Nobody is going to drag the opposition kicking and screaming into supporting Gay Marriage. Society will evolve naturally as the young grow older and our children grow up having been raised to accept differences rather than just tolerate them.

Or things will stay pretty much the same as the youth of today get more conservative with age. The leaders of today are those drug crazed hippies from the 60s and are the prime proponents of the Anti-Drug campaigns.

I am a Catholic, a conservative and a married woman. I am among the 40% of Americans in favor of Gay Marriage. I am also in favor of gay adoption but that is a separate issue.

Now, I'm not a Catholic and, while I'm not, "pro" gay anything, I think they should be given the same legal rights as heterosexuals.

But I fail to see how one can be simultaneously Catholic and "in favor of" gay marriage or gay adoption. Are you pro blasphemy? Pro murder? Pro theft? How can you simultaneously profess a belief system that you believe is Divinely inspired and yet reject the teachings of the Bible and the Vicar of Christ?

James,

You said it yourself, you're not Catholic. So I too fail to see how you can pass judgement on someones beliefs as a Catholic because they differ from the hard line Catholic stance. What you don't seem to realize is that back in the old days, babies were baptized into Catholicism shortly after birth. I was not given a choice, and neither was my sister Rosemary. We became Catholic and grew up Catholic before we knew the difference between right and wrong. Thats the way it was. Thats not the way it is now. The Catholic Church is slowly changing its tune on a number of issues. However, if the Catholic church switches from a long time stance that I believe in, it cannot expect me to instantly embrace the change. Much like if I choose to support gay marriages and adoptions, I don't expect the Catholic church to automatically agree with me. The church may never agree with me, but that doesn't make me or my sister any less Catholic than we are.

Jerry

Jerry:

Well said! And Thanks!

Not to make waves, but its OK to change denominations if you find that you don't actually agree with the religious group you find yourself a member of. This does NOT make you a bad person. It makes you a very aware person. My aunt-in-law struggled with being a Baptist for years. Turns out she's really happy being an Episciplean (or a Luthern, I forget which). Maybe that could work for y'al.

I believe that Christ teaches us to love others as we would ourselves.

Just because I am a Catholic doesn't mean I fall in lock step with all of its teachings. The intrepretations are done by priests and scholars. The Bible is constantly being revisited by scholars and re-evaluated. The Church is evolving with the times. I don't have to agree with its teachings 100% to be a member. Also, I mentioned that I wasn't a very good Catholic - I'm sure I did.

I am an individual first,Catholic second, Republican third.

Just because I am a Republican does not mean I subscribe to 100% of the platform. Doesn't mean I can't disagree with Bush. Doesn't mean I can't think Trent Lott is an ass - I do.

I don't believe that the Vatican is right where Gay Marriage is concerned. Alas, I am a sinner. I do my best to be a repentant one but I do sin.

Does it follow that if I support the rights of gays to marry the person they love ... then I am pro-murder and blasphemy. No.

I break the 3rd commandment regularly. I feel bad (as I should) and am repentant. I am a serial swearer but I feel bad about it - and am forgiven.

I break the 4th one too! Still doesn't make me not a Catholic and pro-murder.

I am pro-life but I believe that women should be allowed the right to choose (with strict limits) especially in cases of rape and incest. The Church is totally opposed to abortion - still I am a Catholic.

Guess what there are plenty of Gay Catholics - most of whom support marriage rights for themselves. Andrew Sullivan comes to mind.

Don't even get me started on the pedophile priests...

Yes, I am still a Catholic.

Allison:

I know that it is an option but I actually like the pomp and ceremony of Catholicism. I have a few minor disagreements but no biggie. My Mom actually supports Gay Marriage as well. My little sis too. Not sure about my brothers but it wouldn't surprise me if they were for it.

All of us happy Catholics. Besides I think that it would dishonour my parents to change religions.
I am 100% Polish - and my parents/older sibs came right off the boat so to speak.

There is no reason you can't be a Catholic and still be human as well.

Rosemary:

If it makes you happy, I'm all for it :) I'm only sorry it took Aunt Irene years of frustration to figure out "Hey, I'm a Luthern"!

And as far as you saying "Besides I think that it would dishonour my parents to change religions." I actually went so far as to dishonour my parents by changing political parties. Want to talk about backlash! They all but accused my new husband of brainwashing! And thats just politics, I understand what you're saying about religion and family tradition. Besides, Catholics have the prettiest services (although that is NOT enough reason to choose a religion, hence I'm a Southern Baptist)(No, not one of those snake-handling fundamentalist cults).

Ha! ;-)

I used to be a Democrat and when I switched parties my parents accused my husband of brainwashing me. I was so insulted.

I am not manipulatable (is that even a word?).

I know what you mean sister! Amen!

I'm thinking of a timetable of about ten to fifteen years before the first gay Marriage is actually recognized in this country. Left to state law, some would adopt it faster, but on federal recognition, I'm seeing that long a period. The DOMA itself is quite unconstitutional in its subversion of states rights. (I'm doing more states rights research into Lawrence, myself. I was all for the decision but some things, I must concede are beyond me for the moment.)

I also believe that a de facto Marriage under any other name de jure (civil union, whatever) as a civil institution is a no-go. I wouldn't be expecting the RCC to be sanctifying any gay Marriages, but I would be glad to see the state not do naming anything sacred, nor abominable, on religious/faith-based reasoning.

Dear Rosemary:

I wanted to thank you for writing such a thoughtful and balanced piece on the gay marriage issue. It's hard to find a big picture voice right now, especially with all the rancor between the ultra-left gay rights movement and the ultra-right reactionaries. I think you directly and indirectly touch on a lot of important points on the issue:

1. That religious views on marriage vary from person to person, and that religious definitions of marriage are different from legal ones.

2. That significant changes have already taken place on the gay marriage issue in our society, and that those changes will likely continue with time. There is a synergy between individual beliefs and public policy, and I believe that changing societal attitudes are what have brought the issue to the fore. The more strident gay activists have played a part, yes, but I think that more important work on the issue has been done by individual gay and lesbian Americans who have shown society at large that our relationships exist and that they are often deep and lasting.

3. That the Federal Marriage Amendment is unnecessary because of DOMA (and I am as disappointed in Clinton for signing it as I am in Bush for supporting the Amendment).

I wanted to bring up another point, however -- there is a subtle difference in language between DoMA and the FMA. DoMA says that states can't be required by the Federal government to enact or recognize gay marriage. FMA, on the other hand, says that states can't even willingly enact legislation that would grant marriage rights to "unmarried persons", which by the definitions in the Amendment would necessarily include gay and lesbian couples.

While the FMA is redundant in respect to DoMA, it also goes a step further and prevents states from allowing gay marriage in any form, whether full marriage, civil unions, or domestic partnership. I know that a lot of Constitutional conservatives were dismayed by the Lawrence v. Texas ruling. I think there is ample reason in the FMA for even more dismay.

