demonstrating religious bigotry each time you make the religious argument on top of the homosexual bigotry you make when you claim they cannot be fit parents, they cannot have loving secure relationships, and that they have no place being recognized as the same ass any other married couples. Your claims of these mystical classes of couples is a fiction, it is not supported by historical nor legal precedents, and you have done nothing to support them other than by stating them as so called obvious facts that in your minds to disagree with means those disagreeing are bigots themselves, are uniformed, and are revising history, yet you never are able to actually show this to be true.

These arguments about classes and the destruction of marriage were the same ones used to argue against marriage between different races, different religious groups, and society has not come crashing down into ruin since then. Therefore there is no more reason to accept these lines of reasoning where gay marriage is concerned than there was for interracial and interfaith marriages. If you don't want to be called bigots, here is a simple way out of it, stop acting like bigots. Religious bigotry such as you folks keep displaying with your belief that your specific religious doctrines/beliefs require all others to follow regardless of their own religious teachings is antithetical to the underlying premise of the First Amendment protecting all religions EQUALLY, and not placing any one religion or sect within a religion as the dominant view, which is what you folks keep arguing here.

I think the call for same-sex marriage fits into the even bigger picture of the progressive's call to androgynize (sp?) society.

Your imputing motive is entirely irrelevant to any defense of the status quo policy; its a red herring. Not to mention that you have not established that the progressive call to "adrogynize" (neologism, not misspelling, is the problem with that "word") society even exists, much less established any relationship to the same-sex marriage issue.

The big threat that I see from same sex marriage is the denial of gender and the contribution it makes to society.

Same sex marriage in no way denies the existence of gender and the contribution it makes to society, indeed, allowing same-sex marriage is the only way to recognize the complexities of gender, which is a broad, subjective, social attribute, without reducing them to a narrow, simplified view restricted to biological or legal one-or-the-other sex.

Seems to me that it is conservatives, not progressives, that fail to appreciate gender and the role it has in society and people's lives, beyond a rather simplistic romanticized notion of stereotypical male-female sex roles, and that the defense of exclusive opposite-sex marriage is a manifestation fo that failure.

To function correctly society needs to encourage good masculine behavior from its men and uphold a good feminine ideal for women.

Certainly, to function correctly society needs to encourage good behavior from men and women alike, and to recognize and respond appropriate to the diversity of biological and social pressures which influence behavior differently for different people, both the differences that apply between sexes, and those that apply between people of the same sex.

Reducing this to a "masculine ideal" and a "feminine ideal" is not particularly productive.

Dispense with the masculine ideal for males and you end up with a society of grown, physically strong, testoterone driven men who have the moral character of teen-agers.

Define what you mean by the "masculine ideal" and provide evidence that "dispensing" with this "ideal" produces the result you claim.

Dispense with the good feminine ideal for women and you end up with a lot of women who are confused about their sexuality.

I would ask for the same explanation as above, and further suggest that it seems to me far more likely that adopting strong, simple, stereotyped sexual ideals will lead to more people—whose natural desires are in some ways at odds with those ideals—being "confused about their sexuality", not fewer.

These things are important, because sex is so much a part of who we are. In my opinion, the Bible has a lot to say about sex, marriage, and gender, not because it is a book written by patriarchs who wanted to control women, but because God knows the struggles that we face because of the effect of sin on this very integral part of our lives.

First, what the Bible says is not a great basis for argument about civil policy in a non-theocratic state; secondly, the Bible doesn't say a lot directly on point, and what it does say isn't all that consistent, and, of course, is influenced by very different social and technical and economic milieu that affect many issues relevant to marriage and family differently than the modern age (for instance, the greater relative prevalence of physical labor in the market and the physical differences between the sexes meant that women were necessarily more economically dependent on men, which underlies a lot of the discussions in the Bible of marriage rules and obligations.)

For centuries man in his innate wisdom has recognized that tradition, law and culture should do something to encourage the proper place for sexual expression and as a consequence of sex, the raising of children. That the law should help encourage the appropriate distinctions that exist between male and female, It is only modern man who in his arrogance tries to say that way sex and marriage are carried out really does not matter and we can publicly manage it any way we damn please.

Modern law does not, in fact, say that. Sure, it offers—as law has many times in the past—changes to the details of how marriage and the family are managed, but that is hardly new.

Your ridiculous exaggeration and distortion do not make for a logical argument.

Now I fully recognize that there are those who for whatever reason, do not naturally fit the ideals of masculine or feminine character.

Since you haven't defined what these "ideals" are, you seem to be jumping a bit ahead.

Its no more cruel than the difficulty that someone who has any other character defect would meet.

You have yet to establish any reason to believe that the unspecified differences from your unspecified "ideal" should be considered "defects" at all.

I consider homosexuality a sin just like the many other sins which cause a man or woman to fall short of God's image for the perfect man or woman.

Yes, so? That you consider it a sin doesn't provide you license to regulate it in civil law; certainly not in this country.

It is not something that should be celebrated and encouraged, but neither should it be persecuted more than any of the other character flaws of man.

Ah, so you believe in only limited persecution. Are you sure you are a Christian?

I think the overall evidence of history stands in favor of the proposition that man is correct to use the civil government to encourage proper expression of sexuality in the confines of a marriage.

So? Even granting that for the moment, you have provided no definition of the "proper expression" of sexuality, and no argument supporting that definition is, indeed, "proper".

I think the overall evidence of history is that the best hope for man is when children are raised in an environment which illustrates the proper exercise of the masculine and feminine natures of mankind.

Even granting that, you provide no reason to believe that a society in which members of the same sex may marry cannot illustrate the proper exercise of the masculine and feminine natures of mankind as well as any other, so this belief is not shown to be relevant to issue at hand.

I think those who wish to dispense with all of the guidelines on marriage,

The issue here is not dispensing with "all of the guidelines on marriage", but the change of one particular exclusion.

the ones who want to radically change this longtime institution are those who need to state their evidence that marriage should be changed.

The argument is simple. We live in a society based on the principle that discrimination is valid only when justified. No showing has been made that discrimination based on the sex of the partners in marriage is justified. Ergo, it is not valid.

Your argument is that we should, because of your personal religious views, adopt the idea that discrimination is the default, and that equality must be justified. I reject that as contrary to the principles of our civic society—both in its religious imposition and its reversal of the burden of supporting discrimination.

Scotian

“These arguments about classes and the destruction of marriage were the same ones used to argue against marriage between different races, different religious groups, and society has not come crashing down into ruin since then.’

The problem with the argument from analogy, is it is merely that; an analogy. It’s strength rises and falls on the power of the analogy.
Gay people were not brought here in chains, forced into chattel slavery and then lived under apartheid for 200 years.
We fought a civil war with a countless death toll to end slavery and insure equal rights for blacks. We also (and this is crucial in your spurious analogy) have three different constitutional amendments that attempted to address this historic inequality. One of them is the 14th on which you so slavishly and narrowly rely. Each amendment was ratified by the people. This was done democratically through a vote. We also have the various civil rights acts ratified through legislative action. Indeed the most important right fought for was the right to vote. Human suffrage goes to the heart of our law. The right to be counted and heard. That’s what this country is, an experiment in popular sovereignty. This applies equally to the 19th amendment as well.
Every “fundamental right” in our constitution has been voted upon and ratified by the people. It is equal justice UNDER THE LAW, that is written above the supreme court. We the people decide what those laws aught be. They don’t simply proceed from spurious and weak analogies. Indeed the co-opting of the moral authority of civil rights language not only insults my intelligence, but insults African Americans generally.
All of this is for naught however. It is a mere procedural argument. It pales in comparison to the deeper truth about what we exalt as a family. What we hope our Sons & Daughters will aspire to, and how we best organize and raise our families.

&
Both common law and staute has always held that marriage is between a man & a women.
So yes, we have both history & law on our side.
(read washington state S.C. decision above)

I did not want any child to have the one in four chance of inheriting my blood disorder

Lycanthropy? ;)

Illegitimacy is not a problem in New Delhi

You certainly have presented no evidence supporting your apparent claim about its prevalence there, though I'll agree that, given the context, whatever the prevalence its probably not, relatively speaking, a significant problem there.

Then again, I'm glad I live in a society where abstract statuses like illegitimacy, the exact nature of whose causal linkage (particularly, in which direction it runs) to any real harms is somewhat disputable, can be talked about as serious problems without the speaker being laughed out of the room immediately, rather than in New Delhi. YMMV, of course.

"If you don't want to be called bigots, here is a simple way out of it, stop acting like bigots. Religious bigotry such as you folks keep displaying with your belief that your specific religious doctrines/beliefs require all others to follow regardless of their own religious teachings is antithetical to the underlying premise of the First Amendment protecting all religions EQUALLY, and not placing any one religion or sect within a religion as the dominant view, which is what you folks keep arguing here."

Uh....Polygamy?

I say that allowing SSA couples to marry will do irreparable harm to the institution of marriage by showing that marriage is outdated, any family form is adequate; a Childs own Mother & Father are not inherently necessary to that Childs future and proper upbringing and either sex is ultimately irrelevant to the institution.

The flip question-- how is stopping people who are living as married people from being married helping the institution? It doesn't. You also seem to think that being inclusive in your defintion of family somehow damanges families as opposed to making more room for different kinds of families so that there are basically more of them.

Both Fritz and JH seem to be suffering under very similar misunderstandings about what others think and believe.

As I see it you both have serious irrational fears about the "message" that will be sent to the broader public by letting people who want to marry to do so. You don't seem to give people enough credit, as though legalizing same-sex marriage will suddenly make someone in a happy marriage wake up and say "hey, marriage is bullshit." It won't.

Work on promoting what you think is right without attacking and tearing down other people's families. It just might work.

JH's particular take on what progressives want reads like a primer of what conservatives think about what liberals think without ever talking to a single liberal, exclusively by reading the work of other conservatives.

Here's a little help in this department-- by saying that things are equal (men and women, people of different religions/creeds/sexuality/) does not mean that those things are the same. Or have you never heard anything about celebrating diversity and differentness? We're pretty into that for the most part. Consider your so-called education about what progressives think to be a whole lot of bunk.

Your cup of tea might not be mine but that doesn't mean you have to try and take mine away. To each their own.

Uh....Polygamy?

Yeah, what it about it?

All I know is that it's legal in the bible and that the only large numbers of people who practice it in the US are Mormons, who are also Christians.

But nobody here is talking about polygamy, are they? Except the people who want to change the subject as a debate tactic.

STEP #2

(note the promenance of the signatories)

http://www.beyondmarriage.org/

" Legal recognition for a wide range of relationships, households and families – regardless of kinship or conjugal status.

Access for all, regardless of marital or citizenship status, to vital government support programs including but not limited to health care, housing, Social Security and pension plans, disaster recovery assistance, unemployment insurance and welfare assistance.

Separation of church and state in all matters, including regulation and recognition of relationships, households and families.

Freedom from state regulation of our sexual lives and gender choices, identities and expression.

Marriage is not the only worthy form of family or relationship, and it should not be legally and economically privileged above all others. A majority of people – whatever their sexual and gender identities – do not live in traditional nuclear families. They stand to gain from alternative forms of household recognition beyond one-size-fits-all marriage. For example:

Single parent households

Senior citizens living together and serving as each other’s caregivers (think Golden Girls)

Blended and extended families

Children being raised in multiple households or by unmarried parents

Adult children living with and caring for their parents

Senior citizens who are the primary caregivers to their grandchildren or other relatives

Close friends or siblings living in non-conjugal relationships and serving as each other’s primary support and caregivers

Households in which there is more than one conjugal partner

Care-giving relationships that provide support to those living with extended illness such as HIV/AIDS.

The current debate over marriage, same-sex and otherwise, ignores the needs and desires of so many in a nation where household diversity is the demographic norm. We seek to reframe this debate. Our call speaks to the widespread hunger for authentic and just community in ways that are both pragmatic and visionary. It follows in the best tradition of the progressive LGBT movement, which invented alternative legal statuses such as domestic partnership and reciprocal beneficiary. We seek to build on these historic accomplishments by continuing to diversify and democratize partnership and household recognition. We advocate the expansion of existing legal statuses, social services and benefits to support the needs of all our households.

We call on colleagues working in various social justice movements and campaigns to read the full-text of our statement “Beyond Same-Sex Marriage: A New Strategic Vision,” and to join us in our call for government support of all our households."

John Hansen wrote: "I am glad to see this debate still going on. I enjoy an intelligently discussed thread where the name callers have dropped out."

Since you began your presence on this thread by employing the very "name calling" you profess to disapprove of, forgive me if I don't take this seriously.

"I think the call for same-sex marriage fits into the even bigger picture of the progressive's call to androgynize (sp?) society."

Sigh.... You have once again failed. All you have done is to introduce new unsupported assertions to go with your earlier unsupported assertions. You first have to establish that there is any real effort to "androgynize" society, that this is pushed by "progressives," just who these "progressives" are, etc. After you have done that, you would still have to explain just what the hell this has to do with same-sex marriage!

"The big threat that I see from same sex marriage is the denial of gender and the contribution it makes to society."

Since same-sex marriage does nothing to "deny" gender, I'm afraid that you are once again making assertions that you cannot support.

"it does not change the fact that in the great aggregate there are distinct masculine and feminine characters. It is part of our biology, and is a great and beneficial attribute of mankind."

And once again, you have yet to establish just what these characteristics are, why it is a "great and beneficial attribute of mankind," and just what the hell it has to do with same-sex marriage.

"The progressive approach to try and reduce the difference between male and female to genitalia is stupid and naive. This is the threat I see to society."

Since you have not established that there is any such "progressive approach," nor that it is "stupid and naive," nor that it is a threat, you have once again simply made assertions that you cannot support. And, once again, you have entirely failed to link this in any way to the issue of same-sex marriage.

"To function correctly society needs to encourage good masculine behavior from its men and uphold a good feminine ideal for women. This does not mean that everyone has to be a perfect masculine man or a perfect femine women, but the ideals need to be present to encourage good behavior."

And once again you are simply making assertions that you cannot support and that you cannot link to the subject of same-sex marriage. So far, you are batting .000.

[I've deleted a bunch of psychobabble drivel, since it is simply more of the same and not worth the trouble to respond to.]

"Now I fully recognize that there are those who for whatever reason, do not naturally fit the ideals of masculine or feminine character."

Just who are these people, John? If you're going to say that these are gay men and women, I'm just going to laugh at you, because you will have rendered the "ideals of masculine or feminine character" down to the sole characteristic of whom they are attracted to and have sex with, which is ludicrous. The characteristics you describe above are present in both gay and straight men and women, which is why, once again, you cannot make the connection to same-sex marriage.

"I consider homosexuality a sin just like the many other sins which cause a man or woman to fall short of God's image for the perfect man or woman."

You are entitled to this opinion. You are not entitled to give this religious opinion any basis in the rule of law.

The rest of your post was, once again, drivel and I see no reason to respond further. You have once again entirely failed to make your case.

Windhorse:

Cute, but nothing so exotic. It is called factor five Lieden mutation, effectively I am the reverse of a hemophiliac. Since I turned 21 I have had a dozen deep veined blood clots and two strokes because of it. I have been incredibly lucky that the damage left has been as light as it is, hell for that matter I am lucky to still be alive. It (the damage done already along with the risk factors of my blood thinners and my pain meds for the nerve damage among other damages done) has unfortunately taken me out of the workforce permanently which is why I have the time I do to track political matters as much as I do.

Indeed the co-opting of the moral authority of civil rights language not only insults my intelligence, but insults African Americans generally.

Wow. That is the VERY HEIGHT of arrogance-- declaring that you are offended on behalf of African-Americans. Are you speaking on behalf of all the African-Ameican gays and lesbians too?

