There exists at least one boy I know of whose genetic parents are both female. One is very badly intersexed indeed, and her male glands, while almost completely dysfunctional, were adequate to provide gametes for fertilisation, with medical help, at the 14th attempt.

As for genes:
A 46,XY mother who developed as a normal woman underwent spontaneous puberty, reached menarche, menstruated regularly, experienced two unassisted pregnancies, and gave birth to a 46,XY daughter with complete gonadal dysgenesis- J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2008 Jan;93(1):182-9

My biggest fear about the Maine vote is that the President will use it as an excuse not to move forward on issues of concern to the gay community, particularly repeal of Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell.

Let that fear depart from your mind, Daniel. Obama was never going to press the DADT matter in the first place.

Have you heard of people who deliberately self-sterilize? Have you heard of people who deliberately kill their unborn children? *How does letting such people into marriage*, with not even the slightest pro forma, imperfect attempt at screening them out – not even having them sign a declaration of their intent to raise kids – *fit with your idea*, “The institution still exists to encourage men and women to get together so that children are born INTO marriage”? Hint: It doesn’t. [ed: i.e., it doesn't fit] And gays didn’t do that to marriage; heterosexuals did.

Emphasis added. Defying all standards of quotation and discussion in English, you then framed a fragment to tell a lie, suggesting that I believed:

The institution doesnt encourage men and women to marry?

Yes, you did. I quoted you verbatim.

Wrong again. In the specific example under discussion (see the top of #85), you chopped my words into out-of-context half-sentences to turn their sense into a ridiculous opposite of what I actually believe and have actually been saying in this thread. It was the kind of thing certain Democrats do, AE. Lame beyond words.

No where have the people affirmed your definition, NOWHERE has any legislative body affirmed your definition, and nowhere has any court affirmed your definition. You pulled it directly out of your ass.
…sleazy… Andrew Sullivan is more intellectually honest… GET THERAPY!

Alex in Denver – see what I meant, at #33?

We know that marriage law is what it is. It treats married couples as families, regardless of whether they possess even the remotest possibility of producing children. It encourages couples to settle down and be married, regardless of their ability or willingness to produce children. Also, in the manner of infertile straight couples (or with the assistance of technology and outsiders), there is the fact of lesbian and gay couples that produce children, children that are related genetically to one or both of the parents (depending on the exact technique used) and raised closely by both parents as a nuclear family (as opposed to a broken family, an extended family, etc.).

Yet Alex, we see the above Gallagher supporter clinging emotionally to claims that range from ‘thin’ to ‘specious’, imagining perhaps that he can make them true by repetition, straw man tactics and rageful attacks. Gallagher and her supporters, while possibly well intended, are unfortunately pathetic in execution, most of the time.

from the beginning I have been talking about the will of the people and their right to define their own institutions, and from the beginning you have been arguing against their right to do so.

Yet another pathetic straw man from you, AE, since I quite clearly stated the following up at #7 AND in virtually every comment I’ve written on the subject of gay marriage, over a period of years:

Mind you, I have no objection to doing it [enacting protections for today's gay couples and gay-headed nuclear families] with civil-union laws, incrementalism and democracy. I view State “relationship licenses” (whether marriage or civil union) as a privilege, and as something rightly designed to create a certain kind of inequality: privileging stable, two-person relationships over other kinds. And in America, privileges must or should always be legislated democratically.

AE: Look in the mirror, look in the mirror, look in the mirror. Make peace with that guy. Before it’s too late.

And, sorry, but you dont get to proclaim the purpose of marriage all by your little old self. The people get to define it, and they define it in law, And the law agrees with ME.

What a strange blend of Authoritarian and Populist. Glad to see you enshrine your love of mob rule. It’s great so long as you can say “the mob agrees with ME! with ME!”

Actually you initially said November, then qualified Nov 2010, but that wasn’t the point.

I was searching the archives to make sure I remembered what I said correctly, and that post, amused me. I was just pointing out you were cautiously optimisitc that it would fail, so it was funny to say “Who thought it would remain legal?” I thought it had to be brought to the ballot to finish the process, but am sad that it passed, if that makes sense. No offence was intended, but I apparently added too much snark. I appologize.

At least Maine has a DP law. (So score one for ‘Fred’)

…something that, while true, in no way refutes anything I said.

No, it doesn’t refute anything you said, what it does is prove that my definition of marriage comes from the people, was expressly stated by their elected representatives and recognized as entirely valid, legal and constitutional by the courts of law.