I used to be a Democrat and when I switched parties my parents accused my husband of brainwashing me. I was so insulted.

So was I. Especially because I wasn't a Republican then and am not one now. %-)

Has Bush come out in favor of that proposed amendment? The last I heard he was hemming and hawing and seemed to be avoiding that.

It's been interesting to watch Bush's view evolve on this. During the primary season in 2000, in South Carolina, he specifically said that he would never hire "a known homosexual" to work in his administration, and that he would "probably not" meet with the Log Cabin Republicans.

Some months later, he did meet with the Log Cabin Republicans. He said little about his meeting, except to say that he was glad he had the meeting and that he had learned from it, and didn't want to comment more.

We now know that there are actually quite a few gay people serving in various roles at the White House, without any fuss over it.

At a press conference a couple of weeks ago, Bush was asked point-blank if he thought homosexuality was sinful. He was quite remarkably inhesitant in his answer: he immediately said that he was a sinner and that we were all sinners, and that some people needed to pluck the beam from their own eyes before worrying about the speck in their brother's .

Then he did say that he supported marriage as being between a man and a woman. The latter statement being the one more widely quoted. Although it should still be borne in mind, his position on that is still the one held by a majority of Americans.

It might well be that a national debate on a Constitutional amendment would be healthy on this, because it will probably get more people to question their preconceptions about it. The actual odds of such an amendment passing are still quite low--people just don't appreciate how tough those actually are to get through.

Note that I think that one of the mistakes that gays are making on the marriage debate is to focus their arguments in classic left-wing arguments. However, I think they've already won the argument with those who accept those arguments.

What they ought to be doing now is couching the arguments in terms that will appeal to a conservative audience. This is one thing that Andrew Sullivan used to do very effectively, but that he's stopped doing recently--which is a shame, because he was making a lot of headway in making them take his arguments seriously.

If we are going to extend marriage to gays, we should examine and take very seriously the concernts that it might also lead to polygamy, that it might degrade a family-oriented institution, that it might lead to greater acceptance of extra-marital sex, etc. Those are serious allegations, and none of them are completely without any basis. For example, it's widely known both from social research and by just about anyone who has many gay friends that gay men do tend to be more promiscuous than average--so, does that mean that gay marriages will frequently be open marriages that allow multiple sex partners? If so, will that encourage straight men to be more adulterous?

This isn't a joke, nor is it a cheap slander of gay people. It's a real concern.

Should advocacy of gay marriage, for example, be tied with advocacy for laws which toughen sanctions on people who commit adulterous behavior? Conservatives might well respond favorably to that.

Similarly, gay people would do well to start noting that, in point of fact, one of the reasons they want marriage is because they want the family responsibilities that usually go with it. Gay people are already having children--wouldn't it be better if they were doing it within a recognized union, rather than just an informal "living together" situation?

Recasting the arguments in conservative terms, and taking the arguments of the opponents seriously, would probably help a lot. "My partner and I have been together for 10 years and are raising two children. We'd like to teach them that marriage is the best way to go for raising kids, but it's hard to do that when you won't let us." Some conservatives still won't respond favorably to that, but I suspect some will.

Rosemary,

Doing it opposite from you - I, too, am Catholic and conservative (though I subscribe to every iota of Catholic doctrine - this is not to say that I don't sin, but that I believe Catholic doctrine to be the most theologically true in all cases) but I went from being in favor of gay marriage to being against.

It took a lot of thought and some soul-searching and in the end over about a 10 year period, I switched sides in the argument. In my view, the arguments in favor of gay marriage are essentially specious being entirely based upon emotion while the arguments against are solid and based upon sociological fact.

At the same time I was making this intellectual journey, I was also passing from being pro-death penalty to being against; from being isolationist to imperialist and from being moderately pro-choice to being absolutely opposed except when the life of the mother is in clear and present danger (this is an easy position to arrive at if you concede that the unborn child is a person...once thats granted, then its a matter of it not being the child's fault precisely how conceived). Life takes us on odd journeys and we never know where we'll end up save that if we are in any way thinking and sensitive, we'll wind up somewhere else.

Dean,

It'd certainly be better than the more common way the debate goes:

"I want gay marriage!"

"I don't."

"You're a homophobe!"

There is always much to be said for being civilised about the matter - whatever the matter happens to be.

Personally, I still think you're chasing a pipe dream - 5,000 years of human history is rather hard to get around (not impossible, mind you, but rather difficult - and usually only gotten around for really vital reasons: I don't see the vitalness of getting two guys hitched).

A fair point Mark, and one that some libertarian atheists I know would agree with. In fact I can think of at least two libertarian atheists of my acquaintance who think the idea of gay marriage is just about the silliest damned thing they've ever heard, and oppose it vigorously.

Which is one reason why I keep thinking gay marriage advocates need to stop with the stereotyping of their opponents, and start with the kind of rigorous logic that will appeal to at least some of their opponents. They lose some of their potential support by not simply saying, "Okay, you've got a thoughtful point there, but, let me tell you why I think you're mistaken." (It's a lonely battle Andrew Sullivan's been fighting for about 10 years now, and I think the strain's beginning to show on him. Some of his gay critics ought to be coming to his assistance instead of being mad at him for voting Republican. But anyway....)

Mark, I for one, think you're making a mistake in your logic because in 5,000 years of human history, while gay "marriage" would have been considered an oddity, we are at a point in human history that is radically different from where it's been before, in many crucial areas.

For example, we now live about twice as long as we did over most of the last 5,000 years. The average human being is hundreds (if not thousands) of times more wealthy than he would have been at almost any time in the last 5,000 years. Our ability to travel, and to communicate over long distances, is infinitely, immeasurably greater. Our level of literacy is infinitely higher. And the number of people we interact with on a daily basis is orders of magnitudes larger.

All of which has made the formation of something called a "gay community" possible, which would have been very rare, and in most societies just plain impossible, in the past. Now, today, we have enough of them able to find each other and band together that they've become a political force. How to deal with them? Try to abolish them? Or try to accomodate them within reason, without radically restructuring everything.

Conservatives tend to be suspicious of change because they instinctively--and rightly--recognize that change for change's sake is often a bad thing, and that changes often make things worse. Conservatives also--rightly, I think--fear the breakdown of social institutions. They see civilization as something that's taken thousands of years to bring to its present, mostly excellent, state, and worry that if we're too quick to accept change, and unwilling to reject some changes, the whole thing could fall apart like a house of cards. Not that any one change would do it, but that too many changes too quickly without some critical thinking certainly would.