Zoe
No... the VERY HEIGHT of arrogance is forcing people to redefine marriage so you can feel included.

John Hansen wrote: "Those who would press toward this type of world are 'androgynizing' society."

You have not yet established that anyone has this goal, nor that it has anything to do with same-sex marriage. Simply repeating your unsupported assertions does not make them any more true.

Ah, so you believe in only limited persecution. Are you sure you are a Christian?

CM Dicely,

Please do not use the inherent abmiguities in language to think I am stating something I do not believe. I don't believe in "limited persecution". The word persecution was probably not the correct choice here. You are smart enought to know what I meant. If your comment is meant tongue in cheek please follow with a proper ; -) or some other symbol.

Typical. Because this just about me "feeling included" instead of something more tangible and real, for instance, having to fight with nurses to see my wife when she was taken into the ER because despite the fact that we've been together for almost 8 years yet we're still strangers under the law, we have no way to declare one another "next of kin."

Right, this is just about me and my poor widdle ol' hurt feelings. Why don't you just tell me to go cry like a stupid little girl already.

cmdicely wrote: "Since you haven't defined what these 'ideals' are, you seem to be jumping a bit ahead."

It's even worse than that, actually, since the only "masculine and feminine ideals" that gay men and women do not have are the physical attractions to the opposite sex. Mr. Hansen, without even realizing that he has done so, has trivialized these ideals to the point that they are solely about whom you have are attracted to and have sex with.

Even ignoring the fact that he has not managed to tie this argument to same-sex marriage in any way, it's simply ludicrous on its face.

...go cry like a stupid little girl already.

Patient advocacy forms are available FREE, at any library.

(what a red heiring that one is)
Boo-hoo

cmdicely on October 26, 2006 at 11:50 AM:

Well, I tend to write long sentences with complex structure even in my better-editted writing...especially given my propensity for longer, more complex sentences.

Smartass..But I mean that nicely, Dicely...

Fitz on October 26, 2006 at 1:11 PM:

(After a few poorly-written, meandering paragraphs of typical right-wing vitriol) I say that allowing SSA couples to marry will do irreparable harm to the institution of marriage...

That's an opinion, not evidence.

.. by showing that marriage is outdated..

And you would think that allowing people to marry would be proof of the modern relevance of the institution...

We work with what we have, Fitzie...or should a widow with children be forced to marry before her late husband's body is cold?

..a Childs own Mother & Father are not inherently necessary to that Childs future..

That point loses relevance when you consider the number of childless couples out there. The intent of bearing and raising children is not a prerequisite of marriage.

..and proper upbringing..

Define 'proper'...

...and either sex is ultimately irrelevant to the institution.

And in what way does that harm this idea of 'the institution of marriage' you have?

John Hansen on October 26, 2006 at 1:17 PM:

Those who would press toward this type of world are "androgynizing" society.

Soooo...What same-sex marriage means to you is that you'll eventually be forced to have a sex change?

Actually, if I can pick a science fiction story to press the world to, I'd have to choose The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy...Imagine me with a POV gun...

Couple of weeks and you'll see eight more states agree with me and John kids.
(rather than a handfull of bad lawyers)

And in 20 years, you'll see more and more states agreeing with the rest of us, Fitz. You're on the losing side of this battle, and as dinosaurs like you die out, you'll be replaced by the more tolerant next generation who will inevitably wonder just what the hell the fuss was about, just as our generation wonders what all of the fuss was about re: Loving v. Virginia.

Hmmm, I suppose that means you've never heard of Bayard Rustin?

I had the great pleasure to meeting Coretta Scott King once-- she was a guest speaker at a gay and lesbian civil rights conference where she explicitly said that racism and homophobia are the same and that gays and lesbians have *always* been part of the civil rights movement.

Please do not use the inherent abmiguities in language to think I am stating something I do not believe.

Um, what, I am supposed to know what you secretly believe beyond what you express through language?

Sorry, no mental link here. If you can't clearly express your thoughts in language, I may indeed think you are stating something you don't believe.

The word persecution was probably not the correct choice here. You are smart enought to know what I meant.

You seem to be calling for the use of the power of the state to discriminate against people who diverge from your personal religious view of masculine and feminine ideals; though, "graciously", only to a limited extent. Persecution is, as far as I can tell, exactly the right word for that.

If your comment is meant tongue in cheek please follow with a proper ; -) or some other symbol.

When I make a tongue-in-cheek comment, I will make a separate determination of whether or not it needs an emoticon to flag it.

If you don't like it, you are welcome to file a complaint with any authority you choose.

cmdicely, zoe kentucky, PaulB:

Excellent jobs, all of you :)

I was doing election politics on the other thread with Wooten -- but you hit all the points.

"Androgynizing society." You just can't make straw men like this up :)

John would obviously prefer living in a theocracy.

Too bad for him. Goody for the rest of us :)

Bob

Patient advocacy forms are available FREE, at any library.

(what a red heiring that one is)
Boo-hoo

First of all, learn how to spell herring.

Second, we have them and a whole lot of other documents that we have to carry around all the time, you condescending charmer, but guess what? They don't mean anything in some hosptials (Catholic) and more than once we have gotten the "we don't know if you can go back there even if you have a piece of paper" runaround. I had to threaten to call lawyers, demand to speak with supervisors all while freaking out about whether or not my wife was OK-- I had NO IDEA what her injuries were and they wouldn't tell me.

So, yeah, boo-hoo all you want. It's really getting you lots of points for your side.

Fitz on October 26, 2006 at 2:01 PM:

No...the VERY HEIGHT of arrogance is forcing people to redefine marriage so you can feel included.

No..the very height of arrogance is putting the satisfaction of your bigotry above another person's happiness.

"'Androgynizing society.' You just can't make straw men like this up"

Yup. And what it demonstrates, really, is John's ignorance, since he's pretty clearly fallen into the trap of believing that gay men and women are somehow less masculine and feminine than their straight counterparts, something that was debunked literally decades ago. Sad.

zoe wrote: "They don't mean anything in some hosptials (Catholic) and more than once we have gotten the 'we don't know if you can go back there even if you have a piece of paper' runaround."

Yup, not to mention the fact that you have to pay to have those various documents drawn up, you have to remember to keep them accessible at all times (e.g., remember to take them on vacation), that valuable time can be lost while you run home, get that piece of paper, and get back to the hospital so that you can give the necessary permission to do what needs to be done, that hospitals can and do ignore and challenge these documents, and that not all of these rights, privileges, and responsibilities granted by marriage even can be granted with these pieces of paper.

I'm pretty sure that is the root of Fritz's "naricissim" comment too-- that sex between people of the same sex is just like having sex with yourself, that it is essentially "self love."

Sorry, we are 2 very different people, 2 very different bodes and we can do things together that we could never do alone. ;)

But that is what we do in private, in public we stand around the grocery store bickering about what to do about dinner, we walk our dogs around the neighborhood, stop and chat with the neighbors, and basically live really ordinary lives-- which I think is exactly the thing Fritz is most worried about, that it might get out that married gays are just as boring as married straight couples. It's sad but true.

Your imputing motive is entirely irrelevant to any defense of the status quo policy; its a red herring. Not to mention that you have not established that the progressive call to "adrogynize" (neologism, not misspelling, is the problem with that "word") society even exists, much less established any relationship to the same-sex marriage issue.

First of all, I looked up neologism and you are correct. I still think it communicates what I wanted to say.

OTOH how can you say that there is not a strong desire to change societal norms as to make the distinction between male and female no longer relevant ( pretty wordy if you ask me but at least I was no longer a neologist and used androgynize ) ( is neologist a coined word? ;-) )

Every time there is a celebration of women or men breaking through a stereotype the progressive demonstrates his motive to tear down the traditional roles. This is not a red herring in the discussion.

Lets take a hypothetical. If someone strives to pass a law that forbids women from driving - the correct perception that this law is more about subjugation of women than it is about statitistics of crashes involving female drivers is very relevant to the discussion.

Similarly the motivation implicit or explicit of those pushing for these laws is relevant to this discussion.

Something is not red herring because CM Dicely says so.

Same sex marriage in no way denies the existence of gender and the contribution it makes to society, indeed, allowing same-sex marriage is the only way to recognize the complexities of gender, which is a broad, subjective, social attribute, without reducing them to a narrow, simplified view restricted to biological or legal one-or-the-other sex.

We are not talking about "allowing" anything. We are discussing whether the state should place its impritur on something, and thereby promote it. This is why arguments that we the state should not recognize marriage at all and it should only be a religious thing are stupid. The government recognizes marriage because it is something that is one of the building blocks of society. We can choose which things we wish to promote and which things we wish to discourage. We are not currently discussing any law that "allows" homosexuals to cohabitate. We are discussing whether the state should recognize such a relationship and place it equal in importance to that traditional bond between a man and woman which our culture has been called legal marriage.

Seems to me that it is conservatives, not progressives, that fail to appreciate gender and the role it has in society and people's lives, beyond a rather simplistic romanticized notion of stereotypical male-female sex roles, and that the defense of exclusive opposite-sex marriage is a manifestation fo that failure.

It is almost allways the case that a progressive thinks he wins an argument when he is able to label the conservatives viewpoint as "simplistic'. I think in the last 50 years or so, much scientific progress has been made in the realization that the male and female roles are not some sociological invention, but something that is hard-wired into the way are brain and horomonal systems function. Its not that the traditional roles are a simple understanding about gender - its that these simple understandings which came about by long periods of observation and are in line with the biological facts. The confused progressive takes the exceptions and builds an argument based on edge cases. He sees the rare exception that doesn't fit the norm and wants to throw away all standards. This desire to be nuanced leads to confusion.

Certainly, to function correctly society needs to encourage good behavior from men and women alike, and to recognize and respond appropriate to the diversity of biological and social pressures which influence behavior differently for different people, both the differences that apply between sexes, and those that apply between people of the same sex.

Reducing this to a "masculine ideal" and a "feminine ideal" is not particularly productive.

This may sound all erudite and knowledgable, but I think your statement above has no relation to the facts. There is a great need in society to teach men proper masulinity. This is just as important as good behavior.

Your desire to discuss proper behavior independent of gender just demonstrates that you are another one who wishes to "androgynize" society.

Define what you mean by the "masculine ideal" and provide evidence that "dispensing" with this "ideal" produces the result you claim.

http://www.amazon.com/Manliness-Harvey-C-Mansfield/dp/0300106645/sr=8-1/qid=1161888386/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-3340549-8287332?ie=UTF8&s=books

First, what the Bible says is not a great basis for argument about civil policy in a non-theocratic state; secondly, the Bible doesn't say a lot directly on point, and what it does say isn't all that consistent, and, of course, is influenced by very different social and technical and economic milieu that affect many issues relevant to marriage and family differently than the modern age (for instance, the greater relative prevalence of physical labor in the market and the physical differences between the sexes meant that women were necessarily more economically dependent on men, which underlies a lot of the discussions in the Bible of marriage rules and obligations.)

I guess we probably shouldn't consult the great religious teachings which have been revered for literally thousands of years and have formed a great society when discussing law. Of much more importance would probably be the ramblings of the latest psychologists. Your statement that the Bible is not important is laughable.

Enough for now, I may have more rebuttals after lunch if I don't tire of this thread.

Earlier in the thread, Fitzie linked some legal opinion that defended the idea that marriage is inextricably linked with procreation.

Now ... I don't think we're ever going to find out the reasoning for this from either John or Fitz. But I *really would* like to know what sustains this notion, because it's obviously played into a few of the anti-gay marriage amendments that passed muster in various state courts.

It just doesn't make any sense to me. I could see marriage being inextricably linked to *raising children* -- and I could see the state having a role in fostering it as such, despite all the childless married couples there are.

But procreation itself? No. That's biology, not culture -- and subject to technological change. To the extent that the state should foster two-parent families is the extent that our society values raising children. What's essentially important isn't whether the child in question is with her biological parents or whether the child was adopted or a stepchild, redheaded or otherwise ...

So can anybody play Devil's Advocate here and try to make a good argument why the central purpose of marriage is reproduction and not providing the proper environment for rasing children?

Curiously,

Bob

Some questions I have for Fritz and John-- why is it this, over everything else, so threatening to marriage? Is marriage really that fragile? Do you think if same-sex marriage were legalized that single people would stop marrying? If so, you must not know much about the "Wedding Industrial Complex" as a recently married (straight) female friend of mine calls it. She had the goal of having a simple wedding but found it absurdly difficult because of the WIC, which is all about how much money can be spent on every single thing in the wedding.

Weddings remain a big cultural ritual, frankly I think it is the excessive materialism around the wedding itself and the very little attention paid to what marriage means is hurting marriage far, far more than letting people who want to marry and JOIN THE INSTITUTION from doing so. We aren't trying to destroy it. We're not trying to crash your party, we feel that we belong there and have every right to be there.

The bottom line is that gays and lesbians create and build families, we are in committed relationships and are responsible for one another (and children, if we have some) but are denied many of the basic legal tools to take care of each other for no other reason than it makes some people uncomfortable-- people who are not at all impacted by our marriages. That is not and cannot be the basis for discriminatory practices and laws.

I guess we probably shouldn't consult the great religious teachings which have been revered for literally thousands of years and have formed a great society when discussing law.

Then you suggest that Polygamy should be legal, as Islam recognises it. Or do you think that religious texts dating back centuries shouldn't be used. Or is it only your religious text that should be used. I sense some hypocrisy.

Nah, his religous text has plenty of polygamy too, as well as sanctioned infidelity, incest and slavery.

John Hansen wrote: "OTOH how can you say that there is not a strong desire to change societal norms as to make the distinction between male and female no longer relevant"

Mostly because, as far as I can tell, there is no such desire, at least not on any kind of widespread basis or tied to "progressives" in any way. Moreover, even assuming that you are correct, you still have not tied this to the issue of same-sex marriage in any way.

You made the assertions, John, it's up to you to back them up. Thus far, you have entirely failed to do so. Hell, you haven't even made an effort!

"Every time there is a celebration of women or men breaking through a stereotype the progressive demonstrates his motive to tear down the traditional roles."

Oh, good grief. So we're not supposed to praise someone for their accomplishments now? What "stereotypes" are you referring to? And who is "breaking through" these stereotypes? And who is "celebrating" this breakage? As usual, you're simply making random assertions and not even bothering to support them!

"This is not a red herring in the discussion."

Isn't it? So far you have yet to establish its relevance. You haven't even bothered to try to do so.

"Similarly the motivation implicit or explicit of those pushing for these laws is relevant to this discussion."

Why? Simply because you say so? So far, you have not established any such relevance. And you've now introduced a new factor -- "these laws." Which laws are you referring to? And why are they relevant to the issue of same-sex marriage?

"We are not talking about 'allowing' anything. We are discussing whether the state should place its impritur on something, and thereby promote it."

No, we are discussing whether the state should be permitted to deny fundamental rights to certain of its citizens.

"This is why arguments that we the state should not recognize marriage at all and it should only be a religious thing are stupid."

Those who make this argument are almost always talking about a distinction between the civil institution of marriage and the religious institution of marriage. Such a distinction is actually quite important.

"The government recognizes marriage because it is something that is one of the building blocks of society."

And for other reasons, as well.

"We can choose which things we wish to promote and which things we wish to discourage."

If you wish to deny fundamental rights to certain members of society, you have to have sufficient reason to do so. Thus far, you have been wholly unable to come up with any.

"We are discussing whether the state should recognize such a relationship and place it equal in importance to that traditional bond between a man and woman which our culture has been called legal marriage."

And whether the state has the right to deny such rights to same-sex couples.

"It is almost allways the case that a progressive thinks he wins an argument when he is able to label the conservatives viewpoint as 'simplistic'."

