You are trying to imply that in order for the state to have a vested interest in getting men and women to marry for the sake of children, that everyone who gets married MUST therefore have children.

Which is entirely illogical, one does not follow from the other. Sorry.

But its a very popular argument for people who havent given the matter any thought to make. You are one among dozens of people who have tried to make it

I find your position and expression both well-stated and agreeable. I do, however, have one point of personal concern: my wife and I cannot procreate. I may not be able to father children – we have never found out – but we both know that she could never safely bear due to her diabetes and kidney failure. Even if she got a new kidney, the anti-rejection meds would preclude having children.

How, if at all, might this impact the validity of our marriage?

If you wish to respond to me, please look me up on FaceBook. I look forward to your response.

Guy “buzzkill” Hardy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAOkwjQdm6Q

Actually, anything more than a few sentences are less likely to hold my attention. And Dan, God love ‘im, drives me nuts with his erudition. My motto comes from the old bumper sticker “Eschew Obfuscation”.

See? We just had a difference of opinion and I tolerated it (while maintaining my own opinion) without attacking you, screeching at you, or trying to tell lies about you. Think AE could ever learn those tricks from me?

I don’t have to look up the many texts and court decisions where the law recognizes childless, sterile and/or anti-child couples as families whose existence benefits society (although I could), because you lack effective answers for basic points like this, from earlier:

My dad’s retirement community is a hotbed of new marriages – that have absolutely ***NOTHING WHATEVER*** to do with “getting the two sexes… tied in legal knots for the sake of children”.

When you’ve shown me that you can tolerate differences of opinion by addressing the other person’s points, AE, and civilly, then maybe I’ll do more legwork for you. Not before.

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

You habitually tell outright lies about me, AE – then call me “a lying loser”. You disgrace yourself.

I hereby once again quote and cite REALITY.

Sorry liar, you lose there too.

Reality is that institutions are defined by laws, not by ILC, not by what ILC claims is “reality” while conveniently ignoring everything that refutes his arguements. And you cant cite ANY legislature or ANY statute that verifies your argument because your argument is FALSE.

You lose. And I lose for wasting my time with a lying loser like you.

I agree with you that these are priviledges and not rights.

We have the right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. We have the Bill of Rights, including the freedom of speech, religion and so forth. As we know, these are our rights as defined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution that our Founders declared were ordained by our Creator. These are our rights.

My family disagrees with gay marriage, and they disagree with my lifestyle, but they love me. They want me to have the same legal rights in my relationship, but all they ask is that marriage be honored as it has been historically and culturally for centuries.

Holly, good post.

As for me, and as I’ve said time and time again in discussions on this blog, I want gay marriage to be passed democratically and I’m fine settling for civil unions, domestic partnership laws, etc.

A State license for marriage, professional practice, driving, fishing or anything is always a privilege not a right. A right is something you have morally, even if a tyrannical government tramples it. While a privilege is something the government creates. And in America, we had a revolution to establish that (among other points) privileges must be legislated – i.e., set by a democratic process.

So, if we are going to expand State marriage licensing to include gays, let’s get there democratically. I support gay marriage. As part of the democratic process, I state my support for gay marriage out loud. People can agree or disagree with me. (Or even flip out, as American Elephant does with me.) I recognize the reality that States license marriages even for couples who knowingly, blatantly will never have children. And the reality that some gay couples have children. I say both of those out loud, too. At the end of it, people can agree or disagree with me, and the democratic process will decide what it decides. If that’s civil unions, I’m fine with it.

I will say that those that I know who stand for traditional marriage, have no ill-will towards gays at all.

I will say the same for all of the heterosexuals that I personally know, who oppose gay marriage.

I recognize, as I hope you-all do, that we are not going to agree on every issue. That’s OK. If you think you have good points against my position in favor of gay civil unions and/or gay marriage achieved democratically (not through courts), and if you can state them without the excesses I’ve mentioned encountering from AE, I welcome it. Please recognize that you are probably not going to change my mind – just as I fully recognize that I am probably not going to change yours. You would know, as I do, that civil and intelligent people often must agree-to-disagree and merely ‘airing’ the different sides and points of an issue is often as far as a blog discussion gets, or ever needs to get.