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You (or any person) are allowed to be married to any one person of the opposite sex, subject to the laws and rules of the state you live in. This privilege is available to you regardless of race, creed, or sexual orientation.

You’re welcome for the education.

Thanks for the response.
When I was talking about marriage and society, I think I was talking about part of the “social contract” that marriage is suppose to be a part of. I understand that divorce and infidelity is a problem in today’s society, I was putting forth a more traditional view of what marriage should be about. I am a firm believer in monogamy. My purpose ultimately was to show you that I understand that marriage has a social component. The argument that same sex marriage doesn’t effect anyone but the two married persons is not correct because there is a certain social recognition that is necessary beyond that of mere law.

There are most certainly differences in the sexes. I tend to view these differences as strengths because it is always good to come at any challenge or problem from different perspectives. I agree with your assessment that “[m]arriage is an ancient institution and is traditional because it has derived from our biology, from the natural, familial unit and in its most primitive, informal forms, probably for purposes of survival.” But like your first point that showed that my more traditional view point no longer holds sway, this view point is also outdated. In our society, people marry for love. This is actually a very recent thing, usually marriage has been about politics and money (marry your daughter well sort of thing). This change was the downfall of traditional marriage and it happened years ago. Love is now the standard reason for marriage, not status in society or survival. This isn’t a bad thing though. A loving relationship should produce loving parents and this still provides for our species’ survival and overall makes for happier citizenry. Just because people are in love doesn’t mean they should be able to get married. What society does is determine which relationships it wants to prohibit and it should do so for good (sound and scientific) reasons. There is no reason in today’s society why same-sex marriages shouldn’t be recognized.

Your uniqueness of marriage was an interesting argument. There will always be straight people who are married and they will always be in the majority. Furthermore, most of us will always come from this tradition as well. I think the uniqueness of traditional marriage is unassailable. Allowing gay people marriage will change none of this, it simply allows for the less common, un-detrimental couples to be recognized in law. Marriage as you propose it may not render gay couples invalid, but it does render them meaningless.

By “VERY few bad incidents” I was referring to the violent ones. Like you implied, cameras don’t lie and every protest usually has emotional charge that can get out of hand no matter the subject. Overall, I am pleased that violence was so sparse on both side’s protests.

I never argue “that same-sex marriage is a value to be sought,” instead I argue that freedom and liberty (society’s ideals) dictate that same-sex marriage should never have been banned in the first place. The fact that it was is understandable given our understanding of homosexuality through history. However, once our understanding changes, so too should our laws.

and v the k, you too are quite blind to simple reasoning. 1) there are some rights and benefits of marriage that singles simply cannot receive. when an american marries a non-american, the non-american can instantly get citizenship. a gay couple doesn’t have this benefit. that’s just one example of thousands.

and the fact that there are certain legal rights you can achieve without marriage is a weak argument. the point is that people should be treated the same. gay people shouldn’t have to jump through hoops anymore than straight people, “lazy” or not.

I know a few polyamourous relationships who have gone through the work of filling out the POA/Living Will/Medical POA forms to make sure they’re covering each other.

I hold my roommates POA (well part of it) and I need to get her to fill out mine, in case I become unable to make decisions for myself (or become liberal, same difference).

I have to agree with NDT. If you’re in a non-traditional relationship, and you don’t take advantage of the protections already there, then you’re lazy. So lazy that you out you and your partner(s)’s health and well being at risk.

Who, specifically?

Name names. Because I can’t think of anyone who fits that description.

The reason gays have a high infection rate of AIDS, boob, is because the gay community and liberal gays like yourself endorse, support, and practice the very behaviors that spread it — namely promiscuous sex with multiple partners.

Granted, as has been made obvious in multiple locations, liberal gays like boob don’t see anything wrong with having promiscuous sex with multiple partners within their “monogamous” relationships, and demanding that society should endorse and support their behavior because “men are pigs” and it’s not “practical” to expect otherwise.

Actually, what I’m doing is showing how gay liberals like yourself, boob, won’t even take advantage of the protections you already get — and how you flat-out lie in claiming that these protections aren’t available, presumably to cover up the fact that you are too lazy to actually get them.

Why should I believe you want marriage or that you care about your sexual partners when you won’t even take these simple legal steps to protect them?

you are making sweeping generalizations about a group of people, and then you are contending that because of this generalization, all people belonging to this group should be treated a certain way under the law. do i need to explain the fallacy of this reasoning?

i am gay. i am not promiscuous. i am in a monogamous relationship. i have no diseases. why should i not be allowed to get married someday to someone i love?

by this logic, should we deny the right to marry people of race “x” because of their high disease rates, high divorce rates, etc.?

what’s your point?

boob — those are YOUR words, not NDT’s.

He is simply stating the facts about how terrible the gay community’s record is over 30 years.

It is pretty cut & dry.

i had no idea there were so many conservative gay ppl, and just wanted to greet my fellow travelers

i’m not gay and used to have a real problem with it, but over the years i’ve come to realize that it’s reckless and needlessly harmful behavior that upsets me, the Founding Fathers stressed the need for a moral and ethical populace, they did not set in stone what those morals and ethics were, true they advocated judeo-christian values in their personal lives but were careful not to have the State as arbitraitor, i believe the Founding Fathers understood that there are honest, dependable, reasonable ppl who give more to society than they take, who posess the morals and ethics nesscessary to not have to be taken care of by the State, but who are not christian or who don’t adopt all christian values (or see them differently).

a person of sound character does not need the Law to make them do right.

a person of unsound character no amount of Law will stop from doing wrong.