I did this to illustrate that YOU have no such support from anyone for your made-up definition. NONE WHATSOEVER. No where have the people affirmed your definition, NOWHERE has any legislative body affirmed your definition, and nowhere has any court affirmed your definition. You pulled it directly out of your ass.

And, sorry, but you dont get to proclaim the purpose of marriage all by your little old self. The people get to define it, and they define it in law, And the law agrees with ME.

It’s been either stated or implied in various court decisions.

Source please!

AE, you would appear to be engaged in the imputation of personal motive and as such, in what psychologists call “projection”.

No ILC, I provide sources showing that my definition is codified into law. You do not. You are the one projecting.

Second, what is actually required to make a baby is a fertile womb and live sperm

The former of which belong ONLY to women, the latter of which come ONLY from men. Thank you for begrudgingly admitting that biological fact.

plus the intent to carry the pregnancy to completion or not abort it.

WRONG AGAIN! lol. Man, you are humiliating yourself. Intents change. And abortions have been known to be botched. Barack Obama favors killing such babies, for example. perhaps you support his Chicago law because in some twisted way it makes your gay marriage argument begin to hold water?

And the State tests for ***none*** of those things.

Because it doesnt ****need**** to! (I have more asterisks, I win!)

For the five BILLIONTH time: The more men and women are married to eachother, the more children will be born inside wedlock.

The idea that the state needs to start digging around in womens wombs to see if they are working BECAUSE YOU DONT HAVE A WOMB TO BEGIN WITH is patently ridiculous. And yes, frightfully totalitarian.

As far as the State is concerned, procreation is *a* purpose of marriage (or one of the two major purposes, as I put it), not the sole purpose worth considering.

Source please! (I can save you time, it doesnt exist)

You continue to deny the incontrovertible fact that MILLIONS of babies are born to parents who dont intend to have them.

Nope. Now you’re just making stuff up, AE, trying to put words in my mouth. Sorry, I’m not having it.

WRONG AGAIN!. It is the direct implication of your moronic, childish and endlessly REPEATED argument that “the state doesn’t test for intent! the state doesn’t test for intent! the state doesn’t test for intent!”

And the only thing you are “having” is an a** whooping, served up by me.

And once again you try to deny that the state tests for ability to procreate. It does.

Nope. Forty-five States test for nothing more than that one party appears to be male and the other female, with no effort at verification and no reference to their fertility; the other five states don’t even bother testing for that.

As usual, you pretend the part of the statemet that obliterates your argument doesnt exist.

It performs the least invasive, MOST accurate test of all. It requires that one of each of the sexes necessary for procreation is involved. Funny how you claim that the very test for sexual compatibility that you are trying to overturn doesn’t exist! That’s so….YOU!

But you are correct that five states do not, (Actually, isnt it four now that the people of Maine have rejected Gay Marriage?) by judicial fiat, against the expressed will of the people.

But from the beginning I have been talking about the will of the people and their right to define their own institutions, and from the beginning you have been arguing against their right to do so.

But I never said nor thought any such thing.

Yes, you did. I quoted you verbatim. Don’t blame me for what you wrote.

As for the whole “nuclear family” business, AE: Good job citing definitions that include the words “mother” and “father”. Glad you can Google. Now, in real life, most people use

You are really so sleazy, I feel as though I must take a bath every time I argue with you. We use English. I provided EVERY dictionary definition I could find , ALL of which agree with me.

YOU try to redefine English like Bill Clinton redefining the meaning of the word “is” or your previous attempts to redefine the meaning of the word “reproduce” to mean adopt a child that someone else reproduced.

Seriously, arguing with someone as sleazy as you makes my skin CRAWL! Andrew Sullivan is more intellectually honest.

But just to blow your repulsively dishonest attempts to redefine the English language away, lets use the definition YOU sanctioned of extended family:

Now, in real life, most people use “nuclear family” in distinction from other major forms such as “extended family”, polyamorous trible or collective, etc. I.e., “nuclear family” as parents-with-children. Common definitions of “extended family” make that clear:

extended family
n.
1. A family group that consists of parents, children, and other close relatives…

extended family
n
(Sociology) Sociol Anthropol a social unit that contains the nuclear family together with blood relatives, often spanning three or more generations

But you see, YOUR OWN SOURCE DISAGREES WITH YOU!

I can google. And the definition you just cited comes from “thefreedictionary.com which I already quoted above as defining a nuclear family as a mother a father and their children:

n.
A family unit consisting of a mother and father and their children.

So NO! The definition of extended family DOES NOT prove your point, IT PROVES MINE!