Only when the argument in question is, in fact, simplistic, which is definitely true in this case.

"I think in the last 50 years or so, much scientific progress has been made in the realization that the male and female roles are not some sociological invention, but something that is hard-wired into the way are brain and horomonal systems function."

Sigh.... You STILL have not established that any portion of this argument is valid and you STILL have not managed to find any way to tie this argument to the issue of same-sex marriage!

"Certainly, to function correctly society needs to encourage good behavior from men and women alike"

And one of the ways that society can do this is to foster the responsibilities of marriage and to encourage stable relationships, both of which would be enhanced by supporting same-sex marriage.

"and to recognize and respond appropriate to the diversity of biological and social pressures which influence behavior differently for different people, both the differences that apply between sexes, and those that apply between people of the same sex."

See above. You still have not tied this argument to same-sex marriage.

"This may sound all erudite and knowledgable, but I think your statement above has no relation to the facts. There is a great need in society to teach men proper masulinity. This is just as important as good behavior."

Even assuming this is correct, you still have not defined just what "proper masculinity is," nor explained how gay men do not or can not have "proper masculinity." I will go even further: you cannot do so, because the only attribute that gay men have that straight men do not is an attraction to members of the same sex.

"Your desire to discuss proper behavior independent of gender just demonstrates that you are another one who wishes to 'androgynize' society."

Oh, garbage. You still have to establish that gay men are not "masculine" in any meaningful sense of that word.

"http://www.amazon.com/Manliness-Harvey-C-Mansfield/dp/0300106645/sr=8-1/qid=1161888386/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-3340549-8287332?ie=UTF8&s=books"

Sorry, John, but you're going to have to do better than that. You still have not tied this discussion of yours to homosexuality in any way. Until you do, you're simply flailing away.

"I guess we probably shouldn't consult the great religious teachings which have been revered for literally thousands of years and have formed a great society when discussing law."

Sigh.... And another strawman argument, since that is not what cmdicely said or meant. You can consult any book you wish, but when the sole basis for the law is a religious book or point of view, that is not sufficient to establish such a law in a secular society.

"Of much more importance would probably be the ramblings of the latest psychologists. Your statement that the Bible is not important is laughable."

Since that is not what cmdicely said, forgive me if I find this argument, well, laughable.

"Enough for now, I may have more rebuttals after lunch if I don't tire of this thread."

You might try to actually support even one of the assertions you've made, not to mention showing how gay men and women do not and can not exhibit the "ideals" of masculinity and femininity that you so revere, even though are wholly unable to define precisely what these ideals are. Sheesh....

"Then you suggest that Polygamy should be legal, as Islam recognises it."

So does the Bible, which sort of renders this whole argument moot.

Sorry, we are 2 very different people, 2 very different bodes and we can do things together that we could never do alone. ;)

Well don't just stop there, zoe. How about some details.... ;)

I think in the last 50 years or so, much scientific progress has been made in the realization that the male and female roles are not some sociological invention, but something that is hard-wired into the way are brain and horomonal systems function.

You mean like how science has realized that gay behavior is is hard-wired into the way the brain and hormonal systems function?

Appealing to science can be such a double-edged sword.

John, I think I see the problem here. You apparently think someone is trying to make marriage between a man and a woman illegal and destroy it forever.

You'll be relieved to know that no one is trying to do this.

So take a deep breath and let it out slowly, pour yourself a Scotch, and lean back comfortably in your chair. Life is good.

You'll also be relieved to know that given what we know about evolutionary biology, the vast majority of people will still choose to enter into hetero marriages and make babies no matter what courts decide.

Ahhh, that's some good Scotch, isn't it? I think it's a 15 year old Laphroaig.

You'll be even further relieved to know that just as blacks and whites marrying didn't destroy civilization despite the predictions of the time, just as Catholics and Protestants marrying didn't destroy the Catholic Church or turn Presbyterians into mindless papal dogs -- people choosing to enter into same-sex marriages isn't going to destroy life as we know it either.

I guess we probably shouldn't consult the great religious teachings which have been revered for literally thousands of years and have formed a great society when discussing law. Of much more importance would probably be the ramblings of the latest psychologists. Your statement that the Bible is not important is laughable.

So does that mean you'll be pushing for polygamy to be allowed? After all, thousands of years of revered religious teachings, particularly in the Bible, tell us that polygamy is not only tolerated, it's outright celebrated. S

OTOH how can you say that there is not a strong desire to change societal norms as to make the distinction between male and female no longer relevant

Usually, like this: "There is not a strong desire to change societal norms as to make the distinction between male and female no longer relevant."

Less flippantly, there may or may not be a strong desire on some people's parts to do that. There is also a strong desire on many people's parts, in the progressive community at least, to recognize the great complexity of gender by recognizing that it is expressed in ways that go beyond simple binary distinctions, which makes gender difference in many ways more significant socially, though perhaps less the basis for formal distinctions.

At any rate, whether or not some people want to reduce the importance of gender in society is irrelevant to any discussion of the merits of same-sex marriage. It might relate to some backers motives, to the extent the involved groups overlap, but that's tangential to the merits.

We are not talking about "allowing" anything.

Yes, we are. We are discussing allowing people to marry freely to the person of their choice without discrimination based on the sexes of the persons involved.

We are discussing whether the state should place its impritur on something, and thereby promote it.

No, we're not. We're talking about whether and how we should discriminate in access to marriage.

Marriage is not an "imprimatur" by the state that the couples union is somehow morally proper, it is merely a statement that it is permitted.

It is not an encouragement of the particular choice of partners.

This is why arguments that we the state should not recognize marriage at all and it should only be a religious thing are stupid.

Huh?

The government recognizes marriage because it is something that is one of the building blocks of society.

Arguably. So?

We can choose which things we wish to promote and which things we wish to discourage.

Certainly, we can. But when we discriminate in those, with the power of the state, with material consequences to those subject to discrimination, there must be substantial justification, otherwise we act in a way offensive to the foundation of our civil society, and do injustice, acting out of prejudice rather than with good cause.

We are not currently discussing any law that "allows" homosexuals to cohabitate.

True, but irrelevant. No one suggested or acted as if we were.

We are discussing whether the state should recognize such a relationship

No, we aren't. Homosexuals can and do get married under existing law; we are discussing whether the state should allow people of the same sex to marry. Sexual attraction is, of course, a frequent component of desire to marry, but not at all the same thing.

and place it equal in importance to that traditional bond between a man and woman which our culture has been called legal marriage.

Sure. And, given our society's foundation: that discrimination—inequality under the law—is acceptable only with a good secular reason, it is quite right to approach such a discussion from the premise that we should, indeed, treat these equally unless good cause can be shown otherwise.

It is almost allways the case that a progressive thinks he wins an argument when he is able to label the conservatives viewpoint as "simplistic'.

Whatever.

I think in the last 50 years or so, much scientific progress has been made in the realization that the male and female roles are not some sociological invention, but something that is hard-wired into the way are brain and horomonal systems function.

Actually, I would say quite the opposite. While differences in behavior between and within the sexes that have a strong in-born biological basis have been revealed, also the degree to which many ideals vary by society and are social constructs has been demonstrated, as well. Also, complex interaction between innate tendencies and experience and social context have been shown. So, what's the upshot? We know that stereotyped behaviors that you apparently see as "virtuous" have some innate biological basis, but that deviations from them that you would condemn as "defects" are often equally the product of innate, just as natural, biological features. Further, we know that many of the things you see as virtue in one sex and vice in the other are, in whole or in part, simple social constructs, not products of innate biology.

Its not that the traditional roles are a simple understanding about gender - its that these simple understandings which came about by long periods of observation and are in line with the biological facts.

Um, except that's not at all true. Even those that have some basis in innate "biological facts" are often explained by interaction of biology with circumstance, and many of those ancient roles are controlled by circumstance that is simply no longer relevant in the modern world.

The confused progressive takes the exceptions and builds an argument based on edge cases.

No, instead, an argument based on an approach that deals well with the norm, but at the same time does not unnecessarily ignore edge cases is taken, rather than the blunt stereotyped hammer that you would attempt to use.

This may sound all erudite and knowledgable, but I think your statement above has no relation to the facts.

You are welcome to present facts that show that, though I see none yet.

There is a great need in society to teach men proper masulinity.

Define "proper masculinity", and show evidence of this "need", and how these traits are desirable only in men.

This is just as important as good behavior.

If it was true at all, it would by definition be a subset of good behavior; how could the subset be as important as the whole?

Your desire to discuss proper behavior independent of gender just demonstrates that you are another one who wishes to "androgynize" society.

You impute to me a false desire to support your attempt to impute another false desire that is a complete irrelevancy to the issue at hand; I specifically set that discussion of proper behavior in society must "recognize and respond appropriate to the diversity of biological and social pressures which influence behavior differently for different people, both the differences that apply between sexes, and those that apply between people of the same sex", expressly acknowledging that proepr behavior is not independent of "gender", either in the broad social sense of gender or in the narrow sense referring strictly to biological sex.

If you are going to desperately attempt to deflect from the issue at hand with irrelevancies, at least try to pretend that you've been paying attention to the bits you are responding to when you try to divert the issue.

I guess we probably shouldn't consult the great religious teachings which have been revered for literally thousands of years and have formed a great society when discussing law.

Probably not in a society which is explicitly founded on the rejection of imposition of religious values through the power of the state.

Though, if you want me to pull out the Tao Te Ching more in policy debates, I suppose I can.

Of much more importance would probably be the ramblings of the latest psychologists.

Yeah, modern empirical science is more relevant to issues of public policy than ancient religious texts, your desire for a Christian theocracy notwithstanding.

Your statement that the Bible is not important is laughable.

I never stated that the Bible is not important; as a Catholic, I'd hardly argue that. OTOH, its an inappropriate basis for civil legislation in a society constituted as the United States is. You are, of course, to argue that the US should become a theocracy, but do so honestly in recognition of the change in foundational values that entails.

So does that mean you'll be pushing for polygamy to be allowed?

Me I'm pressing for the return of concubinage. Now there's a biblical tradition I can get behind...so to speak.

When challenged by a poster to Define what you mean by the "masculine ideal" and provide evidence that "dispensing" with this "ideal" produces the result you claim John Hansen responded with an Amazon link to Harvey "C Minus" Mansfield's book "Manliness."

Having seen not quite masculine ideal Prof. Mansfield around campus a bit when I was an undergrad, you'll have to excuse me while I wipe the tears of laughter from my eyes....

Just out of curiosity, all ye great defenders of the notion that marriage hasn't changed for thousands of years, has anyone else here read Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage or anything about how marriage has changed over the course of human history?

Interesting stuff, what we do know about marriage is that the institution of marriage has been in pretty constant flux since its origins and it has always meant different things to different people. In a nutshell, it's not the monolithic "traditional" ideal that many people here seem to believe. I'm sure you know some of it-- women and children were the property of men, marriage was a business merger and had nothing to do with love, etc.

So let's be honest with ourselves, shall we? You are defending what you believe and you want the law to enforce your ideals but your basis to do so is religion/pseudo-scientific logic because you fear that allowing our families to be treated like your families will belittle or devalue your families. History isn't even on your side unless you are defending historical practices like polygamy and the ownership of women and children.

The bottom line is that you believe gays and lesbians are inherently inferior to you and your families and you are deeply offended at the mere notion that we are equal and should be treated as such under the law. Am I close?

There is a great need in society to teach men proper masulinity.

There's a leather bar here in Chelsea in NYC that does a great job of that. If you're interested I'll give you the address -- tell them "Butchie" sent you.

Windhorse wrote: " You apparently think someone is trying to make marriage between a man and a woman illegal and destroy it forever."

That's not really what he's saying. His argument is hard to follow, but I believe that what he's saying can be summed up as follows:

1. There are some unnamed people who want to destroy gender barriers and get rid of the concept of gender roles and specific gender-related strengths and weaknesses.

2. There are some, as yet undefined, masculine and feminine ideals that are somehow tied to this concept of gender roles and gender-related strengths and weaknesses.

3. These ideals, roles, and strengths are the foundation of a stable society and should be fostered and encouraged by our government. Anything that weakens these, weakens our society.

Here's where it gets fuzzy

4. Apparently, gay men and women somehow lack these masculine and feminine "ideals," even though he cannot define just what these ideals are, nor why gay men and women necessarily lack them. Therefore, it is appropriate for society to discourage, or at least, refrain from encouraging, anything to do with homosexuality.

And here's where it gets even fuzzier still.

5. Somehow, same-sex marriage is tied to this concept of gender roles and masculine and feminine ideals. How are they tied? Damned if I know, since John has never said. Assuming they are, though, it is therefore appropriate for a society to discourage and/or prevent same-sex couples from marrying.

How is this all tied together? I don't know that, either. So far, John hasn't even tried to link up his psychobabble about masculine and feminine ideals and gender roles to homosexuality or to same-sex marriage.

Something tells me he's never met a really high-femme lesbian either, or at least he didn't realize he was meeting one. It's like spending time with a high-maintence actress from the 40s, with gauzy feather-edged dressing gowns with matching high-heeled shoes. (Some of them are basically female drag queens.)

Stefan wrote: "There's a leather bar here in Chelsea in NYC that does a great job of that. If you're interested I'll give you the address -- tell them 'Butchie' sent you."

LOL.... Love it. I still don't think it's gotten through to John yet that the only real difference between gay men and straight men is the sexual attraction, something that society cannot "teach." I'm still waiting for him to identify even one "masculine ideal" that a gay man does not and can not have. I'm not holding my breath, though.

cmdicely wrote: "At any rate, whether or not some people want to reduce the importance of gender in society is irrelevant to any discussion of the merits of same-sex marriage."

Bingo. It's amazing to me that this simple fact continues to elude John. He still can't quite seem to grasp that all of his discussion about gender roles and masculine and feminine ideals, even if we charitably grant that there is some merit to the discussion, has abolutely nothing to do with same-sex marriage! What is most interesting is that he hasn't even made the effort to try to link them. One cannot help but wonder why.

John:

You know, there are certain things that I could find common ground with you on. I agree that boys need good male role models growing up, and that girls need good female role models as well. I do think there are many underparented young men who enter adulthood with a serious maturity deficit (as any Adam Sandler movie would tell you). But I do believe the reasons are complex and interrelated, and have as much to do with changing technology and economic conditions as anything to do with evolving gender roles.

One thing you're simply wrong on, though, is that science most assuredly does *not* support the notion that biology is destiny. If anything, our greater sophistication in neurobiology and endocrinology has strongly delimited the biological role of gender. There are real physical differences (as we've known and celebrated throughout history) and certain aspects of mental outlooks which are preconditioned by them -- but it's a much smaller range of difference than was thought 50 years ago, before women were firefighters, lawyers or science grad students -- or men were stay-at-home dads.

Women in the military are even entering combat roles in Iraq, in violation of Pentagon policy -- and nobody's objecting to this, because we need the soldiers. And they're performing well.

So your assumptions are simply wrong. Women can be assertive, aggressive and fiercely competitive -- and men can be tender, nurturing and cultivate relationship networks. And these aren't exceptions on the fringe anymore; they're woven into our society. Furthermore, we couldn't change this if we wanted to, because our economy now demands this kind of flexibility. Mom and Dad both work now (to provide Junior a good home and college education), so adaptability is no longer an option. Sometimes Dad needs to wash the dishes while Mom is out closing a real-estate deal.

In view of these changes -- what exactly does same sex marriage (I'm personally in favor of civil unions, because I respect the views of religious people who simply will not countenance homosexuality as sanctionable) threaten here? Would preventing it change the pattern of women going to college at now a higher rate than men and having careers? Would it worsen the fundamental economic reality that men and women both need to work to provide for the future of a family?