Let's cede that conservatives often have good and decent motives on all those things, and often have a very good point. Yes, yes, there are some nasty slobbering jerks among conservatives, but you can find those everywhere. So let's concentrate on some arguments that conservatives would appreciate:

1) In the 1970s, the gay rights movement was mostly a radical, sexual-liberation type movement. This in fact is what many conservatives feared, and is what instigated most of the opposition to the gay rights movement. Conservatives saw homosexuality as a philosophy linked to the philosophy of free love, free sex, kids outside of wedlock, and so on. And while many modern gays have forgotten this, in the early 1970s, a lot of homosexuals embraced that notion, said they proudly CHOSE to be homosexuals as part of their rejection of the "oppressive morals" of earlier generations.

But in the 1990s, a distinct change came about, one which most people haven't noticed, but which is startlingly obvious once you think about it:

The gay rights movement has become primarily a conservative, right-wing movement.

What? What? Am I crazy? No. Think about it.

What have homosexual activists spent 90% of their energy on over the last 10+ years? Almost all of them are efforts to make their way into middle class, old-fashioned, conservative America:

1) They want to serve in the military.
2) They want to have families.
3) They want to go to church and join the clergy.
4) They want to settle down and get married, so they can protect their loved ones economically and easily share credit so they can do things like buy houses or get insurance without complicated rigmarole.
5) They even want to join the Boy Scouts. The FREAKING BOY SCOUTS, for goodness sakes.

Even opposition to sodomy laws are generally cast in conservative terms: getting the state out of the bedroom and away from excessive meddling in private affairs.

These people don't want to destroy Republicans. They want to BECOME Republicans. ;-)

---

So. What are the conservative arguments for gay marriage?

1) Gay men tend to be promiscuous. Before someone gets his nose out of joint and yells, "I'm a gay man and I'm not promiscuous!" -- please just stop that. Anyone who's hung around in the gay community long enough knows that this tends to be true, even though it's not true of 100% of gay men. So: can we agree that this is unhealthy? Are there mechanisms by which we might change that? Gay marriage may be one way to accomplish just that.

Note that I would suggest that gay marriage advocates would be really smart if they started proposing that gay marriage statutes be combined with statutes to toughen penalties on anyone (male, female, gay or straight) guilty of adulterous behavior. Not imprisoning people per se, but making it a lot tougher on you in divorce court if you're found to have been cheating, for example. Also, perhaps they could embrace the abolition of "No Fault" divorce laws, which tend to make it WAY too easy for people to get into marriages of convenience.

2) Conservatives generally agree that the best way to raise kids is in a married environment, with two responsible adults whose focus is on the family.

Of course, most of them believe the ideal is one man and one woman. HOWEVER, the fact is that--unlike any other time in history--gay people are increasingly choosing to have kids anyway. Lesbians do it a lot, but gay men are starting to do it too.

Can we come to an agreement that, even if the "man/woman" ideal is not always present, having two people who are absolutely committed to a single relationship for the purposes of raising a family is still better than having unmarried people raising kids?

Because that's really the either-or choice we face at the moment. Gay people have the same urge to procreate that straight people have, and unless you plan to outlaw them, they're going to keep doing it. It's a fait accompli that conservatives need to simply accept unless they plan to advocate a police state as far as reproduction is concerned.

That being the case, granting the gay people who have kids the status of marriage should be healthier for their children--and healthier for straight people's kids, who will at least be shown by example that two committed adults is the best way to go when raising kids.

---

Well that's enough for now, but I think there may be one or two other conservative arguments to be made about this. I think I'm gonna clean this comment up and post it as a feature article. Not tonight, maybe tomorrow.

Hey Dean:

All of this discussion is fine and good -- glad you've got such great dialogue going on. However, you described the gay agenda as having become right-wing and conservative because of our fight for marriage rights, serving in the military, inclusion in churches, etc. Does that mean that left-wing values are necessarily anti-marriage, anti-military and anti-religion? Even for you, that's a stretch.

Oh, and I won't deny that gay men are promiscuous, namely because we *can* be. I know plenty of promiscuous straight guys as well, but most of them don't enjoy the level of consistent success gay men enjoy in their sexual conquests.

As for agreement that promiscuity isn't "healthy", I guess I don't know. There was a period in my life (which is actually chronicled in print under the title, "To All the Guys I've Fucked Before") when I had lots and lots of sex, and it was good, and I enjoyed it. Eventually, I just got all fucked out, for lack of a better term. I wanted to settle down. I wanted stability and consistency and fidelity and love and home; so that's what I got.

Your ideas about penalizing adultery are about as far-fetched as other social engineering projects from the left and the right. I don't want government getting involved in the way people choose to live their lives, contract or no. The religious aspect of marriage deals with marital fidelity; the legal aspect does not and furthermore *should* not. It is not for the government (acting as the cudgel of popular morality) to enforce sexual ethics. It has no purpose, other than to make a difficult process -- divorce -- even more difficult.

I think the view that government should do as little as possible, since it does so little correctly, should be applied in an equitable manner. I don't like government in the bedroom, and that includes the honeymoon suite (or the seedy motel).

John:

"Does that mean that left-wing values are necessarily anti-marriage, anti-military and anti-religion?"

I think it would be difficult to argue that a significant portion of left wing organizations, politicians, and philosophies have not trended in those directions for a significant period of time. Not to say that the majority of those who would describe themselves as left of center are any of those "antis" of course.

Dean made the observation that most of the more publicized events in which gays have been making their case for acceptance are in spheres that conservatives traditionally respect. By presenting the issue from this angle, it is easier to dispel the idea that all gays are "Rabid Leftists", which with all the baggage that said term carries, would be harder for conservatives to accept than homosexuals.

While the FMA is redundant in respect to DoMA, it also goes a step further and prevents states from allowing gay marriage in any form, whether full marriage, civil unions, or domestic partnership.

DOMA may not be pretty but it still allows States to make their own rules. FMA is definitely a major problem because it takes away rights from the people to decide for themselves. I hope that the FMA doesn't pass but if the politicians vote the way the majority of their constituency feels as they should - it just might. Unfortunately, too much of the country is decidely against Gay marriage.

I know that a lot of Constitutional conservatives were dismayed by the Lawrence v. Texas ruling. I think there is ample reason in the FMA for even more dismay.

I was dismayed by that ruling. Not because I think the anti-sodomy laws are good but because I think that states should be doing their own legislating. The Supremes aren't on the bench to legislate just interpret. They are legislating way too often these days.

Much of the Left in the 1970s was about sexual liberation, and everything from women's rights to abortion to gay rights to cohabitation outside of marriage to love children to pornography generally identified with the Left (fairly or not), while the Right was identified (fairly or not) as being those "repressed conservatives" who were opposed to all that stuff.

The Left also generally defines itself as opposing the status quo in "dark, repressive, sexist, racist" Middle America. The Right, with defending same. Not that either of these is a really mature way of identifying these things but you have to admit that this is how people broadly think of them.

