“Marriage”, as a concept, was first a mechanism for creating political alliances between powerful families. It’s really only since about the Renaissance that anyone (statistically speaking) outside of the nobility “married” in the sense that’s meant in this discussion (i.e. as a civilly and/or religiously ceremoniously recognized joining).

If you want to talk about “pair bonding” as a biological phenomenon, fine. That has existed for millions of years, possibly billions. Certainly longer than law (or religion) has existed. It also happens quite frequently in nature between same-sex pairs.

“Marriage” is a relatively recent invention, evolutionarily speaking. Doves mate for life, but surely you wouldn’t call them “married”, would you?

In any event, I agree: marriage shouldn’t be recognized by the state. Only civil unions should be. And there’s no valid reason at all to argue that same sex couples shouldn’t be allowed to enter into those.

I’d also point out that lesbians that conceive children through in-vitro fertilization do so “naturally”. Unless you want to argue that they do it supernaturally. Perhaps the stork delivers them.

“Non genetic behavior does not constitute a protected class, nor is does convey special “rights” over individual rights.”

This definition “protected class” is new to me. I’ll accept that it’s your definition. It doesn’t match mine. I’d say a “protected class” is any identifiable group of individuals which are singled out for legal protection.

Beyond minors, I’m not sure I can identify any group that should be protected by law over and above all other individual citizens. I find all current “protected class” laws to either be redundant to Amendment 14, or abuses conferring special privileges to groups who have lobbied for them.

So, in the matter of same-sex unions, I would functionally agree that there should be no special governmental recognition. However, I would also apply this to heterosexual unions.

With my current understanding, I would not support governmental involvement in any marriage with the exception of honoring boilerplate contracts where individuals want to establish standard financial and legal connections with each other (civil unions). These would simply be standardized legal contracts voluntarily entered into by any individual citizen to allow for emergency support, responsibility for minors, inheritance, etc.

Certainly, men and women have been mating for as long as there have been men and women. And that mating has produced progeny, to which we all owe our existence. But are mating and marriage the same thing?

I maintain that “traditional” marriages are best performed and honored by whatever non-governmental groups the participating individuals voluntarily subscribe to, religious or not.

However, because the institution of marriage wasn’t *created* by state (or Federal)law, the states cannot subsequently use law to arbitrarily redefine the institution’s foundation (one man/one women/incentive to naturally reproduce and raise productive — and reproductive — offspring) into something completely different in order to include a special interest group’s unique *behavior* (same sex attraction)that *nullifies* and destroys the very intent of the institution it seeks to “redefine.”

And don’t classic liberals agree that the US govt has no business CREATING A NEW CIVIL COUPLING instituition for one special interest group that by constitutional definition would have to be inclusive of ALL special interest groups?

Marriage (one man/one woman) was recognized as a institution with significant benefits to the country by the founding fathers and laws governing the application of the institution to US citizens were subsequently enacted. So far the states still unanimously support it.

Marriage is not a creation of the law. Marriage is a fundamental human institution that predates the law and the Constitution. At its heart, it is an anthropological and sociological reality, not a legal one. Laws relating to marriage merely recognize and regulate an institution that already exists. Those specific laws vary state to state. CA for instance specifically states – even BEFORE PROP 8 – that marriage was between a man and a woman.

“Marriage” has a “traditional” meaning in our culture. Usually when we speak about marriage, everyone “understands” we are talking about a special type of relationship or contract that exists between two people of the opposite sex. The term “marriage” can be considered to have a “lexical” definition, one based on established usage, since all dictionaries of the English language (at least, at the moment) define a marriage as between a man and a woman. Usually, but not always, a legal definition of a term will rest on a lexical definition which rests on established usage.

Canadian scholar Paul Nathanson (who is gay) has said, “Because heterosexuality is directly related to both reproduction and survival, … every human societ[y] has had to promote it actively . … Heterosexuality is always fostered by a cultural norm” that limits marriage to unions of men and women. He adds that people “are wrong in assuming that any society can do without it.”
Society’s interest in marriages that do not produce children is less than its interest in marriages that result in the reproduction of the species. However, we still recognize childless marriages because it would be an invasion of a heterosexual couple’s privacy to require that they prove their intent or ability to bear children. On the other hand, same-sex couples, which are of a structural type (two men or two women) that is incapable—ever, under any circumstances, regardless of age, health, or intent—of producing babies naturally. In fact, they are incapable of even engaging in the type of sexual act that results in natural reproduction. And it takes no invasion of privacy or drawing of arbitrary upper age boundaries to determine that.