No. Same-sex marriage would not alter the fundamentals of this new "androgynous" dispensation one iota. It would merely be a way of adapting to it that would foster greater human happiness, while in the process expanding the pool of potential families for children currently without one. It would be a net social benefit, because it would provide an incentive for monogamous, stable relationships.

I've never understood why religious people who object to the "gay lifestyle" (a complete misnomer) because it allegedly promotes promiscuity, would then turn around and penalize the gay couples out there who wish to celebrate monogamy by marrying. I've never understood why gay marriage wasn't a family value.

And I question whether you'd be able to explain this to me -- but by all means give it a shot.

Bob

How is this all tied together? I don't know that, either. So far, John hasn't even tried to link up his psychobabble about masculine and feminine ideals and gender roles to homosexuality or to same-sex marriage.

Well that reduces us to guessing.

My guess: when a man is on the receiving end of gay intercourse -- which John thinks of as traditionally a "female" role -- then that makes him like a woman.

And it's bad when men are like women.

Likewise, when a lesbian dons a strap-on -- traditionally a "male" role -- then that makes her like a man.

And it's bad when women are like men. Because its confusing to some heterosexual people. Plus it creeps them out. Plus won't someone think of the children? And the glorious empires of the past built on the ideals of courtly love and rosy-cheeked families singing sweetly together on Swiss mountaintops -- doesn't this besmirch their memories?

John, am I getting warm?

Maybe he doesn't know what bears are? Perhaps he assumes that all gay men and lesbians are identifiable from 10 paces? What he doesn't know is that there are plenty of us around who don't fit the stereotype-- we're invisible queers.

I'm a pretty ordinary looking 30-year old-- long red hair, light makeup, interesting jewelry, stylishly dressed. (I don't own a single flannel shirt and I have many pairs of high heels. I am well beyond my dykey phase.) I used to get asked out a lot by men but that pretty much stopped once I started wearing my rings-- which just have to point to and say "sorry, fella, I'm married."

I've never understood why religious people who object to the "gay lifestyle" (a complete misnomer) because it allegedly promotes promiscuity, would then turn around and penalize the gay couples out there who wish to celebrate monogamy by marrying. I've never understood why gay marriage wasn't a family value.

Because they want it both ways.

(snicker, snicker)

zoe writes: "Interesting stuff, what we do know about marriage is that the institution of marriage has been in pretty constant flux since its origins and it has always meant different things to different people. In a nutshell, it's not the monolithic 'traditional' ideal that many people here seem to believe."

Yup. I always wince when I see that usual "marriage hasn't changed in thousands of years" crap. The American Anthropological Association had this to say:

"The results of more than a century of anthropological research on households, kinship relationships, and families, across cultures and through time, provide no support whatsoever for the view that either civilization or viable social orders depend upon marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution. Rather, anthropological research supports the conclusion that a vast array of family types, including families built upon same-sex partnerships, can contribute to stable and humane societies."

Of course marriage has changed and been "redefined" over the years. It's been fairly dramatically changed even if you limit yourself to just the United States and just the past 100 years or so. If you broaden it to the Christian era and other societies, it gets even worse.

Some highlights from a paper written by Linda Stone for the Anthropological Association, a fascinating paper that is well worth reading:

Many politicians claim that those advocating gay and lesbian marriage are trying to redefine marriage. But what anthropologists have learned is that from a global, cross-cultural perspective, “marriage” is in the first place extremely difficult, some would say impossible, to define. One anthropologist, Edmund Leach tried to define marriage in his 1955 article “Polyandry, Inheritance and the Definition of Marriage” published in MAN. Leach quickly gave up this task, concluding that no definition could cover all the varied institutions that anthropologists regularly consider as marriage.

...

It is true that virtually every society in the world has an institution that is very tempting to label as “marriage,” but these institutions simply do not share common characteristics.

...

Marriage usually involves sexual relationships between spouses. Yet this was not true of Nuer woman-woman marriages and we find in European history cases of “celibate marriages” among early Christians. Often spouses are co-resident but very often this is not the case. A separate residence of husbands in “men’s houses,” away from their wives and children, has been common in many places. Among the polyandrous/polygynous Nayar of India, wives and husbands remained in their own natal groups with husbands periodically “visiting” their wives and with children raised by their mothers and mothers’ brothers.

Windhorse:

But what if you're a thoroughly straight guy and you like to be fucked in the ass with a strap-on while she's giving you a reacharound -- so your prostate gets absolute maximum stimulation and you blast your cum through the wall ... oh, nevermind :)

Bob

John Hansen on October 26, 2006 at 3:03 PM:

Every time there is a celebration of women or men breaking through a stereotype the progressive demonstrates his motive to tear down the traditional roles.

The 'traditional role' of a woman being chattel and incubator? I'd love to see you preaching that on the streetcorner...

Lets take a hypothetical.

Oh goody! Hypotheticals!

If someone strives to pass a law that forbids women from driving - the correct perception that this law is more about subjugation of women than it is about statitistics of crashes involving female drivers is very relevant to the discussion.

That's a bad hypothetical in that it's unrelated to the issue of same-sex marriage. It's also bad in that you've provided no 'statitistics' in any of your arguments - just a bunch of malformed opinions backed up by personal predjudice.

Similarly the motivation implicit or explicit of those pushing for these laws is relevant to this discussion.

The motivation for equal treatment under the law, or are you referring to some 'gay agenda' boogeyman?

Something is not red herring because CM Dicely says so.

Looking at your comments so far, I'd have trust Dicely's judgement over yours, John.

We are discussing whether the state should place its impritur on something, and thereby promote it.

Sooooo...Are you are saying that the state should have nothing do with marriage whatsoever, gay or straight?

This is why arguments that we the state should not recognize marriage at all and it should only be a religious thing are stupid.

Guess not.

The government recognizes marriage because it is something that is one of the building blocks of society.

Super! So you have changed your mind and want to promote same-sex marriage because stable family units are the building blocks of society, right?

We are discussing whether the state should recognize such a relationship..

No, you are discussing it, John. I've already put in my 'yes', and you've offered nothing that has made me think about changing that opinion.

It is almost allways the case that a progressive thinks he wins an argument when he is able to label the conservatives viewpoint as "simplistic'.

Proof? For the record, I don't think that the arguments you've made to this point are simplistic, just ill-supported and based on your own bigotry instead of any evidence or well-thought-out principles.

..that the male and female roles are not some sociological invention, but something that is hard-wired into the way are brain and horomonal systems function.

Using that (*cough*) logic, having two mommies means that the kids will have an extra-good upbringing! And that having two daddies will result in the kids never going hungry! John, you are making this same-sex marriage thing sound more positive all the time!

The confused progressive takes the exceptions and builds an argument based on edge cases. He sees the rare exception that doesn't fit the norm and wants to throw away all standards.

Sooo...instead of allowing for diverse forms of family units - that already exist - you'd either make people conform to your personal standard of what is a 'proper' family unit. Well, now I have a dog in this hunt; as a divorced dad who takes care of a kid, will you either force me to remarry or just ship us off to another country?

Exactly where do you get off telling people how to live their lives and treating them as lesser beings because they don't conform to your messed up view of how things should be?

This desire to be nuanced leads to confusion.

Only for the easily confused, such as yourself.

There is a great need in society to teach men proper masulinity.

'Proper' as in what? I can't eat quiche anymore?

Your desire to discuss proper behavior independent of gender..

I really don't think it matters if a thief is male or female, John...If my girl doesn't want to wear a dress, I don't force her. You're speaking volumes as to the low regard you have for women, or for anyone else who doesn't see the world in the same way as you. I would expect that you would be much more considerate of your fellow human beings, being the religious type.

just demonstrates that you are another one who wishes to "androgynize" society.

Lol - not society, just legal equality with respect to gender. No one is asking you to wear pantyhose and have sex with men, John.

And I got a kick out of these lines from the Publisher's Weekly review of the book you cited:

Mansfield set out to write a provocative book, but ended up penning a juvenile screed.

Which probably explains why you mentioned it, John.

I guess we probably shouldn't consult the great religious teachings which have been revered for literally thousands of years and have formed a great society when discussing law.

For Sharia law, perhaps...American law, not so much.

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.."

So while you can say that there are many universal concepts found in many different religions' texts that are reflected in law, you cannot say that an American judge should base his interpretation of law on what he believes he understands in the Bible, Quaran, Torah, et cetera.

Your statement that the Bible is not important is laughable.

Nowhere near as laughable as your understanding of what freedom, individual liberty, and equal treatment under the law are supposed to mean.

Thanks, PaulB, but haven't you noticed that cross-cultural research and actual sociological evidence has no place in this dicussion? We're talking about destroying marriages and our very society by allowing people to marry, so please, take your facts and figures and well-organized thoughts elsewhere.

I for one know firsthand how same-sex marriage destroys marriage-- when my wife and I got married over 4 years ago we had to find a straight married to turn in their marriage license, just so we could get married. (Thanks Jill and Tom, we'll always be so grateful for the end of your marriage!)

But what if you're a thoroughly straight guy and you like to be fucked in the ass with a strap-on while she's giving you a reacharound -- so your prostate gets absolute maximum stimulation and you blast your cum through the wall ... oh, nevermind :)

Well, then, I know a little place in Tribeca that you'd love....but be sure to make an appointment at least a day in advance.

Hey now, any more talk like that and you're likely to scare off the trolls...or make it exceedingly difficult for them to type one-handed.

More, more, more...

But what if you're a thoroughly straight guy and you like to be fucked in the ass with a strap-on while she's giving you a reacharound -- so your prostate gets absolute maximum stimulation and you blast your cum through the wall ... oh, nevermind :)

Look, Bob, if you want my ex-girlfriend's number just come out and ask for it. There's no need to hint around like this....

OK, I will try and fill in some blanks for some people. When ideas are naturally connected in my mind, I forget that people who think differently may not see them as related. I admit also that sometimes I introduce new tangents into the discusion which confuse people further. Mea culpa.

1. I think some people here say "..support this with evidence..." or "..you haven't fully defined that..." when they don't want to face an opinion which although they don't believe, is still reasonable. I don't have space here to develop a full documentation of what it is to be a man. I know that many reputable scholars (not progressive scholars maybe, but no progressive scholar would have this opiniton ) have felt that a large problem with our society is the los of manliness as a virtue. Its easy to say to someone " you haven't defined that " but please lets be reasonable about the amount of space that is available in a blog comment.

2. I do not often call something CM Dicely says as fundamentally wrong. He is very hard to argue against precisely because he is very smart and careful about what he says. but this time I must object to a statement of his.

He keeps alluding to some concept he has of denying people fundamental rights. Where is there any "fundamental right" to marry. By what definition is this a "fundamental right".

I come much more from the side of the argument that marriage is something that we place upon society. We have chosen to elevate a certain relationship and call it marriage.

3. This elevation of the relationship of marriage is of course tied to the raising of the next generation.

Windhorse said -

You'll also be relieved to know that given what we know about evolutionary biology, the vast majority of people will still choose to enter into hetero marriages and make babies no matter what courts decide.

Well maybe you haven't checked the birthrates amongst Europeans lately, but I have. A birth rate of 1.1 does not make for a sustainable society. But I digress...

4. In my opinion the best place to raise this next generation is in an established home where both the masculine and feminine side of humanity is well played out.

I do not believe that raising a child in the home of two homosexual men robs the child of any possibility of seeing an example of some traits of manliness. It is of course likely for a gay man to, outside of his sexual preference, exhibit many of the good qualities of masculinity.

But the obvious thing is that it robs him of the example of seeing the proper interplay of the masculine and feminine roles together. Much of proper masculine traits involve the termperance of strength in order to care for the weaker ones. This is clearly illustrated everyday where a real man is married to a real women. The man and woman are not in competition, but are working together. The man exhibits strength and authority correctly when under the law of love, he lays done his life to nurture and protect his family. Likewise the women, when she does not try to exert control, but even though she is equal in stature, willinglly submits to the leadership of a man provides a great lesson. This correctly functioning family is the microcosm of what is needed for a good society.

For example:
The government has authority - but it must not abuse that authority but must use it to serve the citizenry.

The citizenry are not lower than the government officials, but they willlingly submit to the laws and compacts of the officials in order to live well with one another.

This is a healthy civilized society. The child that grows up in the home as designed under Gods vision for marriage sees this correctly modeled every day. Character which makes a society better is not "book learnt". It must be modelled every day. It can most easily be modelled in the confines of a proper home in marriage.

Same-sex marriage - the state declaring that man-man is equivalent to man-woman - is direspectful to this institution of marriage which is the best hope for raising a good next generation. It chips away at the demonstration of a masculine and feminine role everyday in the next generation's lives. This alone will not collapse society, but it will chip away at the possiblities of raising new children who understand the importance of the crucial authority-submit relationship that is found in so many places in a civilized society.

So these ideas are all related -- the proper distinctions of masculine and feminine -- the raising of children -- the development of good character.

The promotion of same-sex marriage works against these goals. Some may think that the state sanctioning of same-sex marriage has really no effect. You could be right. But given how hard it is to hold marriages together and to raise good children, I do not think we need any more impediments to this. Let those who prefer the same sex cohabitate - but please, do not demand that I call it marriage.

Where is there any "fundamental right" to marry. By what definition is this a "fundamental right".

The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.

Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1,12 (1967)

"The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men."

Thats a natural law by the way.

These are your narrow ideas about masculine and feminine, sir, but not everyone embraces them and the state should not put itself in a position to try, as it might, to clumsily enforce them. This is important to you but unless every male-female couple reflects the dynamic that you have described-- and they most certainly don't-- then your whole point really doesn't hold up.

Frankly your hyper-idealiziation of the "interplay of feminine and masculine" really doesn't have much to do with the caring for, feeding, nuturing and loving that happens between married people or between them and their children. Some hetero married couples may resemble this, some do not at all. And unless you've never met a really femme-butch couple, you don't know what you speak of when it comes to seeing the interplay of masculine and feminine. I've known lesbians who could outbutch almost any man, so spare us the lectures about the proper roles of men and women and.

Also, not to mention, gay couples do not raise their children in a vacuum, their children will see the "interplay between masculine and feminine" in other places, in their own families, as well as in their own homes. What you have described is not a need, it is a personal ideal, and families can exist happily and healthily without them.

"Most recent public discussion of the law and marriage has focused on whether there should be same-sex marriage, but the issue of how the law should treat marriage goes far beyond that narrowly focused debate. More fundamental is the question of whether the law should promote and support marriage or whether it should favor "family diversity" – the view that no family form is superior to any other. To the family diversity advocates, what others consider family fragmentation – including divorce, out-of-wedlock childbearing and the consequent weak relationships of fathers with their children – is not a social problem but something to be celebrated. While the "celebration" of family diversity has largely disappeared among social scientists who study families – because research has failed to support it 'Research clearly demonstrates that family structure matters for children, and the family structure that helps children the most is a family headed by two biological parents in a low-conflict marriage. Because that parenting structure is best for kids, legalizing gay marriage means subjecting children to less-than-optimum outcomes: "[Gay marriage] would mean the law was neutral as to whether children had mothers and fathers. Motherless and fatherless families would be deemed just fine."

John Hansen wrote: "1. I think some people here say '..support this with evidence...' or '..you haven't fully defined that...' when they don't want to face an opinion which although they don't believe, is still reasonable."

No, we say such things when you have not, in fact, supported your assertions or defined your terms. It has nothing at all to do with whether I want to "face" that opinion or whether I regard it as "reasonable." You have made some rather bizarre assertions; you're being called on them. If you cannot support them, then say so. If you can support them, then do so.

"I don't have space here to develop a full documentation of what it is to be a man."