Part of my point is that we get perceptions, and we're only startled later to find out that labels we accepted from the past are really different now. For example, I was startled (I don't know why, but I was) by this study on Australian pornography consumption I found at Tim Blair's blog. While reading about it, I was amused to see that "conservatives" tend to be porn enthusiasts whereas, politically anyway, it's the "liberals" who are associated with opposition to pornography in Australia.

See, when I grew up in the '80s it was mostly the conservatives who railed against porn, and the liberals were the big defenders of it and.... the more things change, the more they stay the same.

These labels mean so little, but come on John, just give me this one. We think of the righties as the repressed ones who love all that old-fashioned stuff and the lefties as the hip and loose ones who like to shake everything loose, right? That's all I'm saying.

Gays have spent most of the last 10 years of your political energy not trying to radically reshape Middle America, but to disappear into it--to become as mainstream as baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet. If you haven't noticed that yet, it's kind of funny. Don't you think? ;-)

As for making divorce tougher: I frankly think that if you can't respect conservative arguments for why marriage should be respected as an institution involving sexual fidelity, you're guaranteed to lose this argument in the long run. Because you'll have vindicated your critics.

Oh, and by the way: really, if you don't plan to be faithful, why on Earth do you want to get married? And don't most young men at least talk about sowing their wild oats, then settling down with one woman? Food for thought, my man.

IMHO, Gay Marriage is a good move because it creates stability and allows existing families to be legally recognized as families.

There are children being raised by gay couples right now. Why are we "okay" with penalizing the famlies of those children? Should those children have grow up with a stigma attached to their parents?

We all have do what we feel is moral and just. As far as the Catholic church goes - there are lots of sex acts that are considered abominable even within the sanctity of marriage.

Within a marriage oral sex as well as anal is considered sodomy. Actually, sex acts that aren't basic missionary style is wrong according to the church. People do it anyway - happily I might add.

What real difference is it? We are trying to punish people for the style of sex they prefer rather than the content of their character. They(gays) want to get married for Christ's sake. They aren't asking to be allowed to publicly fornicate.

People who want to get married - to be permanently bonded in a union with or without the hope/benefit of raising children get married every day. Some in church some in front of the Justice of the Peace. Nobody - not a judge not a minister has ever asked them what kind of sex they are into. They are marrying sodomites on a regular basis. Some of the hypocrites performing the ceremonies are sodomites as well. We don't know for sure.

The hypocrisy of Catholic Church is that on one hand it has a pretty bad sex scandal(same-sex) they are trying to live down; and on the other hand it's preaching about homosexuality being unnatural and sinful.

That would be like Ted Kennedy preaching about the evils of alcohol and trying to restart Prohibition.

The irony can't be lost on you all, can it?

"Eventually, I just got all fucked out, for lack of a better term. I wanted to settle down. I wanted stability and consistency and fidelity and love and home; so that's what I got."

My, my. I thought guys didn't hit on you. ; )

Sorry, John, it's not as if I were following you around the gay marriage debate waiting for an opportunity to be contrarian, but: I think this (too) is an important point. Parents don't like to think about it too much, but a lot of them know that their children are drinking and partying and screwing around in college. Most who aren't conservatively religious don't worry too much, though, because they know that most college kids will, by 15 years later, be married and living stable lives. Those that aren't married by 40 usually aren't still drinking and partying and screwing around all the time--they're hoping the right person comes along while they focus on work and other things.

The public perception is that gay men just never stop acting as if we were in college. Not just that we have more sex outside our primary relationships, but that our relationships don't serve as any kind of brake on the libido at all. Yes, it's a misperception, but it's true in enough cases (and many of them are loudmouths) that it's not hard to wonder why a lot of people are chary of regarding us as responsible adults.

Actually, I think this is something more gay-friendly straight people need to think about. You're not helping your friends if, well into middle age, you look on their escapades as charmingly roguish, saucily adventurous, or refreshingly different from your own increasingly settled lives. The last thing America needs is more people sticking their noses into other people's business and then delivering opinions about it, but there's a difference between Not Judging and applauding dissolute living.

I believe my dear wife is mistaken: I don't think the Catholic church takes a specific position on coital positions. I think it does on anal and oral sex, but not positions. ;-)

As for hypocricy: that really surprises me coming out of you Rose. You must know that the Pope and the Vatican has condemned the behavior of priests who did that, and the American bishops who covered up for it.

Rosemary and Jerry,

It sounds as if you're defining "Catholic" in the way some Jews define Judiasm, in a cultural sense of having been born into the tradition rather than actually believing in the tenets of the faith. I'm just not sure how you can think the Bible and the Pope are wrong on some issues and yet believe in their divinity and infallibility, respectively.

Similarly, repentence doesn't mean simply feeling sorry about it but fully intending to continue on that path.

Hey Dean:

On fidelity: I do plan to be faithful. I just don't need the government telling me to be faithful.

Why do we need a law to enforce what, as a society, we've already come to understand as a bad thing? And what if some marriages do allow for infidelity? Aren't they allowed to make that choice?

I'm very willing to lose an argument if it means I get to keep the values that work for me. The government should not be acting as the agent of the majority when it comes to moralizing -- it's a very dangerous sword to take up.

James,

Only non-catholics believe that the Pope is considered infallible. He is not, and never has been.

I'm with James here.

Owen, you're wrong in saying only non-catholics believe the pope is infallible, unless you believe Pius wasn't speaking "ex cathedra" when he pronounced the new doctrine of the immaculate conception, a teaching that has remained a thorn to the RC church even to this day?

The term "Christian" and even "catholic" has been so diluted in its meaning that practically anyone, including atheists and satanists label themselves Christians. If you believe everything in the Bible is pure fiction, but still retain that Jesus physically existed sometime in history, bing, you're a Christian. Maybe I'm exagerrating here but it's emblematic of the silliness we see here and elsewhere.

That's why I propose using adjectives for the sake of accuracy. Perhaps a catholic who supports gay marriage and rejects half the teachings of the RC church can be called a semi-atholic, only partially catholic. :-D

No, Owen's right. Catholics do not believe the Pope is infallible. Or if they do, they're strange, because that's not Catholic doctrine.

Catholic doctrine does hold that the Pope has the authority to speak "Ex Cathedra," which means he's invoking his authority as the apostle Peter's direct successor and is saying What God's Word is. I believe that, in the entire history of the Church, only one or two Popes have ever done that--and the current Pope isn't even one of them.

No, Catholics do not believe the Pope is infallible. That is not a doctrine of the Church, and is is only believed by people that don't actually know anything about the Church.