There is ABSOLUTELY no scientific proof that same sex attraction is genetic. In fact P-FLAG, in its promotional pamphlet describes “gay” as a “human behavior:” Dr. Clinton Anderson of the American Psychological Association in “Why Ask Why? Addressing the Research on Homosexuality and Biology,”: “To date, no researcher has claimed that genes can determine sexual orientation. At best, researchers believe that there may be a genetic component. No human behavior, let alone sexual behavior, has been connected to genetic markers to date…sexuality, like every other behavior, is undoubtedly influenced by both biological and societal factors.”

Dr Simon LeVay, researcher and gay activist on his oft-misquoted “famous” study:
It’s important to stress what I didn’t find. I did not prove that homosexuality is genetic, or find a genetic cause for being gay. I didn’t show that gay men are born that way, the most common mistake people make in interpreting my work. Nor did I locate a gay center in the brain.” .
But isn’t mriage just a way of recognizing people who love each other and want to spend their lives together?
If love and companionship were sufficient to define marriage, then there would be no reason to deny “marriage” to unions of a child and an adult, or an adult child and his or her aging parent, or to roommates who have no sexual relationship, or to groups rather than couples. Love and companionship are usually considered integral to marriage in our culture, but they are not sufficient to define it as an institution.

Race is genetic and racial discrimination is protected; “gay” IS A BEHAVIOR –JUST ASK PFLAG.
Non genetic behavior does not constitute a protected class, nor is does convey special “rights” over individual rights.

A civil union that brought all the same *civil* benefits as marriage without any of the religious connotations should not only satisfy but delight you, no?

Marriage is, as you say, hybrid. You view that as a problem, and your solution is to hack off the civil half of marriage, under the assumption that everyone interested in a civil marriage will be equally satisfied with a civil union.

What is the basis for that assumption?

The Federal Government should therefore stop recognizing marriage for anyone. If we accept that marriage is an entirely religious office, we have to accept that the Constitution in fact *prohibits* making it a requirement for any civil emolument (“no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States”).

Of course, I have no objection, personally or Constitutionally, if the Federal government wants to create an entirely *civil* institution (say, let’s call them civil unions) that provides certain Federal privileges to any couple that wants to maintain a household. Both heterosexual and homosexual couples would have to be free to create such an arrangement, of course, as all people have equal rights.

Marriage shouldn’t have anything to do with it.

Please show me how marriage has never changed in society. Let me ask a question — is a cousin marriage a marriage? Why is it that in some states you cannot marry your cousin or relative at all, other states you can marry your second cousin but not first, and others it’s OK to marry your first cousin? Is that not self proving difference in your definition of marriage? But wait, what happens if you marry a first cousin in a state which it is legal and move to a state that it is NOT legal — is your marriage null and void? What happens should you die intestate? Does all of your belongings cede to the state? Or is there this thing about “full faith and credit”? You say you didn’t make the definition of marriage — well, who did? And if full faith and credit applies to cousin marriages, how do you justify not gay marriages?

Now, you also state: “Blacks (a race — a class of people)….” Do you know that, anthropologically and biologically speaking there is no such thing as race? Do you know that race is a social construct that has changed and evolved with understanding and that what we call race actually is not race at all in the biological sense? Do you know that fewer than 10 genes govern the entire spectrum of how you separate race of one person from another and that ALL of those 10 gene variations are present in ALL the defined “races”?

Now, what I really hear you stating is that you think gays are yucky — we offend your sense of King James biblical correctness — and you have no problem with laws that discriminate and prevent my family (my husband and our two children) from enjoying the same privileges as you do as a citizen of this country.

Are you aware that I pay more in taxes in my family than the equivalent straight family but get less back from those tax payments? For example, should I die, my family would lose out over $200,000 in social security survivor benefits that the equivalent straight family would not. Are you aware that for one person in my family to stay at home to take care of the kids and be there for them after school and not have them in daycare that I have to purchase an additional health insurance policy that has a high deductible OR if I was in a state where I might be able to get co-coverage from my own group plan that I have to pay INCOME TAXES on what the company portion of the plan is?

Humbly, BroughtUpLiberal, your definition of marriage is inconsistent with reality. It is self contradicting with your own bible’s history. I don’t even have to go back 30 years in American history to see it evolving and changing. Your definition cannot be found — it never existed — because as soon as you state your definition I find fully qualified exemptions to your definition at any time period you wish to choose and in any culture you wish to pontificate about.