Now, I really must go take a long hot bath after getting down in your sleaze, afterwhich I think I wlll cleanse my mind by reading someone more intellectually honest, like Bill Clinton or Andrew Sullivan!

And please. Come to terms with what you are. You do not have ovaries, you do not have a womb. Neither does your partner. You are not the same as a heterosexual couple. You are here, you are queer, GET THERAPY!

#67 Do the damned math. The annual divorce rate is about 50% of marriages.

Not even close. The divorce rate is about 30% of FIRST marriages. The vast majority of first marriages survive til death does them part.

I think some of the main problems that Gay, Inc. has is it is filled with the sorts of activists who populate and attend gay pride parades, and it is completely partisan. Gay, Inc. has no use whatsoever for gay conservatives or gay Republicans and it is quick to call them traitors. But this partisan one-sidedness is part of what relegates Gay, Inc. to a fringe movement. Until gay activists recognize that sexual orientation is not the same thing as politial orientation, then the public at large will continue to view gay people only in terms of a highly political alternative lifestyle.

One of the other problems with both the gay and the anti-gay movements is that both can only argue for their positions based on claims of faith. The science behind sexual preference and sexual orientation has never been too sophisticated or too complete (homosexuality was removed from the DSM for reasons that were as political as they were scientific), and it is currently taboo in academia to undertake any sort of social science research which seeks to explain or understand what makes some people gay and most not (though it is considered ok to advance the cause by looking for a gay gene or other physical or physiological markers). However, the leftist “queer” movement, has only complicated the issue by applying post-modern critiques to deterministic statements about orientation, by suggesting that sexuality might be a choice.

The only arguments that really work persuasively to advance the cause are those that focus on freedom for all and not rights, equality and entitlements per se, but those are not the arguments that most gay activists want to make. They seek to apply the civil rights movement’s template of victimhood to gay people, but this line of argument only works with those who are more inclined to accept the premises of such an argument from the start.

Californians [rejected gay marriage in 2008] with Proposition 8, and have been attacked ever since for their decision… [Some Left gay marriage advocates] proceeded to insult Californians and sue the state for all sorts of intrusive searches of records on the referendum. It hardly builds sympathy for a later try on the measure, and made the entire idea look more radical than it was — which certainly couldn’t have helped in Maine.

As far as protecting the “institution of marriage,” though, the states gave up on that decades ago with no-fault divorce. Marriage is the only contract that one partner can abrogate without penalty. People would be better protected by partnership contracts, where property and child access would be decided and agreed long before problems appeared in the relationship, and leave marriage to the churches, which are much better suited to protect the institution. Divorce is a much bigger danger to marriage than gay marriage ever will be…

I feel like I need to ask you what you mean by that. On the face of it, it seems like an utterly ridiculous statement. But maybe you are talking about being forced to hew to a 1950s Donna Reed/Father Knows Best/Leave it to Beaver format. I don’t personally know anyone in the history of my knowing people that has been forced to act out those roles, but maybe you mean something else.

That is one of the truly STUPIDEST things I have read in a long time. I am proud of being male. I am proud of my gender. I am GAY because I love MEN. Nothing makes me happier than a man who is comfortable in his masculinity.

Being gay has nothing to do with undermining gender roles. Gay is the ultimate love of one’s gender.

Now if you look at that, there are even outliers that warp the data worse. Most people marry and stay marriages on the first of second try, but some marry 5-6 times. That warps the numbers.

The technical term for what you did with that 50% is, I believe, a lie. It doesn’t come close to true. It’s a nice convenient misleading statement about marriage that is totally bullshit. I’d fluke the student who did stats like that.

And one can also look at the numbers of partners…. straight versus gay. I’ll let you do the research on that one.

Yes, that is the household I grew up in. Very much a 1970′s household wouldn’t you say?

Try giving a pink article of clothing to the next boy-child baby shower you get invited to send a gift to. See if the boy-child ever wears it.

You assume because I am a gay adoptive parent that I am a liberal. Stereotype much? haha

I also am not a supporter of same gender marriage. In this case, civil unions are more appropriate.

Based upon your comments regarding how gender defines household chores, you are woefully ignorant of mainstream American families. The household chores are divided by gender. On one hand you lament the American male becoming feminine yet on the other hand you praise the opposite gender families for being progressive in their gender roles. Which is it?

I ballroom dance as a follower but I am also a boxer. I can crochet a sweater and change a tire. I don’t let my gender or my sexuality define me. I tried to install that in my son as well. Clearly, in your eyes that defines me as a second (maybe even 3rd) class parent. So be it.