Observation #1: Fabulous!

Observation #2: Overly-pedantic nit picking from me: The article mentions that forms can be updated to indicate "Parent 1" and "Parent 2" (and by extension, "Spouse 1" and "Spouse 2")... this introduces arbitrary hierarchy into a relationship of equals. They should take a cue from Futurama and call them "Parent 1" and "Parent A". :-)

I can usually sympathize with the conservative argument on pretty much every issue, but I've never heard an argument against gay marriage that was based on anything resembling logic, beyond "the Bible says it's wrong" or "that's just how I personally feel."

Don't conflate marriage (a religious sacrament) with civil union (a secular, legal construct). 10,000 civil unions later - a non-event. Good. Exactly how it should be.

Don't conflate marriage (a religious sacrament) with civil union (a secular, legal construct).

He's not; the state is. My partner and I have a marriage license from the commonwealth of Mass. You may choose not to recognize it as a marriage, and that's fine, but I do, as does my partner, as do (one hopes) the majority of people at our wedding including our families, as does the government that issued the license. We're married, not civilly united.

I understand the whole libertarian "get the state out of marriage" argument but since it hasn't already happened, there's no reason to single out gay couples for having secular ceremonies recognized as marriage in one state when opposite-sex couples have been getting JP marriages here for decades.

Anyone have recent polling on the California hate initiative?

Golly, gee. Thanks, Orwell. And I'm sure you mean to imply that Tab A into Slot V does not produce diseases, right? Right?

Back to logic class for you, buddy.

Kevin says: Good.

Uh, Kevin, speak for yourself!

My anniversary happens to be in the same week that Massachusetts decided to first allow gays to marry. And since that year, it's impossible for my wife to find a hairdresser that week! We can't find caterers or florists or decorators for our anniversary parties!

All the best B&B's are either closed because it's the owners' anniversary, or full of other anniversary celebrants! All the best restaurants are booked solid!

It's extremely distressing and a huge inconvenience!

:-)

boy, Orwell's wife must be ecstatic about his mad skills, huh? lemme guess, pump, pump, roll off and go to sleep? after all, that's how it's supposed to be, right?

Guy marriage has compelled me to divorce my wife and marry a guy. The sex is boring and rare, I'm unattracted to him and he to me. I've got no reason to come home at night and no reason to go to work in the morning. My beautiful wife is now a haggard single mom raising for kids by herself. Fucking faggots, give us back our old life!

[G]ay marriage is gay marriage largely a nonevent in Mass.

Exactly. And exactly why the religious right fulminates so hysterically when such advances are made. Just as the folks in Massachusetts realized, about a year after the Great Drama, "What the hell were we so upset about?" Even more so three years later. It's become one big yawn. As I thought it would be.

As in Massachusetts, so too, in California. God forbid [sic] the people of California realize that same-sex marriage will have absolutely no effect on their day-to-day lives, that God or the gods will not rend California from the North American plate and sink it in the Pacific, etc., etc. We must prevent these reality-based realizations from ever happening! (P.S., send us some money.)

Small correction to some comments above: a marriage is the civil-law act; a wedding is the religious one. Though we conflate them here, in many, even most nations, the two are separate and distinct events: first, go to city hall, then go to the church. If you want to do the latter, of course. It's optional.

You just wait and see, Kevin.

I am sure that somehow, some way, within a few decades from now this will somehow force some conservative's kid to become gay, who otherwise wouldn't have wanted to at all, and he or she will be much, much worse off for it, becoming at the same time a (weird-dressing) nihilist, and forsaking God.

The end is nigh!

/joking

One small step for 11,000 gay couples from Massachusetts, one gigantic leap for the clamoring, brown-skinned Muslim hordes who will overwhelm our nation's defenses sometime within 30 years from now.

Don't forget all those noble servicemen and women who are going to be forced to endure a shower next to a gay person once our Armed Forces become gayified (due directly to the 11,000 gay civil unions in Massachusetts)-- worse, certainly, than even a terrorist attack.

Orwell, as a gay man, my slot is labelled "Entry can be arranged with consent" ...

"I can usually sympathize with the conservative argument on pretty much every issue, but I've never heard an argument against gay marriage that was based on anything resembling logic, beyond "the Bible says it's wrong" or "that's just how I personally feel."

Ok Nick I'll give it a shot.

Ask the question, Why should the government get involved in marriage at all?

My answer is to promote an action that is vital to society. Basically to have and raise children. Without this there would be no society.

Other than this I see no reason for the government to get involved.

Marriage isn't a right it's an obligation.

TruthPolitik,

I don't see how marriage is really "vital to society." There are many couples, particularly in the Western world, who live together and raise children--the exact same things that conservatives say marriage is "about." And today, people can get divorced pretty much for any reason. So how would society collapse if marriage were to disappear--if nobody was allowed to get married anymore or if nobody chose to? I don't see how civilization would be that different.

TruthPolitik,

I don't see how marriage is really "vital to society." There are many couples, particularly in the Western world, who live together and raise children--the exact same things that conservatives say marriage is "about." And today, people can get divorced pretty much for any reason. So how would society collapse if marriage were to disappear--if nobody was allowed to get married anymore or if nobody chose to? I don't see how civilization would be that different.