Some very limited and very specific statements issued by the Pope are considered infallible (ex-cathedra), but that in no way implies that he himself is infallible nor that every statement he makes is infallible. He says a lot of backwards crap, but in fact the Church has historically made it very clear that the individual has the moral obligation to dissent where he/she thinks the Church is wrong.

Dean,

We are not at some unique point in history where a new gay community has come into being. In ancient Greece homosexuality wasn't just condoned, it was encouraged. It was considered an honorable thing for a man to take a boy and show him the ropes so to speak. They did however recognize that these sorts of relationships were not the same as a marriage. Indeed, they would have thought the notion of a same sex marriage silly.

I suppose where you come down on the issue is ultimately determined by whether or not you think men and women need each other.

Dean,

Well, you've certainly thought a long time on this - and along my journey from being in favor to being opposed I tried that tactic, too.

Didn't work - and John Kusch tells ya why: at bottom, the desire to get married is not about strengthening what the family is all about, but about getting societal approval for homosexual sex (I know that John didn't actually say this but the implication is clear in his insistence that making divorce harder is not a good thing - anyone who is interested in strengthening marriage as a bedrock institution of our society is in favor of making divorce harder....if, however, your main intent is not such a strengthening, then keeping "no fault" divorce is the way to go).

My opinion about gay marriage is heavily shaped by long discussions with gay rights people and a great deal or reading the liturature of the gay rights movement. I may have taken a erroneous view of their views - but I don't think so; the whole thrust of the gay rights movement is the enforcement upon society of the notion that homosexual acts are the moral equivalent of heterosexual acts - both as a Catholic and an American I cannot accept this as legitimate: we cannot force people to believe contrary to their deepest beliefs. I cannot see a way to square the circle, and thus will remain in opposition.

The problem is that making divorce harder to get won't "strengthen marriage", assuming that it means something like making marriage more popular and relevant. A couple that stays in a dysfunctional marriage simply because divorce is impossible is not a model of permanence, but of thwarted impermance. If anything, tougher divorce laws will make people less likely to marry, and marriage will become more and more irrelevant.

I think there's a fundamental disconnect beween hets and gays when it comes to marriage. To most gays, but not all (I'm thinking in particular of assimilationists in groups like HRC and EGALE) who are in favour of gay marriages, legalizing gay marriage is about obtaining legal recognition of their relationship for inheritance/tax/hospital visitation purposes. For many hets, especially those opposed to gay marriage, the whole marriage thing seems to be about a "strengthening the family" and other poorly-defined concepts. And before you reply that marriage is about love, family, commitment, blah blah blah, all of those things are possible without a government stamp of approval. I love and am committed to my boyfriend even though I will never, ever marry him.

As a gay man, I think gay marriage is a bad thing; unfortunately, the alternative that I personally favour, having the government get out of the marriage business altogether, will simply never happen.

I like Jane Rule's take on gay marriage:

"To be forced back into the heterosexual cage of coupledom [via gay marriage] is not a step forward but a step back into state-imposed definitions of relationship. With all that we have learned, we should be helping our heterosexual brothers and sisters out of their state-defined prisons, not volunteering to join them there."

Mark,

I have great respect for you're honesty in why you believe the way you do. And I understand that you have decided on your morals as a statement of faith that isn't likely to be changed...so I won't try. But based on the logical application of that morality, how can you exclude those gays who are truly committed to raising a family, along with all the other moral values you support? Don't the many positive aspects make up for the one 'negative' that they happen to be same sex?

As for hypocricy: that really surprises me coming out of you Rose. You must know that the Pope and the Vatican has condemned the behavior of priests who did that, and the American bishops who covered up for it.

I answered this in private with Dean earlier. But I feel I should address is in public.

Saying that something is hypocritical does not make me a bigot. I am calling out my own religion. That is like the opposite of bigot really.

I didn't say that the Pope himself was a hypocrite. I love this Pope, actually, he is one of the best Popes the Church has ever had. That said, I stand behind my charge of hypocrisy.

It is very hypocritical of the American Bishops to come down hard against homosexual behavior meanwhile sweeping their own sins under the rug -FOR YEARS. Also, I know that they are trying to do better and make amends. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

It still is hypocrisy. I stand by it.

Dean and Mark: will you please stop misquoting and misconstruing everything I say to mean 1) I support adultery and 2) I want gay marriage to justify gay sex? I'm beginning to see some ideological axes being ground on poor syntactical skills, and I must admit some frustration.

Firstly: I don't think adultery is right, and not only have I been faithful to my partner for three years, but I've actually been more faithful to another man than many straight men are to women -- between 37-50% of straight men have cheated on their female partners at least once, depending on the survey. Despite whatever moral decline or "weakening of the family" you wish to cite, there is still a strong consensus in our society that infidelity is a bad thing; and I don't believe we need the law to be defining the moral framework of marriage for us. Are we so weak-willed, so dull-witted, so apt to stray from good behavior, that we need a state bureaucracy to reiterate religious marriage vows in legal language?

What a pessimistic view of humanity. Dean, I hate to say this, but I think you're a Statist. You presume the worst in human morality and seek to have the government, acting as the cudgel of the majority, impose morality upon the populace via legislation. I simply cannot accept this world-view as anything but baby-steps toward totalitarianism.

Secondly: Marriage, under the law, is a *legal* contract. It concerns itself with property rights in a familial context and the welfare of children. There is a difference between the legal aspect of marriage and the moral and/or religious aspect of marriage which, Mark, is the entire rationale behind the fight for gay marriage: hold whatever moral code you think is right for you, approve or disapprove of homosexuality or gay marriage, open or close your churches to us; yet give us equal access to familial rights (freedom of association, freedom from the tyranny of the majority, privacy rights) under the law.

I will not accept this mantle of purely sexual motivations which is continually foisted upon me here. Do you have any idea how much sex I (a relatively frumpy middle-aged man) could have if I wanted? Mark, if you think I care whether you approve of my sexuality, you're a fool. I just want to follow my own path, my own moral code, inasmuch as it doesn't harm others, and to do so unmolested by those who disapprove of it.

If you can't get on that bandwagon, if you don't believe in liberty, why have an America at all?

Cub4blog: I appreciate that you don't think marriage is an appropriate institution for *anyone*, yet would you concede that gay people have the right to *choose* marriage? Do you agree that I should be able to entre into it, even as you're trying to help society move beyond it?

Getting the government out of marriage might never happen, and in the meantime there are significant legal benefits to it. Would you deny those to people less "enlightened" than yourself?

But,Rosemary, are you saying that because certain Bishops failed to do their job and/or did it incorrectly in one situation, they (any of them?) are not supposed to articulate Catholic doctrine in any situation. That doing their job correctly now makes them hypocrites because they fell down on the job before? By those standards none of us should say anything about anything since all of us have fallen short at one time or the other.

Carl: Yes, we are indeed at a very novel point in history where a new gay community has come into being. And you yourself have pointed out why.