We'll settle for a few examples. And while you're at it, you will still need to explain just why gay men can not exhibit these characteristics and just what any of this has to do with same-sex marriage.

"I know that many reputable scholars (not progressive scholars maybe, but no progressive scholar would have this opiniton ) have felt that a large problem with our society is the los of manliness as a virtue."

Sigh.... And here you go again. What, precisely, is "manliness?" Who are these "reputable scholars?" Which "progressive scholars" disagree with them and what is the substance of their disagreement? And what the hell does any of this have to do with same-sex marriage?!

"Its easy to say to someone "you haven't defined that" but please lets be reasonable about the amount of space that is available in a blog comment."

We're not asking for a dissertation, John. And given the lengthy nature of your posts, you're hardly in a position to talk about a "reasonable amount of space." We're asking you to define your terms and support your arguments. Thus far, all you've done is make some rather wild assertions. You need to do better than that if you wish us to take you seriously.

"He keeps alluding to some concept he has of denying people fundamental rights. Where is there any 'fundamental right' to marry. By what definition is this a 'fundamental right'."

That was probably me rather than cmdicely. But either way, it is a fundamental right because the United States Supreme Court has more than once determined that it is a fundamental right. If you want to disagree, you'll have to take it up with them.

"I come much more from the side of the argument that marriage is something that we place upon society."

This is a meaningless phrase.

"3. This elevation of the relationship of marriage is of course tied to the raising of the next generation."

Sigh.... And here you go again.... No, John, it is not. Procreation is not now, nor has it ever been, a requirement for marriage. The usual wedding vows do not mention it, neither the civil nor the religious ceremony mention it or require it, the participants are not required to state that they can or will have children, and so on. You simply keep stating this over and over again without ever bothering to back up this opinion with anything resembling a rational argument.

"Well maybe you haven't checked the birthrates amongst Europeans lately, but I have. A birth rate of 1.1 does not make for a sustainable society. But I digress..."

You do indeed, since that has nothing to do with same-sex marriage.

"4. In my opinion the best place to raise this next generation is in an established home where both the masculine and feminine side of humanity is well played out."

So you've said. As has been repeatedly stated, there are a number of problems with this opinion:

1. Gay men and women will continue to have and raise children, regardless of whether they are allowed to get married or not, which means that this point of yours is moot.

2. Even assuming that your statement is correct about the "best" environment for children, you have yet to establish than an "almost-as-good" environment is not adequate or sufficient and that it should be prohibited.

3. And, of course, this opinion of yours is directly contradicted by the available data.

"But the obvious thing is that it robs him of the example of seeing the proper interplay of the masculine and feminine roles together."

Why? The child has endless examples of such interplay all around him -- other relatives, neighbors, classmates, television, movies, books. There is literally no end to the exposure to the "proper interplay of the masculine and feminine roles together." Moreover, you are, as usual, begging the question -- what, precisely is this "interplay?" Why is it important? And since gay men and women will continue to have and raise children regardless of the outcome of same-sex marriage, why is this discussion relevant?

"Much of proper masculine traits involve the termperance of strength in order to care for the weaker ones."

Frankly, this is meaningless psychobabble.

"This is clearly illustrated everyday where a real man is married to a real women. The man and woman are not in competition, but are working together."

As are two men and two women in relationships with one another, for the most part. Why on earth would you assume that the members of the gay couples are necessarily "in competition?" Or, for that matter, that straight couples are not?

"The man exhibits strength and authority correctly when under the law of love, he lays done his life to nurture and protect his family."

And, once again, this is just meaningless babble, highly emotional but devoid of substance.

"Likewise the women, when she does not try to exert control, but even though she is equal in stature, willinglly submits to the leadership of a man provides a great lesson."

Oh my.... I see no need to comment on this one. Personally, I find misogyny to be rather ugly.

"This correctly functioning family is the microcosm of what is needed for a good society."

Suffice to say that my definition of "a good society" differs rather dramatically from yours.

"This is a healthy civilized society. The child that grows up in the home as designed under Gods vision for marriage sees this correctly modeled every day."

And, again, I see no need to comment on this. Your description of a "healthy, civilized society" is woefully incomplete. Nor have you demonstrated that children raised by same-sex couples will have any problem being healthy, happy, and productive members of your dream society. In fact, you cannot, since the available data strongly indicate that they can and do.

"Same-sex marriage - the state declaring that man-man is equivalent to man-woman - is direspectful to this institution of marriage"

That's an opinion, and an unsupported opinion at that. I could just as easily say that the institution of marriage is so important that it needs to be extended to provide its benefits, rights and responsibilities to all of the citizens of our society, not just a select group.

"which is the best hope for raising a good next generation."

As repeatedly noted, in an argument you have never addressed, "a good next generation" is not a requirement for marriage.

"It chips away at the demonstration of a masculine and feminine role everyday in the next generation's lives."

Oh, garbage. This is simply an unsupported opinion, and an opinion that is directly contradicted by the available data, which clearly indicate that children raised by same-sex couples have absolutely no problem with appropriate gender identity and behavior.

"This alone will not collapse society, but it will chip away at the possiblities of raising new children who understand the importance of the crucial authority-submit relationship that is found in so many places in a civilized society."

Oh, please. John, they get that "authority-submit" relationship every fricking day -- at home, at school, at work. Children, by their very nature, have little to no authority and constantly have to submit to adult authority and supervision. Your argument is specious.

"So these ideas are all related -- the proper distinctions of masculine and feminine -- the raising of children -- the development of good character."

No, I'm afraid they are not, nor have you demonstrated that they are. You've simply done a bunch of hand-waving and spewed forth a bunch of unsupported, and mostly meaningless, psychobabble, much of which is directly contradicted by the available data.

"The promotion of same-sex marriage works against these goals."

Sorry, but you have yet to demonstrate this.

"Some may think that the state sanctioning of same-sex marriage has really no effect."

Few people will say it has absolutely no effect. Most of us will say that the effect is minimal and, for the most part, beneficial. We will also, correctly, point out that if you want to prohibit access to this fundamental right, you have to demonstrate a negative effect. Thus far, you have entirely failed in this task.

"You could be right. But given how hard it is to hold marriages together and to raise good children, I do not think we need any more impediments to this. Let those who prefer the same sex cohabitate - but please, do not demand that I call it marriage."

You can call it anything you want, John, since nobody is forcing you to do a damn thing. I will simply close by noting that this sentence, "let those who prefer the same sex cohabitate," directly undercuts and contradicts your entire argument above!

Fitz, if you're goin to quote someone, the least you can do is attribute it properly and link to the article in question, which, in this case, was an op-ed in the Dallas Morning News by Professor Norval Glenn of the University of Texas.

As for Glenn's argument, I'm afraid that I find it less than compelling. He is making the same mistake that Hansen is making, insisting that marriage is all about child-rearing, when in fact it is nothing of the kind.

Going further, this sentence: "More fundamental is the question of whether the law should promote and support marriage or whether it should favor 'family diversity'"

Actually, no, this isn't really a fundamental question and it isn't even on the table in this discussion. This is nothing more than an attempt to distract.

"– the view that no family form is superior to any other."

Strawman argument, since nobody has asserted that.

"To the family diversity advocates, what others consider family fragmentation – including divorce, out-of-wedlock childbearing and the consequent weak relationships of fathers with their children – is not a social problem but something to be celebrated."

Complete rubbish. Note the lack of any real data, the lack of actual names and citations, etc. Of course, he cannot provide such support because nobody is saying anything even remotely resembling this!

"While the 'celebration' of family diversity has largely disappeared among social scientists who study families"

Also rubbish, since the only way he can say this is by defining "celebration of family diversity" in a completely meaningless way, as he did above.

"Research clearly demonstrates that family structure matters for children,"

No shit, which is a fairly strong argument for same-sex marriage.

"and the family structure that helps children the most is a family headed by two biological parents in a low-conflict marriage."

He's making the same mistake that Hansen made. This may, in fact, be the family structure that helps children "the most," but if a same-sex family structure helps children nearly as much and does absolutely no harm, then a "less-than-optimum approach" is insufficient reason to prohibit such relationships.

Moreover, note the weasel-wording about the "low-conflict marriage." If he wants to be consistent, then surely he is prepared to call for a ban on any non-low-conflict marriages, right?

"Because that parenting structure is best for kids, legalizing gay marriage means subjecting children to less-than-optimum outcomes:"

We are not required to always have "optimum" outcomes. There are any number of factors that can lead to a less-than-optimum child-rearing situation, ranging from parental inexperience to outright neglect and parental abandonment to outright abuse. On the scale of "optimum" outcomes, a healthy, happy, low-conflict same-sex relationship is way up there.

And, once again, the data simply do not agree with his assertions. We now know, beyond all reasonable doubt, that same-sex couples raise healthy, happy, well-adjusted children. His arguments are bullshit.

"[Gay marriage] would mean the law was neutral as to whether children had mothers and fathers. Motherless and fatherless families would be deemed just fine."

Families with two mothers or two fathers? Yes. This is called "begging the question." Glenn needs to establish that these families are not fine. He has entirely failed to do so.

PaulB

Just so you dont think that John & I are the only persons in the world who shares this point of view,

Allow me to quote...

"We conclude, however, that there are at least two grounds that rationally support the limitation on marriage that the Legislature has enacted. . . .

"First, the Legislature could rationally decide that, for the welfare of children, it is more important to promote stability, and to avoid instability, in opposite-sex than in same-sex relationships. Heterosexual intercourse has a natural tendency to lead to the birth of children; homosexual intercourse does not. Despite the advances of science, it remains true that the vast majority of children are born as a result of a sexual relationship between a man and a woman, and the Legislature could find that this will continue to be true. The Legislature could also find that such relationships are all too often casual or temporary. It could find that an important function of marriage is to create more stability and permanence in the relationships that cause children to be born. It thus could choose to offer an inducement -- in the form of marriage and its attendant benefits -- to opposite-sex couples who make a solemn, long-term commitment to each other.

"The Legislature could find that this rationale for marriage does not apply with comparable force to same-sex couples. These couples can become parents by adoption, or by artificial insemination or other technological marvels, but they do not become parents as a result of accident or impulse. . . This is one reason why the Legislature could rationally offer the benefits of marriage to opposite-sex couples only.

"There is a second reason: The Legislature could rationally believe that it is better, other things being equal, for children to grow up with both a mother and a father. Intuition and experience suggest that a child benefits from having before his or her eyes, every day, living models of what both a man and a woman are like. It is obvious that there are exceptions to this general rule -- some children who never know their fathers, or their mothers, do far better than some who grow up with parents of both sexes -- but the Legislature could find that the general rule will usually hold.

Plaintiffs, and amici supporting them, argue that the proposition asserted is simply untrue: that a home with two parents of different sexes has no advantage, from the point of view of raising children, over a home with two parents of the same sex. Perhaps they are right, but the Legislature could rationally think otherwise.

"Plaintiffs seem to assume that they have demonstrated the irrationality of the view that opposite-sex marriages offer advantages to children by showing there is no scientific evidence to support it. Even assuming no such evidence exists, this reasoning is flawed. In the absence of conclusive scientific evidence, the Legislature could rationally proceed on the common- sense premise that children will do best with a mother and father in the home. (See Goodridge, 798 NE2d at 979-980 [Sosman, J., dissenting].) And a legislature proceeding on that premise could rationally decide to offer a special inducement, the legal recognition of marriage, to encourage the formation of opposite- sex households. . ."

The New York Superior Court. July 6, 2006

"Families with two mothers or two fathers? Yes. This is called "begging the question." Glenn needs to establish that these families are not fine. He has entirely failed to do so."

I'm afraid your question begging Paul. Its not up to us to prove that your less optimal than marriage. Its up to you to prove that changing the definition of marriage will not effect adversley either children or the institution.

I think some people here say "..support this with evidence..." or "..you haven't fully defined that..." when they don't want to face an opinion which although they don't believe, is still reasonable.

And, see, I think they say it when you haven't made clear what you mean, or provided any evidence for your claims.

I don't have space here to develop a full documentation of what it is to be a man.

No one is asking you to do that; all you are being asked to do is provide a definition of the ideal you claim is essential to the extent that it is relevant to the topic at hand, that is, the legal status of same sex marriage.

I know that many reputable scholars (not progressive scholars maybe, but no progressive scholar would have this opiniton ) have felt that a large problem with our society is the los of manliness as a virtue.

So? What reputable scholars? On what basis did they believe this? Argument from anonymous authority is meaningless.

Well maybe you haven't checked the birthrates amongst Europeans lately, but I have. A birth rate of 1.1 does not make for a sustainable society.

Actually, no particular birthrate is necessary, particularly over the short term, for a sustainable society in an open system; societies, being culture not genetics, are sustained by the preservation of memes. As long as there is a population to transmit the memes too, the society can survive, and a natural decline matched with immigration, or even, over so long as it decelerates over the very long term, a overall decline, do not prevent a society from surviving.

There was a time when natural increase (and fairly rapid natural increase) as the normal course was necessary for the survival of societies, due to different risks and conditions than exist now. That is no longer the case, though.

In my opinion the best place to raise this next generation is in an established home where both the masculine and feminine side of humanity is well played out.

The whole generation is to be raised in one home? Anyway, we're discussing who should be allowed to be married, not what would be the ideal environment for raising children.

I do not believe that raising a child in the home of two homosexual men robs the child of any possibility of seeing an example of some traits of manliness. It is of course likely for a gay man to, outside of his sexual preference, exhibit many of the good qualities of masculinity.

Since you haven't defined what the "good qualities of masculinity" are, other than abstract undefined thing you believe exists but that apparently involves, as one component (justifying your "outside of his sexual preference") seeking to mate with females, this is an empty, meaningless statement.

But the obvious thing is that it robs him of the example of seeing the proper interplay of the masculine and feminine roles together.

No, it doesn't.

Even if there are generally desirable masculine and feminine roles, that does not mean that they cannot be modelled effectively (and even desirably in specific cases) by people of the female or male sex, respectively. You, again, are confusing the general with the specific.

Much of proper masculine traits involve the termperance of strength in order to care for the weaker ones.

Any child growing up with adults will see this modelled (barring bad parenting) whether the parents are male or female, gay, straight, bisexual, or nonsexual.

This is rather painfully obvious. Its an essential quality in any parent, male or female.

This is clearly illustrated everyday where a real man is married to a real women.

Er, no, its rather obviously not, unless by "real" you mean "ideal". And, frankly, its modelled in any healthy relationship between two people, and even between male and female, who is "strong" and "weak" in the relevant regard is not constant, either (even within the same pair it changes.)

The man and woman are not in competition, but are working together.

Again, this is a feature of any healthy (not only romantic/married/parenting) relationship, and doesn't require a man and a woman to model.

The man exhibits strength and authority correctly when under the law of love, he lays done his life to nurture and protect his family.

While, of course, laying down one's life is infrequently, if ever, modelled in any particular family, certainly this is no less true of a woman, either.

Likewise the women, when she does not try to exert control, but even though she is equal in stature, willinglly submits to the leadership of a man provides a great lesson.

Even among Christian religious traditions, few, any more, see this as a particular virtue of the female; such submission, where appropriate, and the judgement to understand where it is appropriate is more often seen, and more rightly I would argue, as a universal, rather than sex-specific, virtue.

This correctly functioning family is the microcosm of what is needed for a good society.

Certainly, a correctly functioning family, in which each member acts appropriately based on their care and respect for each other, their individual capacities, and their present situation is a microcosm of what is needed for a healthy society. But acting in accord with hypergeneralized sex stereotypes is the opposite of that; sure, there may be tendencies based on sex because capacities and situations experienced will vary, and one factor that will influence that variation is sex. But that doesn't justify stereotypes as ideal.