Lee

I didn't say that marriage is vital to society. I said that having and raising children is vital to society. Marriage is a way for the government to promote that. Although some times I wonder if it actually does. But as Dick Cheney would say Marriage is a special Torture reserved for a man and a woman.

BTW Nick

You say you've never heard an argument against gay marriage other than ----------. I think that you should be asking what is the argument for Gay marriage.

The argument for gay marriage is that gay people want to get married. What's so difficult about that?

The procreation rationale has so many counterexamples (sterility, menopause, etc.) that I'm surprised anyone would still drag it out.

Mr Toad

Want is a desire not an argument.

If you want to exclude sterile people from getting married I wouldn't argue about it.

I don't think Mr. Toad is at all interested in excluding sterile people from getting married. His point is that we DON'T exclude such people, and while I've often heard the argument that gay marriage is wrong because marriage is about having children, I have never ever heard the same crowd proceed to the logical conclusion that marriage for sterile people is wrong.

There's occasionally some hand-waving, about how a man-woman couple could "in principle" have kids, but if a woman has had her uterus removed, or a man has had his testicles zapped for cancer, it's really not going to happen. But can you imagine how quickly an opponent of gay marriage would get laughed out of the public square if they actually said that male-female couples with one or both parties infertile shouldn't be allowed to marry?

What about people who enter marriage with a clear intent never to breed? My aunt told me she and her (late) husband didn't want to have kids because they didn't think they'd be good parents. Maybe, maybe not, but more power to them for taking the question seriously and acting in accord with reality as they perceived it. Should their license application have been denied? (On the other hand, I've run into people who probably SHOULDN'T have had children but did anyway ...)

Or old people. A widower and a widow in their 70s meet and fall in love and decide to get hitched. Not so fast there, gramps! Marriage is about procreation. You're shooting blanks and she hasn't ovulated in years. You two have no business getting married!

A straight couple can decide they don't want birth children (perhaps from an environmental ethic of not wanting to bring extra children into the world?), but be committed to adopting (both because they want to have children, and because they want to provide a home for a few kids who might otherwise not have one). And nobody would dream of denying them a marriage license, even if they knew their plans full well. But of course a gay couple can adopt and raise children just as well. And since they could go a route of having one of them be a biological parent (particularly if it's a lesbian couple, where they just have to find sperm, not a willing womb), there's a similar element of choosing not to procreate, but only adopt.

It's all just too ludicrous. Anyone who adduces children as an argument against gay marriage (Hello, TruthPolitik) hasn't thought the thing through.

What does logic got to do with it? I'm just trying to justify my bigotry.

"What does logic got to do with it? I'm just trying to justify my bigotry."

And you did by falsely posting under my name

TruthPolitik

TruthPolitik,

Yes, whoever posted under your name shouldn't have done that, but it was pretty obvious that it was a parody post.

You, on the other hand, are too honorable to use the false TruthPolitik's wrongdoing as a pretext for dodging the issue I raised.

So, is there some logical consistency in the "marriage is about procreation" argument that I'm missing?

Karl,

Let's be realistic. The ick factor has never had a logical consistency. It's all about people being terrified of their repressed urges. Let's face it, if they weren't secretly afraid of being gay, they wouldn't care enough to hate gays.

Karl

There is definitely a difference in the way liberals and conservatives think. You're asking why shouldn't gays marry and I'm asking why should they marry.

You have a valid point that some people get married that will never have children and as far as the government is concerned I see no reason for them to be married.

TruthPolitik,

"As far as the government is concerned I see no reason for (people who will never have children) to be married."

I'd like to take you at your word, but in fact I can't buy this until I see you out there actually advocating for revocation of marriage rights for infertile people and those who won't promise cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die that they'll at least TRY to have children.

You claim to be asking why gays should marry. Well, for the same reasons as everyone else. They love each other, and they want to have a family, whether that's just the two of them, or some children (biologically from the two of them, coming with them from a previous marriage, adopted, biologically from one of them and a donor of egg or sperm -- whatever; I'm not in the business of telling consenting adults how they should put their families together).

Take off the funny glasses and look at marriage as it actually is: a contract between two people, of which children are usually but by no means inherently a part, and in which there is no distinction between biological children and adopted children. Oh, and in 48 states you also have to be of opposite sexes, although that requirement is a cultural habit and not part of the contractual core of marriage.

What marriage necessarily IS about as actually practiced here in the real world is a set of rights and responsibilities, as well as the emotional value of a publically declared commitment.

People don't need the state in order to publically declare their commitment. They can do it in any church that supports their union, or in a ceremony of their own making. Still, if Bob and Betty next door get to have their public commitment recognized by the state and Adam and Alan don't, I can understand A & A feeling like second-class citizens.

And when you're talking about rights, there's no substitute for the involvement of the state. If Adam wants Alan to be the one with automatic visitation rights in case of illness, automatic inheritance in case of death, automatic responsibility for him in case of incapacity, and a host of other matters, they need a contractual arrangement recognized by the state.

If the state is going to be involved in these sorts of contracts, it should do so without irrational discrimination. And if you want me to believe that you're not just seeking a cover for bigotry, go out and start a movement to make biological children a requirement for marriage.

I could use the entertainment.

I would but I'm afraid Jerry Falwel would have God smite me. You know he's up there now.