For what reason would homosexuals not constitute a “class” of people? One can be born homosexual just as one can be born black (check the science if you disagree – it’s conclusively not a “lifestyle choice”), so I’m not sure on what basis you’re making the distinction.

Granted, advocates of same-sex rights who are not themselves homosexual would not constitute a class, but neither would the white advocates of civil rights in the historical, racial civil rights battles you reference. It seems you’re avoiding comparing apples to apples in order to confuse the issue.

Also, it seems to me that you are begging the question: by assuming that “the union of one man with one woman” is the only true definition of marriage (and marriage rights), in order to prove this same notion. If you start from the definition of marriage as “the union of one person with his or her chosen partner”, the distinction you’re relying on disappears, and the argument collapses. In that instance, homosexuals ARE given different rights – they are not able to marry their chosen partner in certain jurisdictions.

In order to make your argument hold – that homosexuals are not being denied their civil rights – you need to first prove that this is the ONLY true definition of marriage. Your reference to reproductive ability was a nice try, but note that this would also exclude infertile straight couples from marrying.

Of course, this is just my perspective from here in Canada, where same-sex marriages are legal and the sky mysteriously has yet to fall.

People with same sex attraction have the exact same civil rights to marriage as do *all* citizens.

This is demonstrably false. If a member of a gay couple is seriously injured and hospitalized, under the law his lover does not by default take over making decisions concerning his medical care.

You may claim that that the state need not recognize that a long term lover is anything more than a friend. If so, I would love to hear you assert that common law marriage which is nothing more than what you get when a man and woman shack up for a long time is any different from when a man and another man shacks up.

If the law permits a man to make medical decisions for his common law wife, while denying another man the power to make such decisions for his lover of many years, then the law is being an ass.

The problem, again, is that the state uses marriage to define family units and then allows members of family units certain benefits denied to ones who are not members of family units.

And, incidentally, brought up liberal, according to your rubric, a sterile man or woman should not be permitted to enjoy the benefits of marriage, since they are incapable of reproducing naturally. So, if I agitated for a law that denied the legitimacy of marriages where on member of the breeding pair was sterile, would you be on the barricades with me?

Personally, I don’t care. If you want to declare yourself, a woman, her sister and some guy you met on the internet last week to be a family, I wouldn’t gainsay it. It’s none of my business.

The activists advocating for “same sex marriage” represent a *special interest group*, not a “CLASS” of people.

Blacks (a race — a class of people) WERE denied their civil rights. There are *many* activists who were active in the civil rights movement who oppose this current movement to redefine the institution of marriage to accommodate the goals of a special interest group. There is no comparison between civil rights and special interest group demands for the redefinition of an institution they want to claim AS THEIR OWN. It is not theirs (or mine) to claim unless they choose to marry a member of the opposite sex.

The more the radical LGBT community activists disrespectfully keep trying to annex “civil rights” as the battlecry by which to achieve their special interest goals, the more will be the activism against them. The institution of marriage, defined as between a man and a woman, is significantly more important to the well being and future of the country (the world, actually) than the special interest demand for it’s demise.

I didn’t make the definition of the institution of marriage up (see Doug’s original post above.)At it’s core is the protection of the naturally reproducing family unit. When same sex couples can be both monogamous AND REPRODUCE NATURALLY (emphasis on NATURALLY), then they’ll be in a position to legitimately challenge a redefinition of the institution.

Laws forbidding certain social arrangements tend to come into force when the opponents of such social arrangments are
a) politically dominant
b) getting less dominant with each passing year

When whites nearly universally though of blacks as subhuman, there were few if any laws we would label as Jim Crow laws. The racists instituted Jim Crow only when it became clear that blacks were becoming propserous after emancipation – especially with the rise of a proto-middle class.

In 50 years, nobody is going to care outside a few fringe nut-jobs. And humanity will still be around, that is unless the Coming of the Great White Handkerchief occurs first.

Therefore, any statement that marriage is only between a man & a woman is simply factually incorrect. You may not agree with them, but exist and are legally recognized by those 6 states. Deal with it.

If opposition to marriage equality for homosexuals is supposedly growing every day, then why have 3 more states (ME, VT, NH) introduced marriage equality legislation just this year? Seems to me you know that in spite of winning 1 battle in California, you realize you’re losing the overall war.