Yes, parts of ancient Greek society held man-man sexual relations in esteem. They also viewed anal between men as anathema, and furthermore, one of a man's gay lovers' primary duties was to help him pick out his wife. Furthermore, it was usually the case that a man's gay lover was at least ten years older than him, and was as much a mentor/studenet relationship as a sexual one.

Thus, Greece is simply not the example people think it is. It is not about a "gay community" at all.

We are at a truly unique period now where people are openly expressing a preference for the same sex, openly choosing to cohabit and commit to each other. This is unique, and presents us with unique challenges.

John: You've very nearly convinced me that Mark Noonan is right and that gay marriage is a tremendously, horribly wrong idea. I mean, seriously, just by advancing the arguments you have, you've vindicated pretty much everything that most of the critics of this notion have advanced. Gay marriage will, if enacted as you suggest, almost certainly degrade a valuable institution.

You've really made me think. I may really be off on the wrong tangent here. Because your respect for the institution and the responsibilities that come with its priviledges appears not to exist.

Mr. Noonan, I think I have a pretty good grasp on most of the anti-marriage arguments, but that's one that I just don't get.

People enter into marriages without the approval of family and community elders all the time--that's practically the story of my family all the way back to the Ellis Island ferry. Still, no one is forced to approve morally of the marriage contract between a known slut and a known rotter. I will concede--it's impossible not to--that gay rights leaders have adopted a you-have-to-luv-us routine akin to brainwashing. It makes me curl up at the edges, and I'm as gay as they are and have no aversion to being adored.

Oh by the way, am I a "statist?" Okay, whatever. Labels seem to be important to people, and yes, I do believe there should be a state and that it has a role in encouraging and discouraging certain behaviors--minimally so, but yes, I believe it has a valid role to play in that area.

I believe marriage isn't about love first and foremost, it's about society encouraging functional behaviors and discouraging destructive ones. Since no one's forced into marriage, I'm not really very moved by claims that it's oppressive to put requirements on it.

Love is an important component of marriage, but far from the most important component. Love in a relationship can wax and wane, can sometimes be lost but be found again. The most important part of marriage is not the sex or the good warm fuzzies, it's the committment to a valued institution.

In this society, we'll give you certain benefits for marrying. We do it because we believe society, especially its children, benefits from that. The benefits are fairly minor things like tax incentives and convenience of inheritance, but most of them could be achieved without marriage by simple contractual arrangements and general social recognition.

In fact, that's what comes to me first and foremost reading Cub4Bear's arguments: the fact is, except for some minor tax benefits, all the benefits gays want from marriage can be arranged in other ways. His arguments thus also, tremendously, weaken the entire case for gay marriage, and make me think I need to start opposing it.

Because I thought most gays really respected this institution. Apparently, the critics are right: they're looking for it because they want to feel good about themselves, because of a bitchy, drama-queenish "it's not FAAAAIIRRR!!!" position rather than out of a mature understanding and serious desire to extend it in ways that will help society.

And by the way, the historical record shows, I believe, that no-fault divorce has only resulted in increased poverty among women and increased child abandonment. Part of our problem as a society has been, in fact, the degraded notion that marriage is simply about "love" as opposed to what it should be primarily about: committment.

Anyway: having read John Kusch and Cub4Bear's arguments, I must reluctantly come to the conclusion that the critics of gay marriage are correct--that gays really have no respect for this cultural institution, want nothing to do with the obligations that come with it, and only really want this for the minor advantages and out of an almost pathetic need for vindication.

Wow. I'm really, honestly shocked and disappointed.

"In fact, that's what comes to me first and foremost reading Cub4Bear's arguments: the fact is, except for some minor tax benefits, all the benefits gays want from marriage can be arranged in other ways."

Personally, I'm not in favor of gay marriage the way it's being pushed for now. (BTW, I don't know that John Kusch and Cub4Bear indicate what gays in general think about marriage any more than my behavior indicates that all gays are uptight.) But I do have to say that you're wrong in at least one important way: those of us who have partners who aren't US citizens can't arrange in other ways to bring them into the country. If they can get working visas, they can enter and stay, but I can't just agree to be J's legal guardian, or something.

Dean, your continued inability to approach a concept from outside your own strictly-delimited perspective, your refusal to see through the eyes of others and consider multiple aspects of an issue, and your ridiculously hypocritical penchant for labeling others (read: racist, misandrist, misogynist) while rankling at the use of labels to describe you, all culminate in an important conclusion: you are many things, but you are not a liberal thinker.

The entire rational basis for gay marriage is that family structures and institutions should not created or enforced by governments -- they should be created and enforced by people. The Constitution says nothing about adultery, about the emotional or religious basis of the marriage contract, about specific societal mores that relate to the managing of a relationship or of raising families or of any of that. The objections traditionally raised to gay marriage -- sex, fidelity, children -- are not in and of themselves legal issues. They are moral issues, and I believe that moral issues must be decided by the individual, not by the group and not by the government. The government's proper role is to protect individual liberties and to allow them to choose a moral compass and live by it, inasmuch as they don't harm others in doing so. Harm to "society" is not a measurable harm; it is only a representation of harm to many, many individuals. Furthermore, when it comes to issues of personal morality, "societal harm" is too often a euphemism for "behavior which WE (the undersigned) do not like". Such emotional bases for censure are not sufficient -- true and immediate harm must be proven.

In the case of gay marriage, such harm has simply not been proven.

If the issue of gay marriage is to be decided by people like yourself, who seemingly require that our marriages mirror YOUR concept of marriage and embody YOUR ideals of family life, and who are unable or unwilling to consider that perhaps we gay and lesbian Americans, as full American citizens, have the right to make our OWN decisions about what family life means to us, creating our own space within society, discovering and living by our own shared values and moral codes -- in short, if gay marriage means satisfying the self-satisfied and temporal moral preferences of people like yourself, then perhaps cub4bear is right. Because if YOU are the gate we need to walk through to earn the legal recognition of our relationships, then perhaps the weather out here is more agreeable.

Perhaps several thousand dollars in legal bills to make sure my relationship with my partner isn't trampled upon by the prejudices of the majority (the majority who take those rights for granted to an extent that can only be described as obscene) is a small investment, if it means I don't have to negotiate for my rights with people like you: people who can't tell the difference between popular morality and law; people who can't tell the difference between a legal contract and a religious vow; people who can't tell the difference between pursuing legal protections and whining for societal approval; people who, put very simply, can't think their way out of a cardboard box.

I am SO not going to give myself an anneurysm bandying words with someone who can't say what he thinks and who can't think what he means. I've been trying to figure out why you have so many commenters on your site, and it occurred to me this morning, talking in bed with my boyfriend: your ideas are incomplete. They're fixer-uppers. The comments are a mixture of two things: those people who latch on to the convenient aspects of your arguments with which they agree, and the good-faith efforts of reasonable people who are simply trying to figure out how you reach such untenable conclusions.