The government has authority - but it must not abuse that authority but must use it to serve the citizenry.

The citizenry are not lower than the government officials, but they willlingly submit to the laws and compacts of the officials in order to live well with one another.

I think, again, you are confusing popular government, where the people are and direct the government with some outdated ideal of government by divine right, where "officials" are a distinct class ordained by God; at least, that would explain your attempting to use this analogy to sex roles. A more modern vision sees the roles of "citizen" and "official" as fluid, things that the same person may participate in simultaneously, more at one time than other. Similarly, while stereotypical sex roles might have some very broad general sense, the various real features that justify them, such as relative strength and weakness in a relationship, are features where the same person may have both the "masculine" and "feminine" feature, and may have more or less of either at different times, and which is not controlled entirely (though some tendencies may exist) by which sex that person happens to be.

Same-sex marriage - the state declaring that man-man is equivalent to man-woman - is direspectful to this institution of marriage which is the best hope for raising a good next generation.

Certainly, it is "disrespecful" to your ludicrous stereotyped vision of social rules, whether for roles in the family or static social roles in social authority more broadly. But such an idea deserves disrespect, as it is inherently disrespectful of individual persons and the variations between them, and within individuals over time, offensive to the personal dignity of every human being, and, IMO, an affront to their Creator, as well.

A writer of cheap novels may be unable to make male and female characters with substantially different nature, and simple stereotypes may suffice for them. But God, if He is worthy of the name, is better than that.

Some may think that the state sanctioning of same-sex marriage has really no effect.

Some may think that. I, OTOH, think that it has a substantial and desirable effect. On the third hand, though, as I believe in the principle that discrimination must be justified by good reason, I don't need to think that to oppose prohibiting same-sex marriage, and I will persist in that policy position until someone shows me a good reason not merely to respect their belief that same-sex marriage is undesirable, but to actually believe that it is so demonstrably harmful as to justify sex-based discrimination in marriage.

Let those who prefer the same sex cohabitate - but please, do not demand that I call it marriage.

I see no reason to indulge your bigotry against men and women who diverge from your stereotypes, whether by reason of their preference in life partners or otherwise.

CM Dicley.
"I see no reason to indulge your bigotry against men and women who diverge from your stereotypes, whether by reason of their preference in life partners or otherwise."

Apparently the New Jersey Supreme Court (which we are discussing) disagrees with you .
“The name to be given to the statutory scheme that provides full rights and benefits to samesex couples, whether marriage or some other term, is a matter left to the democratic process.
To be clear, it is not our role to suggest whether the Legislature should either amend the marriage statutes to include same-sex couples or enact a civil union scheme. Our role here is limited to constitutional adjudication, and therefore we must steer clear of the swift and treacherous currents of social policy when we have no constitutional compass with which to navigate”

Well maybe you haven't checked the birthrates amongst Europeans lately, but I have. A birth rate of 1.1 does not make for a sustainable society.

Well maybe I have checked out the birthrates among Europeans, and maybe I specifically argued at length about them on this blog, particularly that low birth rates in a society correlate with wealth and access to education -- not same sex marriage, btw.

And I wouldn't be too worried about those wealthy European countries, as they're taking in large numbers of immigrants who in turn have higher birthrates which will keep them going for a long time.

Anyway, evolutionary biology is concerned with the survival of the human species, not any given country or society. And maybe you haven't checked out the birth rates amongst, say, Africans and Asians lately, but I have, and they're far above replacement level.

Just one more bogeyman you don't have to be worried about now.

The human species is gonna have no problem carrying on due to low birth rates in the foreseeable future.

Given increasing scarcity of non-renewable resources on the planet, however, rising birth rates are a bigger problem than falling ones.

Oh Andrew!!!! I am waiting!

Fitz,

Quoting a court saying that marriage discrimination meets the rational basis test (which is an odd test to use either for sex discrimination [which usually calls for intermediate scrutiny] or discrimination in what has been repeatedly held to be a fundamental right [which usually calls for strict scrutiny]) hardly shows that they share your thoughts. Applying the rational basis test is specifically not weighing the arguments to determine their credibility or validity.

Now, were we debating narrowly the appropriateness of judicial action, rather than what policy is appropriate with regard to SSM, it'd be relevant (though then I'd question the standard applied), but it certainly goes very little distance to support your (and John's) position on substantive policy.

Apparently the New Jersey Supreme Court (which we are discussing) disagrees with you

They might (so what?) but your quote doesn't prove that, it only proves that they don't feel its their job (as a court) to answer the question, a point on which, in the context of the Constitution and laws of the State of New Jersey, I have no strong opinion. And, while the reason we are having the discussion may be the NJ decision, what we've been discussing is the appropriate policy, not the content of the court decision.

Yet the N.J. Supreme court DID rule as a matter of sunstantive poicy...and still refused to call it marriage...

Yet they called no one a bigot?

"what we've been discussing is the appropriate policy, not the content of the court decision."

No. I have been discussing (and one other) the appropriate policy, you (and others) have been hanging back and trying to poke holes in the reasoning.

Yet the N.J. Supreme court DID rule as a matter of sunstantive poicy

No, it ruled as a matter of law. From the syllabus Kevin linked: "As this case presents no factual dispute, the Court addresses solely questions of law."

...and still refused to call it marriage...

No, the court did not "refuse to call it marriage", it rather emphatically did not address the question of names. Again from the syllabus: "At this point, the Court does not consider whether committed same-sex couples should be allowed to marry, but only whether those couples are entitled to the same rights and benefits afforded to married heterosexual couples.
Cast in that light, the issue is not about the transformation of the traditional definition of marriage, but about the unequal dispensation of benefits and privileges to one of two similarly situated classes of people."

And later: "Because this State has no experience with a civil union construct, the Court will not speculate that identical schemes offering equal rights and benefits would create a distinction that would offend Article I, Paragraph 1, and will not presume that a difference in name is of constitutional magnitude."

me give you an example guys....

poking holes in this

(note the promenance of the signatories)

http://www.beyondmarriage.org/

" Legal recognition for a wide range of relationships, households and families – regardless of kinship or conjugal status.

Access for all, regardless of marital or citizenship status, to vital government support programs including but not limited to health care, housing, Social Security and pension plans, disaster recovery assistance, unemployment insurance and welfare assistance.

Separation of church and state in all matters, including regulation and recognition of relationships, households and families.

Freedom from state regulation of our sexual lives and gender choices, identities and expression.

Marriage is not the only worthy form of family or relationship, and it should not be legally and economically privileged above all others. A majority of people – whatever their sexual and gender identities – do not live in traditional nuclear families. They stand to gain from alternative forms of household recognition beyond one-size-fits-all marriage. For example:

Single parent households

Senior citizens living together and serving as each other’s caregivers (think Golden Girls)

Blended and extended families

Children being raised in multiple households or by unmarried parents

Adult children living with and caring for their parents

Senior citizens who are the primary caregivers to their grandchildren or other relatives

Close friends or siblings living in non-conjugal relationships and serving as each other’s primary support and caregivers

Households in which there is more than one conjugal partner

Care-giving relationships that provide support to those living with extended illness such as HIV/AIDS.

The current debate over marriage, same-sex and otherwise, ignores the needs and desires of so many in a nation where household diversity is the demographic norm. We seek to reframe this debate. Our call speaks to the widespread hunger for authentic and just community in ways that are both pragmatic and visionary. It follows in the best tradition of the progressive LGBT movement, which invented alternative legal statuses such as domestic partnership and reciprocal beneficiary. We seek to build on these historic accomplishments by continuing to diversify and democratize partnership and household recognition. We advocate the expansion of existing legal statuses, social services and benefits to support the needs of all our households.

We call on colleagues working in various social justice movements and campaigns to read the full-text of our statement “Beyond Same-Sex Marriage: A New Strategic Vision,” and to join us in our call for government support of all our households."

No. I have been discussing (and one other) the appropriate policy, you (and others) have been hanging back and trying to poke holes in the reasoning.

Uh, no. I've been discussing the appropriate policy as much as you have. Sure, a lot of my argument has been that the fundamental principles of a society built on equality before the law, where discrimination by the state must be justified by good cause means your side ought to bear has the burden of proof, and on pointing out how you've failed to mean that burden, but I've certainly been arguing for a particular policy position even while doing that.

But then, accurately portraying what other people have said or done isn't exactly one of your strong points, as this thread has shown repeatedly.

me give you an example guys....

poking holes in this

Er, Fitz, why you are you putting two sentence fragments at the top of something you already cut-and-pasted without making any kind of point earlier in the thread?

Sorry

Let me give you an example guys....
Try poking holes in this...

really, why is this not equally persuasive as ss "m"

Our point is that the tradtional understanding is superior.

John Hanson:

The problem you are running into is that you are making one hell of a lot of unsupported presuppositions and assumption regarding the role of marriage, gender, definition of masculine/feminine and how equality under the law works without backing them up. You seem to be doing so in the assumption that these are commonly agreed to interpretations/definitions and that anyone not using them is clearly a fringe thinker. This is where you are running into your trouble, and why your approach looks far more like the baffle them with bullshit approach than the dazzling with brilliance you appear to think you are showing. You also made the claim that first your faith and then your reasoning/logic dictates your stance here. You then claimed the faith did not affect how you determined your logic. Well, after everything you have written here you have proven that to be false. Indeed, your faith is the basis of your logic since you are cherry picking things that support that premise and rejecting the merits of anything that disputes it no matter how strong the evidence.

You wonder why you get seen as a bigot and think it is because progressives are some kind of anti-religious bigots themselves because they do not agree with your religious/spiritual interpretations on this matter. It never once appears to occur to you that many of us are also religious/spiritual but also recognize that it is important to not favour *ANY* religion or sect within a religion in a State where multiple religions let alone sects within religions are to have equal treatment/consideration under the law as any other. What you are trying to claim is that the only religiously correct answer on this topic is your specific religious sect's (or group fo sects since there is overlap among so many within Christiantity) definition but since within your own religion, Christianity there are sects that do recognize the validity of SSM, and not just so called fringe sects either you are violating their religious freedoms and beliefs as you claim is being done unto you by the gay marriage legalization. It is you that is imposing their morality upon the collective and not those fighting for nothing more than equal consideration under the law.

You are the one engaging in massive social engineering with your arguments, such as they are, not those you claim to be opposed to in part because of their social engineering. You are the one that insists on throwing around undefined terms and expecting everyone to not only understand your precise meaning (despite your lack of definition) but also that this is accepted wisdom/truth in the reality based world despite any proof of such being offered. So why are you surprised that all of us that insist on arguments being made with facts and evidence instead of undefined emotionally loaded rhetoric find your arguments here without merit and indeed not just juvenile but disturbing for the massive blind spot you have to your own bigotry/misogyny regarding the role of women as Paul B noted as well as homosexuals generally?

You also have demonstrated the ability to write complex and lengthy posts so the idea that you don't have the capacity/ability to sufficiently define your terms and meanings in your arguments is patent nonsense. I probably write longer posts than most people here on average, sometimes several pages long, so I know the space is there to do so with so your reluctance can only be chalked up to an unwillingness for some reason. You live in a fantasy world of stereotypes and absolutes where human behaviour regarding gender roles in society are concerned, you have clearly no understanding of anthropology and what it has shown about human history and behaviour, and your knowledge of history is to be pitied given the lack of any real demonstrated knowledge of the subject, especially where marriage itself is concerned even in western cultures let alone globally.

Your arguments have been shredded by cmdicely and Paul B which is why I see no reason to repeat that process, so consider this my gift to you in the admitted dim hope you might actually start to understand what you are doing wrong in this disagreement.

Fitz:

I don't bother with you because you are clearly Trolletariat, you have a fixation on this topic, and you recite mantras and cut and paste pieces rather than argue via your own mental capabilities. So feel free to respond to whatever I write but don't hold your breath in expecting a response. I do not waste my time on such limited trolls as yourself, John Hanson for all his failings at least reads to me like a real person, you don't.

Let me give you an example guys.... Try poking holes in this...

Er, why would you challenge liberal supporters of broader understanding of family than is the status quo to poke holes in an argument for a broader understanding of family than the status quo?

really, why is this not equally persuasive as ss "m"

It includes Same-sex marriage, of course, but advocates more beyond that. Its largely irrelevant to the SSM discussion, though some parts of it have merit, IMO.

Our point is that the tradtional understanding is superior.

We get that you believe that what you think of as "the traditional understanding" is superior. What you fail to do is provide any good reason for that belief.

Just for fun, guess who agrees with the NJSC's ruling?

"I view the definition of marriage different from legal arrangements that enable people to have rights. And I strongly believe that marriage ought to be defined as between a union between a man and a woman. Now, having said that, states ought to be able to have the right to pass laws that enable people to be able to have rights like others.”

If the NJ legislature passes civil unions, as it will likely do, then the above quote absolutely jives with that decision.

Care to guess who said that?

None of than President Bush.

So much for "protecting traditional values."

It includes Same-sex marriage, of course, but advocates more beyond that.

That was imprecise. Because it advocates recognition of same-sex relationships, and more beyond that, but explicitly rejects the SSM debate, I should say it is compatible with SSM; it advocates recognition of the same kind of relationships, and more, but does not necessarily call for equal recognition as SSM does.

Its quite easy to conceive one might take the position that SSM should be recognized as equal, and that some recognition of the other relationships discussed there should be made, with appropriate governing rules, conditions, etc., and privileges and obligations that may vary in a number of ways from that of marriage.

So, really, the "Beyond Marriage" position is largely orthogonal to SSM, except that they overlap in calling for recognition of same-sex pairs. So its very odd to call on defenders of SSM to attack the "Beyond Marriage" position for you.

Scotian,

You make the mistake that I am trying to point to evidence and convince by perponderance of such evidence. This is not a court neither am I trying to argue as a lawyer. I understand that a lot of my ideas do come from my read of the world and how my faith integrates into my life as a whole.

I do not expect to find an (acceptable to you) scholarly study that would demonstrate my positions, so how am I to prove that my ideas are consistent to you. How could I possibly do that when the almost all of modern "scholarly" thought is ruled by progressives? ( Just check which candidates and parties Ph.D's in the Social Sciences support with contributions and you will see this is undeniable )

I am trained as a scientist. A real scientist, not a "social scientist". Having taken the time necessary to create and defend my Ph.D thesis in Physics, I recognize that even in the hard sciences it is difficult to prove a point.

Much less in the so-called social sciences where anthropology tends to study populations only to confirm what they wish to find out.

How are any of my assumptions less grounded than your assumptions.

This is particularly jarring in the light that you progressives are out to make a radical change in public policy.

CM Dicely's position is ludicrous. He finds a legal case where the right to marry as a fundamental right and then wants to include in the term marriage something that is not in the prevailing understanding of marriage of the time.

It is the progressives who want to change an institution that has been defined for thousands of years that must bring the strong justifications.

You can state that I am devoid of logic, or stand alone all you want, but that is only because you are standing amidst the echo chamber of fellow progressives.

What I want to do is cast some doubt in some of your minds. To expose you to a different way of looking at things. Do I expect many to agree? How can I? Most of you probably reject the traditional male and female roles from the outset. Being progressive means you are anti-traditionalist from the start. Perhaps by bringing a few reasonable arguments that I expect to be rejected I can get someone here to maybe question the edifice upon which his progresivism stands. Perhaps one of you will question the assumptions you have made about life, about gender roles, about marriage, about God. Until you question your own foundation, you will see all I write as unsupported statements - not realizing that your own suppositions are just as much not grounded in serious study, but in the echo chamber of progressive thought.

If the NJ legislature passes civil unions, as it will likely do, then the above quote absolutely jives with that decision.