Down with the Unicorn Collective!

LOL…..which part is ridiculous and bigoted, boob; the three decades of AIDS epidemic, the billions of dollars lost, or the millions of lives destroyed?

Because those are all statistical facts.

The funny part is that, without straights, boob and his ilk wouldn’t even be here. Wonder when boob and his sexual partners will be able to do the simplest thing that heterosexuals can do and reproduce themselves?”

w.o.w. i wonder if GPW or one of the other conservatives on here will have the balls to step in and tell you how ridiculous and bigoted you sound.

for the record, i am in a monogamous relationship.

It is societies way of acknowledging that the spouses are “out of the dating pool” and “taken” so to speak.

Sending society the message that one is no longer available isn’t the reason people enter into marriage. That message may be one effect, but it surely isn’t the cause; making the case that society’s opinion of the availability of one or both participants in a relationship motivates a willingness to engage in a public commitment defies common sense as well as rates of adultery and divorce.

The current science says there is NO tangible difference (this includes emotional) between parents of same or opposite sex.

There are obvious biological and emotional differences between parents that are, say, both male and one male/one female. A human being is comprised of both male and female traits. In fact, all human embryos are physically female until the seventh week at which point the Y-chromosomes (if present) begin to trigger the production of testosterone. That men have nipples is just one physical result of the way in which we develop, but I would argue (as would many, many others) that emotion is often linked to and even based upon biology, i.e. there are hormonal components to emotion. We joke about men “getting in touch with their feminine sides” and it’s entirely true: Humans are comprised of male and female components and since we are biological organisms, all else, including emotion, is produced by this biology.

Do these facts lessen the differentiation between the sexes? Hardly! Science does not undermine but underlines our differences — and our commonalities. That there is scientific evidence that homosexuality is linked to the process of physical (and eventually emotional) masculinization doesn’t mean that homosexuals are necessarily less whole; for myself, this evidence underscores that each human is biologically male and biologically female.

Where does all this lead? Like you, I respect science and would like our laws to reflect it. You state “… I’m just saying that I would rather base laws on science rather than tradition or opinions.” While I generally agree, marriage is not science but marriage does reflect our biology, our science. However, your statement reveals a truth you may not have intended. Marriage is an ancient institution and is traditional because it has derived from our biology, from the natural, familial unit and in its most primitive, informal forms, probably for purposes of survival. Is this a tradition that should remain unique? I believe it should. The tradition is justified, but is the tradition a justification for legal marriage remaining the sole province of heterosexuality? I believe it is one justification. Do I think this unique, special status renders homosexual relationships as invalid? Of course not.

“opening the door to even further changes in the definition”- I usually laugh at these types of arguments because they utilize a logical fallacy known as “the slippery slope.”

What advocates of same-sex marriage often forget is that marriage as currently defined prohibits marriage in all other possible forms, not merely those whose partners are of the same sex. However, let’s take the argument away from marriage for a moment and deal with the logic issue. During the holidays, there are an increasing number of battles being fought regarding holiday displays in airports, shopping centers, libraries, etc. If the decorations of one faith are allowed, is it a logical fallacy that adherents of other faiths expect the same treatment? But is it a logical fallacy that we afford the tradition of Christmas decorations a special status, reflecting the majority faith and its holiday celebrations?

“Marriage Equality” is a term I often hear, but if logic is consistently applied, it cannot exist in any real way because not all relationships are valid, certainly not worthy of legal recognition. I agree wholeheartedly that heterosexual marriage enjoys a unique status in our society that is entirely inconsistent with the concept of perfect equality. A same-sex marriage advocate who is honest doesn’t use logic as his ally because he asks not to end discrimination but to directly participate in it — as evidenced by your refusal to apply the logic you invoke and have your legal goal associated with the logically applicable goals of relationships with which you don’t approve. I don’t find your argument laughable as you do mine, however.

I’ve not claimed that perfect logical consistency is reasonable or even desirable — I cannot because my position on the same-sex marriage issue prevents it. However, your logical position is exactly the same as mine and it isn’t illogical to expect that others will want to enjoy the same privilege you seek, using the same arguments and the same laws. But bear in mind that I’m not making my argument because I fear something far worse than same-sex marriage, thus my argument against it. I argue in favor of heterosexual marriage as a unique institution that should legally remain so.

The protests and demonstrations were not violent by a long shot, there were VERY few bad incidents.

Are you claiming that the “VERY few bad incidents” weren’t violent? What made them bad? I didn’t mean to imply that all the protests were violent — not by a long shot — but I know what I saw on television. The camera doesn’t lie and the cameras weren’t filming long shots.

Furthermore, proving someone to be a hypocrite doesn’t make them wrong, it just makes them a hypocrite.

True, although my example illustrates two ideas opposed to one another, namely that same-sex marriage is a value to be sought while arguing that it need not prove beneficial to society with such questions as “How does gay marriage harm you?” While we may argue about direct and indirect harm, the lack of a detriment is no standard upon which society should base its values, reflected in its laws. Laws are frozen morals. Moreover, I would argue that applying such a standard (as you’ve argued above) is itself a detriment to society because it makes no place for ideals and a society without ideals cannot last.

Sorry I’m so long-winded. I’m not going to proofread it, either. Feel free to attack.