In parting, I ask you to consider this: if your "approval" (as if your approval were required) of gay marriage is so easily granted and withdrawn, perhaps you never really agreed with it to begin with. Perhaps you're just enjoying the perverse pleasure of the man who's holding the leash.

If you ever wanted to do something nice for me, then ban me from your comments. They are an exercise in futility that threaten my health.

First off, let me congratulate all here on what is a highly civilised and intellectually weighty debate. These are few and far between and we should all cherish our ability to go about these things in a civilised manner.

Going from back to front:

John,

I may be a fool, but I knows what I knows - and one thing I do know is that marriage is not made for man but for society. Its not you who are to benefit from marriage, but society. We are not a set of disconnected social atoms - we are, in the end, absolutely dependent upon each other and thus our primary duty is to ensure the health of the social organism.

This is where Libertarianism, in my view, goes off the deep end. Individual liberty and initiative is vital to the proper functioning of society, but so are rigidly enforced societal norms. Morality must be outside of human control - say that God decreed it or that nature or the species, whatever: but basic morality must not be something that you and I can decide for ourselves. The purpose of morality must be to ensure that I can use my rights - ie, it doesn't do me a damn bit of good to have the right to speak my piece in a howling wilderness of social disintegration.

From your own words, you esentially reduce marriage to an entirely contractual thing for personal convenience and, as an aside, perhaps to assist in the shaping of society. This is wrong - marriage (and the families resultant) are the absolute bedrock of society and all of society had an intense self-interest in seeing to it that families are preserved and strengthened. The only way you'll ever get me to agree to gay marriage is if you can prove to me that the primary purpose of it is to do these things.

Sean,

You get at a very important point - and its my main brief. Marriage being the bedrock of society, it must be hedged about with all sorts of protections - including protection against the foolish. Once upon a time, we did not decide for ourselves whom to marry; marriages for love are a rather new invention and only became general within the last century or so (and only in the West and areas most influenced by it - most of the world still gets by with the parents determining whom someone shall marry). To our oh, so liberated minds the concept of someone choosing for us is, of course, anethema - but the downside of choosing for ourselves is a whore marrying a rotter and producing kids who have a high likelihood of death/incarceration before their 18th birthday. In my mind, the costs of the free for all especiall of the last 40 years (we're talking literally millions of dead, not even counting abortions) have not been worth the price of allowing young and foolish people to make this final choice.

I'd have it that (a) you can't marry without parental permission before 21, (b) that you must wait at least 6 months after a publically announced engagement before marriage and (c) that divorce may only happen for grave causes (adultery, addiction, felony acts, eg). Rough? Sure is - but if 90% of the people who shouldn't get married, don't, then we're very plus on the scale of life.

Patrick,

I'm sure there are some gay people who wish to marry for the proper reasons - but the rule is that hard cases make bad laws. I wont toss over centuries of societal experience just for the convenience of a few. As I said, show me that the reason for gay marriage is for the strengthening of the general state of marriage and I'll take note - as for now, all my research has indicated to me that the primary reason for gay marriage is to make it a societal norm that homosexual sex is the moral equivalent of heterosexual sex.

Leaving aside that no decent human being would define himself by his sexual appetites, there is also the very relevant point that we cannot make people beleive what they don't want to believe.

cub4bear,

But it is that societal straight-jacket that we need. As Burke said, if we were to release our instincts we aren't afraid that people will believe nothing, but that they'll believe whatever uncouth belief comes down the pike.

As I've pointed out before, I'm a conservative - I know how shallow is the veneer of our civilization and thus what a fool's errand it is to break it down. What amazes is that so many gay people don't see that the reason they are pretty much free to do as they like in the United States is because of the efforts of people who deny themselves this indulgence.

Homosexuals, entertainment mavens, social oddballs - all of these live off the moral capital built up by people who don't engage in their sort of activities. If it wasn't for the "boring" people who finish the prescribed schooling, get married, stay faithful, work hard and only take two weeks of rather un-interesting vacation per year then our whole society would collapse in an instant. The Gay Pride Parade, as it were, is dependent upon the existence of rather straight-laced Southern Baptists...and its an imposition upon these boring, but vital, people to have such goings on as we see in the urban elite...its ok that it happens, but those who engage should remember whence their ability comes from and bow down periodically before the social gods which make this possible.

Well, Mark, what you've described sounds more like post-War Japan than America to me. Allowing individuals to choose their own paths and make their own tradeoffs is a source of strength, too: a society that does so can benefit from talents that come to the fore in a variety of different settings. And people who live commonplace lives benefit from the ideas and artifacts that are developed by imaginative risk-takers and workaholics. Besides, pursuing pleasure is a good thing, provided one doesn't do so at the expense of one's obligations. Playfulness is part of what makes us humans with elaborate civilizations, rather than naked mole rats with little colonies.

As far as respect for marriage as an institution goes, I can only speak for myself: my parents have the best marriage I've ever seen, not just because they're in love but also because their relationship combines and amplifies their ability to give to people around them. I think that's something to encourage, irrespective of whether people are having children, but it's pretty obvious that marriage, the legal arrangement, as presently constituted, is unlikely to do it.

It is simply impossible to prove that gay marriages would not ruin the institution of straight marriages. But, it is easy to look at the countries that have adopted gay marriage or civil unions to see that they do not destroy anything.

Divorce or invitro fertilization or the state welfare programs or "who wants to marry a millionaire show" do much more harm to straight marriage than any legalized gay union ever could.

Hats off to the nelly, flag waving bitchy, drama-queens screaming "it's not FAAAAIIRRR!!!" Because they are right. It is not fair. I would rather have equal rights to marry the love of my life or the millionaire on tv than to march in a parade any day.

John Kusch:

Should gay people have the right to choose marriage? Yes, should they so desire. The problem, though, is that there is no real choice, at least not where I live: where I live, if a gay couple lives together for a year, they're considered common-law married whether they want to or not. Where's the ability to choose? There is none. I'm forced to be married, whether I want to or not.

Of course, even in jurisdictions where there is no such thing as common law marriage, the "choice" is all or nothing: either gay couples have no protection at all, or are squeezed into the straight (hah) jacket of marriage.

I suggest everyone here read a report called "Beyond Conjugality" that was put out by the Law Commission of Canada, a independent arms-length government body in Canada that studies ways to change laws and recommends alternatives. "Beyond Conjugality" examines how governments can support close personal relationships between people while allowing them the freedom to define relationships for themselves. It's heavy reading, but I strongly recommend it.

Of course, I'm sure certain people here won't like it, because it recommends that people be given the freedom to define relationships for themselves. Heaven forfend.