No. No. No. No. This is not fair. If the NJ legislature on its own prompting by what the people's representatives want passes a law where same sex marriage is allowed, I would respect NJ's decision as a free state. ( I would want to pass a US Constitutional amendment to define marriage to void that law but I digress... )

However, if the legislature passes a law because it was forced to do so by the NJ court, this is not the action of a sovereign state. It is tyranny of the judicial.

GWB rightly stands for the rights of sovereign states. Sovereign state legislatures forced to do something by a court is not the will of the people.

Most of you probably reject the traditional male and female roles from the outset. Being progressive means you are anti-traditionalist from the start.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. You sure like assuming things, don't you? Stop getting everything you know about liberals/progressives from reading anti-liberal/progressive screeds and you might be pleasantly surprised at how much diversity (I know it's a bad word) there is among us. We really are a pretty broad spectrum of people, one of our uniting values is that people should have choices and respect one another.

My parents are totally traditional, if you mean by traditional that my dad worked and my mom stayed home and raised kids. But you couldn't find bigger bleeding-heart liberals, who embraced the view that we should be true to ourselves, be honest and forthright, be the best people we can and contribute as much good as we can to the world. In a sense I too am traditional in my own way, my partner and I are postponing kids until one of us can stay home and be a fulltime momma. We put family above everything.

So instead of trying to enlighten us try opening your mind to the possibility that we don't have all the preconcieved notions you think we have, OK?

By the way, for those of you who think you're exposing us to ideas we've never heard, you can stop now, we've heard them all before, they're painfully unoriginal.

However, if the legislature passes a law because it was forced to do so by the NJ court, this is not the action of a sovereign state. It is tyranny of the judicial.

Um, no, you are aware that NJ already passed domestic partnership laws, right? Basically this ruling demands that it encompasses everything.

This is a state that allows gay couples to adopt children together as well as foster. This is not being forced on a reluctant state.

By the way, the job of judges is to JUDGE. How can they do their jobs if they are not allowed to do what their very title indicates is their responsibility? NJ has no laws banning same-sex marriage, no state DOMA. Polls show that the majority of NJ people already support same-sex marriage, and the VAST majority support civil unions, so give up it up already.

Fitz wrote: "I'm afraid your question begging Paul. Its not up to us to prove that your less optimal than marriage. Its up to you to prove that changing the definition of marriage will not effect adversley either children or the institution."

Garbage. You are attempting to deny a fundamental right to a group of citizens. It is up to you to establish that there is a reason to do so. Thus far, you have failed to meet this test.

Zoe

Please also do me the favor of recognizing that fundamentalist Christians are also not the cookie cutter images provided by anti-fundie lefties.

I never meant to imply that progressives walk in lockstep to some James Dobson definition. I know full well that there are probably many traditionalist perspectives that you recognize and keep. What I am trying to stand against is the tide of opinion that rejects traditionalism with no basis other than it offends some feelings, and a certain number of people differ from the norm.

I have no idea why you have chosen lesbianism. I do sincerely wish you a happy life. Understand that my understanding of God can not see it as an optimum choice for you, but I have no right - neither does the state, in my opinion - have any right to tell you what to do with your sexuality between you and another consenting adult.

However when you want to call what you are pursuing marriage you are making a public statement. This is where we differ. It is no longer a single choice. You want the state to proclaim by law that it is its opinion that your choice is just as good as my choice. I want to promote heterosexual marriage. You want to stand for personal choice as to definition of marriage. The legislatures of the state can choose this. It is not for courts to decide based upon documents which were written when the idea of SSM was not even conceived in the peoples minds.

How could I possibly do that when the almost all of modern "scholarly" thought is ruled by progressives? ( Just check which candidates and parties Ph.D's in the Social Sciences support with contributions and you will see this is undeniable )

Um, yes, people who study and understand the way societies work in the real world, rather than adhering to unsubstantiated fantasies about society's function, may tend to support progressive policies.

This is not, however, an excuse for opponents of those policies being unable to produce evidence supporting their arguments.

I am trained as a scientist. A real scientist, not a "social scientist".

While, of course, "my subject areas is more real than yours" attitudes are common in the sciences, (physical, biological, and social; nothing is as universal as academic parochialism), showing such attitudes isn't really a good way to convince people that you are serious.

Having taken the time necessary to create and defend my Ph.D thesis in Physics, I recognize that even in the hard sciences it is difficult to prove a point.

There is a difference between proving a point (which is very hard, true), and providing a good reason to believe a position is likely to be correct (which may also be hard, but is a burden you should expect to have to deal with if you want to convince people on policy issues.) You have not only not done the former, but you also haven't done the latter, here.

Much less in the so-called social sciences where anthropology tends to study populations only to confirm what they wish to find out.

Again, with the ignorant academic parochialism. Actually, though, if social science was as bad as you claim, even with the majority of social scientists stacked against you, it should still be fairly easy to find some evidence you could cite to support your position, since its all just a bunch of self-serving, unscientific hooey (of course, your evidence would be easily torn apart, for that reason, but at least you could point to something no less credible than the rest of social science work.)

Instead, you've made vague allusions to supposed findings and reputable researchers, but only vague allusions, perhaps because you know your argument is empty. And now you claim your task is impossible because the field is biased, but does that mean that your earlier vague allusions were lies? Or are you lying now?

How are any of my assumptions less grounded than your assumptions.

Our "assumption" that you haven't made a well-supported case for discrimination?

This is particularly jarring in the light that you progressives are out to make a radical change in public policy.

I think the traditional default presumption in favor of the status quo has been adequately defeated by the argument to the principle of presumptive equality without demonstrable cause for discrimination. Do you reject that principle?

CM Dicely's position is ludicrous. He finds a legal case where the right to marry as a fundamental right and then wants to include in the term marriage something that is not in the prevailing understanding of marriage of the time.

If the right to marry is fundamental, discrimination in it must be particularly strongly justified. That that would change who is allowed to marry is not surprising, the general effect of equal rights analysis applied to pre-exisitng discrimination, where that discrimination cannot be adequately justified, is to change who is allowed to partake of a benefit.

What I want to do is cast some doubt in some of your minds.

You have. I now doubt you are capable of any but the most shallow analysis where it conceives with your preconceived social notions.

Most of you probably reject the traditional male and female roles from the outset.

I don't reject them from the outset. I do think you have done absolutely nothing to support the idea that they ought to be used as the basis of law.

Being progressive means you are anti-traditionalist from the start.

I suppose you could define "traditionalist" in a way that makes that true. So?

Perhaps by bringing a few reasonable arguments that I expect to be rejected I can get someone here to maybe question the edifice upon which his progresivism stands.

Maybe, if you ever brought any "reasonable arguments". When do you plan to try that?

Perhaps one of you will question the assumptions you have made about life, about gender roles, about marriage, about God.

I question all those things regularly, but you aren't really doing anything to challenge any of my beliefs (whether assumptions or conclusions) in those areas.

Until you question your own foundation, you will see all I write as unsupported statements - not realizing that your own suppositions are just as much not grounded in serious study, but in the echo chamber of progressive thought.

Yeah, I mean, I was raised in and around various Christian churches, mostly Catholic, and am formally an adult convert to Catholicism, am still a committed Catholic, though I disagree with heirarchy's position on public policy in numerous areas, read a huge swath of the Summa Theologica on my own initiative my first year of college, used to be something of an anti-abortion activist, but yeah, my ideas about life, God, gender roles, and family are all just a product of the "echo chamber of progressive thought". Sure.

Maybe you should stop assuming that your opponents are exactly like you, except on the opposite side?

John Hansen wrote: "You make the mistake that I am trying to point to evidence and convince by perponderance of such evidence."

John, we know that's not what you are doing. We are telling you that that is what you should be doing. Because without any supporting evidence, you simply do not have a case. Over and over again on this thread you have been posting wholly unsupported, rather wild assertions. You have done no research, have no supporting evidence, no facts, no logic, no reason, no nothing. You simply have some badly outdated fantasies about ideal families, masculine and feminine traits, and the like. And you expect us to deny a fundamental civil right to same-sex couples on the basis of a mishmash like that?! The mind boggles....

"This is not a court neither am I trying to argue as a lawyer."

Nor do we expect you to, other than, say if you were discussing the court's legal reasoning. That has nothing to do with what we want from you.

"I understand that a lot of my ideas do come from my read of the world and how my faith integrates into my life as a whole."

Try "all" of your ideas, in this case.

"I do not expect to find an (acceptable to you) scholarly study that would demonstrate my positions"

Nor do I, since much of what you assert is contrary to all the available evidence.

"How could I possibly do that when the almost all of modern 'scholarly' thought is ruled by progressives?"

Oh, garbage. This is just sheer nonsense. Not only are there conservative sociologists, psychiatrists, and the like, but if all of these "progressives" you so dislike actually tried to pass off completely bogus data and viewpoints, they would be found out and discredited. The paranoid conspiracy theory you are envisioning exists solely in your own mind.

"I am trained as a scientist."

Then act like one, dammit! If you're a scientist, then you know damn well that what you have been posting is wholly inadequate.

"I recognize that even in the hard sciences it is difficult to prove a point."

And again, nonsense. I'm just as much a scientist as you are and this statement is just absurd.

"Much less in the so-called social sciences where anthropology tends to study populations only to confirm what they wish to find out."

And, once again, nonsense. Your understanding of the social sciences is simply false, a reflection of your own paranoia and prejudice rather than based on rational thought and observation.

"How are any of my assumptions less grounded than your assumptions."

Because our assumptions are based on the available data where yours are based solely on your religion, your faith, and your prejudices.

"This is particularly jarring in the light that you progressives are out to make a radical change in public policy."

And again, garbage. This change is hardly "radical."

"CM Dicely's position is ludicrous."

Is it? Thus far, you have been unable to address any of dicely's points, much less discredit them. You've been outargued at every step of this little game you've been playing.

"He finds a legal case where the right to marry as a fundamental right"

As I noted above, if you want to argue this point, take it up with the U.S. Supreme Court.

"and then wants to include in the term marriage something that is not in the prevailing understanding of marriage of the time."

Neither was interracial marriage at the time of Loving v. Virginia. Did you have a point to make?

"It is the progressives who want to change an institution that has been defined for thousands of years that must bring the strong justifications."

And here we go again with this "defined for thousands of years" crap. I've already posted the information that debunks this particular line of thought. Your assertion is flatly untrue and it simply reveals your own ignorance of these matters.

"You can state that I am devoid of logic"

We can and will, so long as you are, in fact, devoid of logic.

"or stand alone all you want, but that is only because you are standing amidst the echo chamber of fellow progressives."

Sigh.... Nobody is claiming you "stand alone." What we are claiming is that you are wrong.

"What I want to do is cast some doubt in some of your minds."

Then are you are picking a piss-poor way of doing it, given your complete inability to make your case. All you're doing is confirming the basic correctness of our views, given that you have not, and can not, successfully challenge them.

"To expose you to a different way of looking at things."

Hansen, what makes you think this is "different" or that we haven't been exposed to it a hundred times over? We've heard these same discredited and debunked arguments hundreds of times. They don't get any more convincing with repetition.

"Do I expect many to agree? How can I?"

Of course you cannot if you do not support your case!

"Most of you probably reject the traditional male and female roles from the outset. Being progressive means you are anti-traditionalist from the start."

ROFL.... Oh my ... how little you understand "progressives" or anyone else here.

"Perhaps by bringing a few reasonable arguments"

We're still waiting for those "reasonable arguments."

"that I expect to be rejected I can get someone here to maybe question the edifice upon which his progresivism stands."

ROFL.... Oh my... No comment necessary.

"Until you question your own foundation, you will see all I write as unsupported statements"

No, John, we will see your statements as unsupported because they are, in fact, unsupported.

"not realizing that your own suppositions are just as much not grounded in serious study, but in the echo chamber of progressive thought."

LOL... No comment necessary. I'm sorry, but this post was just delusional and I see no reason to pretend otherwise.

It is not for courts to decide based upon documents which were written when the idea of SSM was not even conceived in the peoples minds.

No, actually, it precisely is, just as it is for the courts to decide how freedom of speech and the press applies to the internet, based on documents written when the idea of digital communication was not even conceived in the people's minds.

Taking laws of general applicability, and applying them to specific concerns which were not conceived at the time the laws were written is a big part of what courts, especially in a common law system, exist to do.

Yes, while this is part of "interpretation", this is something of a lawmaking function, but its also always been part of the function of courts in the Anglo-American tradition.

Most of you probably reject the traditional male and female roles from the outset.

I don't reject traditional male and female roles -- I just don't require them.

What I find most interesting about Mr. Hansen is that his proposed solution, banning same-sex marriage, has little to do with the supposed problem, appropriate gender roles and role models for children.

Most gay relationships are, by intent, childless. Granting same-sex marriage for those couples would have absolutely no impact on children because those couples would not raise any. Those same-sex couples that really do want children, on the other hand, will have and raise children regardless of whether they are allowed to marry or not. This means that the supposed problem of child gender identity and appropriate role models is largely unaffected by the marriage ban.

So, Mr. Hansen's proposal does little to affect those who create the supposed problem and has a significant impact on those who have nothing to do with the supposed problem. And I'm supposed to take this drivel seriously?

John Hansen wrote: "Please also do me the favor of recognizing that fundamentalist Christians are also not the cookie cutter images provided by anti-fundie lefties."

Why should we do this when you have equally distasteful "cookie cutter images" of "progressives," as evidenced by your writings here?

"I never meant to imply that progressives walk in lockstep to some James Dobson definition."

And yet that is precisely what you, in fact, have been implying with damn near every one of your posts here.

"I know full well that there are probably many traditionalist perspectives that you recognize and keep."

If you know this, then why have your posts ignored this?

"What I am trying to stand against is the tide of opinion that rejects traditionalism with no basis other than it offends some feelings,"

Oh, garbage. Nobody here, or anywhere else, for that matter, is rejecting "traditionalism," whatever the hell that is, with "no basis other than it offends some feelings." There are elements of tradition that are worth having and maintaining. There are other elements that are not. Everyone, including you, picks and chooses.

Where those traditions have a negative impact on a group of people, then it is up to you to show just why this tradition needs to be maintained.

"I have no idea why you have chosen lesbianism."

She most likely didn't "choose," since the available evidence indicates that there is a genetic component to sexual attraction. That you used that word, though, reveals much about you.

"However when you want to call what you are pursuing marriage you are making a public statement. This is where we differ. It is no longer a single choice."

Actually, it pretty much is. Because gay men and women will continue to call it marriage regardless of whether you like it or not and regardless of whether the state or the church agrees.

"You want the state to proclaim by law that it is its opinion that your choice is just as good as my choice."

No, we want the state to stop denying to us the same rights, privileges and responsibilities that you have been granted.

"I want to promote heterosexual marriage."

And you are free to do so. What you are not free to do is block a group of people from enjoying the same rights, privileges, and responsibilities that you have been granted when you have no valid reason for so doing.

"You want to stand for personal choice as to definition of marriage."

Nope. We simply want to include same-sex couples. That is not the same thing.

"The legislatures of the state can choose this. It is not for courts to decide"

When it comes to matters of fundamental civil rights, it is emphatically the role of the courts to decide.

Those same-sex couples that really do want children, on the other hand, will have and raise children regardless of whether they are allowed to marry or not.

IIRC, many states adoption laws discriminate, or allow discrimination, based on marital status; prohibiting gay couples from marrying is, among other ways, a way to prevent them from raising children even if they want to, and of guaranteeing that more children remain without permanent families for their entire childhood.

No, we want the state to stop denying to us the same rights, privileges and responsibilities that you have been granted.