Mark writes:

The Gay Pride Parade, as it were, is dependent upon the existence of rather straight-laced Southern Baptists...and its an imposition upon these boring, but vital, people to have such goings on as we see in the urban elite...its ok that it happens, but those who engage should remember whence their ability comes from and bow down periodically before the social gods which make this possible.

Yes, because Gay Pride Parades are just fun things we decided to have because we were bored. Stonewall was just a fun street party, and had nothing to do with police harassment. Thank god all those people who are still arguing that we're evil and need to be denied our rights, because it gives us a great excuse to have a party every year!

Southern Baptists don't make Gay Pride parades possible, they make them necessary. I will never thank people who would deny me basic human rights, nor will I ever bow down before them. To suggest that I owe anything to my oppressors is outrageous in the extreme.

The purpose of morality must be to ensure that I can use my rights - ie, it doesn't do me a damn bit of good to have the right to speak my piece in a howling wilderness of social disintegration.

A bunch of words that boil down to "If you let those crazy non-conformists have their way, society will cease to exist and we'll have anarchy!!!"

When civilization starts to crumble because fags are getting married, be sure to call me and let me know, OK?

What I find objectionable in your analysis, Dean, is that you accept a common but certainly not unanimously held attitude as coming from the entire gay community, then assert that the existence of this attitude justifies encoding discrimination against us into law. That's two logical leaps I'm not willing to take.

Some gays may be fighting for the wrong reasons, but the existence of ONE couple fighting for the right ones -- no, the existence of one right REASON -- should be enough to put the moral weight on our side. Individuals should not be punished for the actions (or the opinions) of others, whether those others are right or wrong, and it seems quite obvious that there are a lot of gay couples who suffer for lack of a bond with legal weight.

Our government is neither the arbiter of morality nor the enforcer of traditional social norms -- it's the protector of the rights of the individual. If gay marriage causes a major change in the nature of the institution (and that's a big "if," as the gays most likely to participate are the most conservative among us), it's for society's extra-governmental structures to deal with. Let churches and colleges and the media discuss the nature of commitment. The government's only role is to give us our due.

Dean,

If by unique you mean we have reached an era where people take the notion of a same sex marriage seriously, I will grant that. But it is not the first time there have been substantial openly homosexual communities or even the first time homosexuals have wanted to marry. When Augustus delivered his tirades to the Roman knights about the sanctity and necessity of marriage it wasn't just because the equestrians were to busy to be bothered with a wife and child. There was a sizable portion of the Roman nobility that fulfilled their sexual needs with other men and saw no reason to have a wife. And Nero did after all marry his delicia. If I'm not mistaken when he finally got around to killing the poor boy, he married another man and the emperor played the female part in round 2. He was laughed out of Rome for it, but he did it nevertheless.

"There is no new thing under the sun."

I think it's unfair to expect gay people to prove that they can do marriage better than straight people in order to be worthy of it.

I think all can agree the legal institution of marriage is not perfect and there are people who abuse it. Regardless it does facilitate the raising of children and it makes life in general easier for those who are interested in making the commitment. Do straight married people not want to admit how much they like having some of those legal perks? Or do they just not realize what all those perks are because they're never challenged?

If the straight people who maintain that they, of course, are married for all the "right" reasons had the option of getting married in a church, but not in the legal sense, would they? Would anyone actually do that? Of course not. Because you get some nice benefits from legal marriage that the church can't give you.

If gay people had the legal advantages of marriage available to them, which facilitates the raising of children, more gay people would be inclined to have children and create the 2-parent/child(ren) households that are the so-called bedrock of society. Can't get around the biology of it, but piling legal obstacles on top of that simply makes it too hard for many gay couples to have children. Mark, you want gay couples to prove to you that their marriage adds value to your quaint definition of society, but many don't even get the chance to.

Is two parents of the same sex really worse than a single-parent household?

I would never ban anyone from my site for simply disagreeing with me. I only ban people for personal insults.

But I must say: I do not believe that the legal concept of marriage involves anyone being a "gatekeeper" for their personal relationships. You can do whatever you want in your relationships. Marriage, to me, is more than that. It involves encouraging people to certain behaviors that society deems acceptable.

Fine, I'm not a liberal thinker. I think people should be encouraged--not forced, encouraged--to act certain ways. But I don't see why that means I'm imposing my will on anyone.

Yes, I agree that we should make it easier for people with gay partners to emigrate, to share property, etc. I agree!

cub4bear,

You missed my point - and its a pity, because it would, I think, point you in whole new intellectual directions. This doesn't come along often in a person's life, so pay attention:

Durant once wrote that words to the effect that civilization is the flea atop the back of the elephant of peasants - meaning, of course, that what we call civilization (all that art, music, etc) is essentially a luxury and, furthermore, a luxury made possible mostly be people who don't get to participate in the heights of civilization.

We don't, of course, have peasants per se anymore - but we do have the common man and woman: these are the elephant. You're avant garde life elements are made possible by them - and only by them and thus you owe your all to them. Were it not for their dilligence, you'd be living in a world very much more uncivilized and harsh than our world of today - and I don't think I need explain how Ghengis Khan would view homosexual proclivities.

Mark,

Condescenion makes me tingly all over.

So I should be thankful to boring people because if they didn't do all the hard work of having kids, I couldn't have the luxury of being different?

Well, I'll certainly grant you that boring people are necessary.

Keep in mind, though, none of the things that we take for granted would exist if it weren't for the people who came before us who dared to think differently and challenge the system. If not for them, we'd still be living in mud huts in Europe, dying from the plague, tending farms and listening to a guy in a funny hat telling us that the Sun circles the earth.

cub4bear,

Yeah, it was the guy in the lavender cassock who figured it all out and got us out of the mud....

Talk about condescension - most of the work of development was also done by boring people. Oscar Wilde tossed off a few rather dull plays - Thomas Edison actually did useful things (though, the way that gay people try to claim every achiever as gay in their revisionist history does speak a few volumes here).

Mark,

I neither stated nor implied that every achiever is gay, or even that any "achiever" is or was gay.

Homosexuals, like Jews, constitute an estimated 1%-3% of the total population, yet the achievements of both minorities have been, historically, far out of proportion to their numbers. And it is precisely for this that they have been hated. They are hated not for their "sins" but for their achievements, not for their vices but for their virtues. The motive in both cases is: hatred of the good for being the good. There really _are_ elites, superior minorities, and history, especially the history of the 20th century is rife with demogogues who sought to bring about "equality" by arousing envy in the masses, to destroy the elites, and flatten everyone down to the same base level. We have seen the results: Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot. We saw a most horrifying example of this envy on September 11, 2001. It can happen again. It _can_ happen here:
http://www.hatecrime.org/subpages/hatespeech/hitler.html