Well, some of us want the state to stop denying other people the same rights, privileges, and responsibilities we have been granted; I am happily married to a member of the opposite sex.

zoe wrote: "By the way, for those of you who think you're exposing us to ideas we've never heard, you can stop now, we've heard them all before, they're painfully unoriginal."

Lord, ain't that the truth. I nearly laughed out loud when I came to that statement of John's. This just goes back to his own caricature of "progressives," a caricature not even remotely based on reality.

cmdicely wrote: "IIRC, many states adoption laws discriminate, or allow discrimination, based on marital status; prohibiting gay couples from marrying is, among other ways, a way to prevent them from raising children even if they want to, and of guaranteeing that more children remain without permanent families for their entire childhood."

Fair enough, although there are fewer and fewer states these days that have such discrimination written into law. Some, of course, state that married couples get preferential treatment, but that's not quite the same. I believe that there really are not that many states where a same-sex couple is absolutely prevented from adopting or raising children, particularly if one of them is the parent. I'd have to go do some research to dig up the actual numbers. I think, though, that the point still stands.

"Well, some of us want the state to stop denying other people the same rights, privileges, and responsibilities we have been granted; I am happily married to a member of the opposite sex."

Congrats, of course. I was using the term "us" loosely, since quite a few people who have been arguing with John and Fitz are not gay, nor does it really matter.

Fair enough, although there are fewer and fewer states these days that have such discrimination written into law. Some, of course, state that married couples get preferential treatment, but that's not quite the same.

Its not the same as a prohibition, but its certainly a discrimination. (And, leaving aside the question of the appropriateness of the restrictions on who can marry, not on its own an inappropriate one, I would say.) Not getting that "preferential treatment" can mean, as I understand it, a significant additional delay and other costs in the effort to adopt; its not an absolute barrier, but it is a barrier.

I believe that there really are not that many states where a same-sex couple is absolutely prevented from adopting or raising children, particularly if one of them is the parent.

I'm not that familiar with the details, but my understanding is that its more of an issue with adoptions where neither is the natural parent; though I seem to recall some problems in cases where one partner was the parent and the other wanted to adopt.

I was using the term "us" loosely, since quite a few people who have been arguing with John and Fitz are not gay, nor does it really matter.

I don't think it really matters, either, but I wanted to underline that its not just a matter of gays wanting something for themselves, not that there would be anything wrong (except with the other side) if everyone arguing for equality were gay. And not that I thought that you (and most people here) really needed a reminder; its not like anyone who can read polls would think that all supporters of marriage equality were gay...

*SIGH*

John Hanson:

I'd parse your reply to me but both cmdicely and Paul B have done so along the same lines that I would have. You are trying to weasel away with some shred of intellectual credibility and no one here is willing to let you since you have provided not only no reason to do so but a great deal to not do so. This "I am a scientist" crap you are spewing is nothing more than an appeal to authority to get around the ugly truth/reality that you have been making nothing but unfounded, unsupported, and at heart utterly irrelevant and untrue assumptions and stereotypes instead of anything remotely resembling an argument. Worse, you have doing so to paint an intellectual veneer to what is at heart a nasty intolerant POV. You want things to remain possible in your collective fantasy projection of what a family is and gay marriage makes that impossible for you and therefore will require you to see that which you are for whatever reason(s) blinding yourself to.

I give you full marks as a polemicist and a rhetorical speaker/writer, but what we are requiring of you here is content, not emotional flash. That is what you have not been providing, and if you are this scientist you claim to be you should understand that better than most. The point about anthropology was that you were making anthropological claims regarding marriage being such a way for thousands of years. We provided several examples of marriage changing within that period and further pointed out that anthropological research points out much more along with straight historical research. You are a classic case of someone that operates first from a faith based perspective and is literally incapable of recognizing just how intellectually bankrupt your arguments are.

This notion you have about wanting to live in an echo chamber also shows just how poorly you understand the academic world. That is a world where ruthless cutthroat arguments occur as a matter of course and the ability to present and defend an argument is something that is prized, not scorned. So even your stereotypes about such rests on clearly unfounded belief. For someone claiming to be a scientist you really don't seem to be able to recognize that we are telling you that your failure to present even a conservative researched set of information from someone that sides with you out there demonstrates your unwillingness/inability to present even a cursory case for your arguments. All you provide is blustering emotionalism and you are the one trying to present it off as factual, logical, and supported by a significant amount of evidence without ever actually providing it.

Then you continue to define who your opponents are by a whole bunch of labels and stereotyping while berating people like Zoe for stereotyping fundamentalist Christians. You don't see yourself practicing that which you claim is being practiced upon you. Believe it or not we do recognize the variations between people within ANY subgroup in our society, be they religious, fundamentalist Christians, gay people Asian people, whatever. Indeed, our arguments rest upon that recognition and the fact that America's Founding Fathers also recognized such differences and understood the dangers of the State ever preferring the interpretations of one over all others. It is you that has demonstrated the complete inability to do so.

I could continue on in this vein but the point is made and more than made, and you are either unable to understand because of your own limitations or you do understand but refuse to admit to it and instead knowingly advance an argument you know to be essentially nothing more than hot air at heart. If someone were to take your arguments apart on a semantics basis only the amount of substance that would be shown would be frightfully minimal. Too much emotion, not enough specifics. For someone claiming scientific background your inability to recognize this speaks of an immense blind spot or an amazing capacity for deception, self or otherwise. I also find it puzzling that you think you have any intellectual credibility with anyone here at this point other than Fitz and the others in the Trolletariat. Indeed, even some of the trolls put forward more evidence to support their contentions than you have especially in this thread. All you evoke in me intellectually is contempt for a shallow mind that either does not recognize this about itself or worse is a poser trying to give an intellectual veneer to something he knows is at heart based on intolerance and bigotry.

You have provided no reason for further discussion, only derision whenever you rear your ugliness. If and when you learn to present real arguments with real logic based on something more than your unsupported contentions and most especially recognize that your opponents here are not the caricatures that you have clearly defined us as then you might be worth giving serious consideration to, but not until then. You represent everything you claim to hate in progressives, your projection of your own negatives onto us is blatantly obvious, and you should expect no better regard for your polemics than you have already received.

PaulB/cmdicely:

Thanks for parsing out his response to me, which given its contents I can understand why you chose to do so. I leave him to you, aside from the odd snark/derision I see no point in treating this person with any consideration as an "intellectual", let alone someone presenting anything remotely resembling an intellect based argument.

Scotian wrote: "Indeed, even some of the trolls put forward more evidence to support their contentions than you have"

Yup, Chuckles for one, a long time ago, actually posted quite a few links to sources and articles he claimed backed up his assertions. We were able to shred everything he pointed to, so in the end it didn't really help him, but at least he tried.

What I find most interesting about Hansen is his assertion that no research exists that supports his views because all sociologists, anthropologists, and mental health professionals are "progressives," by some vague definition of that word. This reveals quite a lot about Mr. Hansen because of course such material exists. It's remarkably easy to find such things on the web. So why didn't Hansen go looking for it?

I think I know but in this case, I think I'll leave the psychobabble and armchair psychology to our friend and refrain from speculation.

Just for clarification, when I say "such material exists," I'm referring to articles that specifically or tangentially support many of Hansen's assertions on this thread.

I have no idea why you have chosen lesbianism. I do sincerely wish you a happy life. Understand that my understanding of God can not see it as an optimum choice for you, but I have no right - neither does the state, in my opinion - have any right to tell you what to do with your sexuality between you and another consenting adult.

Aha, we get to the very essence of the debate-- that gay people choose our sexuality. Sorry, but I didn't choose to be a lesbian any more than you chose to be straight. Sorry, but we are the experts when it comes to describing why we are gay, not you, although no matter how many times we say it it doesn't seem to get through. We just *are* what we are, most of us feel it from a very young age.

We are in most ways no different than anyone else, our relationships, our stories, our love, our families. We do our best to be the best people we can be, to honor and respect and care for those around us. The only choice here is to reject us all without even giving us a chance, to disregard us all based on half-baked assumptions and understandings.

On April 1st, 1999 I met a woman among a shared circle of friends. We hit it off splendidly from the getgo, ended up in a late night conversation about our shared love of Shakespeare, more specificly The Tempest. We spent more and more time together, started dating, and fell deeply in love. Not ordinary love but knock-your-socks off love, profound and inspirational love, which is really what this whole debate is about, right? Love. Well I have a deeply, profoundly beautiful marriage, we've been through thick and thin, and 7.5 years later we're stronger than ever. What keeps me up at night? People denying us our basic equality as a hardworking commited family, our basic right to be considered and respected as a family.

I am in deeply, truly and madly in love with a woman. We've been together since April of 1999. We got married on October 5, 2002. We recently bought a house and moved to another city to be nearby my family, which had a lot to do with our desire to have children soon. Guess what? You put our marriage next to almost anyone else's and you'll find far more similarities than differences. No, we're not the same, we are different, but we strive and desire many of the same things.

Here's the other thing, our marriage *is* recognized within our religion, we are Reform Jews. In our community our family and marriage is respected and accepted, when we have kids they'll be accepted too. There is no hesitation, we are a family like anyone else at our shul. Is it because traditional values have been tossed aside? Quite the contrary, because we embrace our traditions and honor the importance of family.

So this idea that you're protecting marriage, um, from who or what exactly? Commited, loving couples? What threat to we really pose?

Gods, you know I read zoe's posts and I freakin' *choke up*. There's a human dimension to this debate that Hanson is so condescending about it makes me pull my hair out. *His* god considers her lesbianism an unfortunate choice. Yeah well, *zoe's* god is utterly cool with it.

So at the end of the day, it comes down to having the state privilege his god over zoe's. Look, you either honor the Establishment Clause, or you're outside of the American mainstream ...

John's pomposity about his assumptions doubtless reflect his background, where he learned these values in a conservative family and extrapolated from it to the natural order of things. How many of us believe he has any gay acquaintences, let alone friends (or that the gays in his social circle are closeted)? He's obviously never been to a gay bar, never watched gay-themed cable shows, has 50s sterotypes in his head of effeminate men and diesel dykes. Butch and femme? He's probably never heard the terms before. He *has*, however, doubtless seen the fright videos of San Francisco Gay Pride parades that Christian conservatives love to disseminate.

The thing that kills me about social conservatives like John (there are many things, acutally, but this is probably the biggest) is that he's so distrustful of the social sciences, he can't stop for a moment to look beneath what he sees to ponder the causes. Christian fundamentalists (at least most Protestant flavors) are radical individualists with a free-will analysis of social problems. They equate any argument that takes into account social forces to excusemaking for bad behavior. Thus social science is demonized as a "progressive" pursuit (tell it to David Brooks -- every right winger's favorite trained sociologist, not to mention Krauthammer the shrink).

It's maddening, because I'd like to find common ground with John that certain aspects of gay culture *are* dysfunctional. Urban gay subculture can be highly promiscuous, self-destructively so in the age of AIDS. And also very neurotic and vicious, rife with personality disorders. John would call this a consequence of making the choice to be gay -- but he couldn't possibly be more wrong. The problems are the result of ghettoizing gays -- of society tacitly enforcing all the memes about gay people that John believes are the hallmark of a healthy civilization. The sad fact is that far from "protecting" people from making a "bad choice," these toxic memes of "normality" foster a tremendous amount of self-hatred and trauma in gay people. It's very hard to grow up psychologically healthy in an enviroment that tells you that who you fundamentally are is either a deep character flaw or a mental illness. And John wants to perpetuate this.

The great, crushing irony in this is that the way to address some of the toxic behaviors of urban gay subculture is to give gays an avenue to be normal. If obsessive promiscuity is unhealthy and fundamentally selfish -- give gays a sanction to engage in healthy sexual behavior: Honor their monogamous bonds! Mainstream them, welcome them into society, provide partner benefits at work, show them on television as *normal people* and not as freaks or comic caracatures. If John's religion can never sanction this, that's fine -- but his religion is not the founding ideology of a country that explicitly made room for all religions and imposes no religious litmus test on political leaders.

This process is happening regardless; every year we get more accepting of gay people. If the traditionalist bloc wants to "defend marriage" -- I say let them. I say let the state carve out a separate-but-equal civil union law -- and frame the issue as equal rights for all.

And then let's see what sort of arguments John comes up with to oppose civil unions when marriage is off the table.

Bob

rmck1 wrote: "And then let's see what sort of arguments John comes up with to oppose civil unions when marriage is off the table."

It will be precisely the argument he's using now. Since his argument is devoted exclusively to child-rearing, changing marriage to civil union matters not at all.

Very well spoken, Bob.

I think what probably bugs me the most about the tone of these discussions is that they dwell in the hypothetical and the theoretical, ssm will hurt society or harm marriage, etc., so much that the actual impact on people and families is all but ignored.

Why is it all so theoretical? Frankly I think that is because there is no proof whatsoever that allowing me and my wife to be legally married will harm anyone else's family or marriage, it will only strengthen our ability to properly care for one another. The only people being harmed in this discussion are committed same-sex couples who are denied equality for their families.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, when do I get to vote on the validity of your marriage? The whole "debate" is really absurd at its very core.

Anyways, it has been nice playing with you, kids.

Shalom,
zoe

PaulB:

I'm not sure about that. I think John's fundamental argument is the same as Fitz's: that marriage is fundamentally about procreation. That's the argument used in a few recent state court cases to prohibit gay marriage.

Neither John nor Fitz seemed to have even addressed the practical issues of child-rearing; John's argument is more general and cultural about kids needing "both male and female influences," but not really the sort of conservative calumny I'd expect that gays as individuals don't make good parents (because gays are, naturally, fundamentally immoral). Heh -- maybe he's just too nice a guy to insult Zoe to her face.

Neither of them laid a glove on Barney Frank's sensible view that society sanctions two emotionally bonded adults in marrage because dyadic bonds have been shown statistically to produce the most stable familily unit (that's the argument that defeats the slippery-slopists who go "but if gays can marry, what about marrying your sister or your three best friends or, for that matter, your cat?").

He's not arguing from a micro-level immediate view of what's best for kids. He's taking a macro-level, long view and arguing what's best to keep "civilization from crumbling," because without men being taught "the virtue of masculinity" (what fautousness!), women and children won't be submissive and the very order of the universe will collapse.

Too bad for him that marriage -- far from an institution "thousands of years old," only existed in its present form since about the time of the early Industrial Revolution ... Childhood, too, for that matter.

Bob

Various John Hansen:

3. This elevation of the relationship of marriage is of course tied to the raising of the next generation.

So my mother, who had a hysterectomy years ago, is not eligible to remarry? Again: Reproduction is not a prerequisite for marriage...Why is that a difficult concept for you to grasp, John?

4. In my opinion the best place to raise this next generation..

Thanks for sharing your opinion. Care to base it on anything?

..is in an established home where both the masculine and feminine side of humanity is well played out.

So if I paint my daughter's fingernails while we watch a football game, I'm covered, right?

Sovereign state legislatures forced to do something by a court is not the will of the people.

And how do you think that judges get to be judges? They are either elected or appointed by elected representatives.

..fundamentalist Christians are also not the cookie cutter images provided by anti-fundie lefties.

You, however, do nothing to dispel that image, John. You argue from the gut, using vague, pseudo-scientific statements and have provided nothing resembling evidence that supports your stand on this issue.

Being progressive means you are anti-traditionalist from the start.

..followed by..

I never meant to imply that progressives walk in lockstep to some James Dobson definition.

All progressives are anti-traditionalist (whatever that means) yet all progressives aren't.

GWB rightly stands for the rights of sovereign states.

Terri Schiavo.

I have no idea why you have chosen lesbianism.

And by calling an attraction to the same sex a 'choice', you demonstrate that you have no understanding of homosexuality, and are in no way