GAY MARRIAGE Conservatives should insist on same-sex vows (Barf Alert

Doing so would strengthen marriage as an institution and the culture of fidelity.

Anybody who has several sexual partners in a year is committing spiritual suicide. He or she is ripping the veil from all that is private and delicate in oneself and pulverizing it in an assembly line of selfish sensations.

But marriage is the opposite. Marriage joins two people in a sacred bond. It demands that they make an exclusive commitment to one another, and thereby takes two discrete individuals and turns them into kin.

Few of us work as hard at it as we should, but marriage makes us better than we deserve to be. Even in the chores of daily life, married couples find themselves, over the years, coming closer together, fusing into one flesh. Married people who remain committed to each other find that they reorganize and deepen each other's lives. They may eventually come to the point when they can say to each other: "Love you? I am you."

Re:
"...I don't care what consenting adults do with or to each other as long as I am not effected.

What I do care about is expansion of minority status because that effects all of us...."

The term "marriage" should not mean anything other than the life-long bonding
of two people. If that alone isn't moral enough for you... well.. Perhaps just
being happy with a man and woman marriage will suffice. Regardless of their
character, sexual impulses, moral fortitude, honesty, etc.

Just as long as it's a guy and a girl, right? </sarcasm>

I disagree that taxpayers must pay for protection of anything other than inalienable human rights. Otherwise, the State does, indeed have the right to interfer - with its virtual and real guns and prisons - into the most private of actions in order to make sure that its laws are followed. If no one's right to life, liberty or property is being infringed, the State can't legitimately use tax money. Bastiat, Jefferson, Locke, and the Declaration of Independence echo that the only legitimate function of government is to protect rights.

State regulation does not make something a right: for example, the practice of medicine, law and nursing, the ability to drive on public streets, the ability to purchase alcohol and tobacco are regulated and certain pre-requisites are in place.

If a group of people wish for a non-right to be allowed them as a privilege, they should convince a majority of the voters to allow them that privilege. If they can get the majority to vote them a tax benefit, then more power to them. But there is no right to that tax money.

The problem with the current movement to same sex marriage is, as someone has pointed out, that it is a re-definition of marriage, and one that is using UnConstitutional court decisions on a Federal level rather than votes of the majority within a State.

You dismiss the notion that polygamy and incest are just as legitimate as same sex marriages. On what basis?

Removing the sexual restrictions of the marriage licensing system, removes any "minority status" that is presently imposed and will continue to be imposed if calling the union of two individuals takes any other form than the wording: Marriage.
The term "marriage" should not mean anything other than the life-long bonding of two people. If that alone isn't moral enough for you... well.. Perhaps just being happy with a man and woman marriage will suffice. Regardless of their character, sexual impulses, moral fortitude, honesty, etc.

Just as long as it's a guy and a girl, right?

Definitions are important. Changing them to suit a narrow interest, while conveniant, then renders the definition meaningless.

The term "marriage" should not mean anything other than the life-long bonding of two people.

But it does not.

I have pointed out that there are alternatives available to same sex partners to take care of their legal concerns.

I have pointed out that claiming status based on behavior should be verified.

My opinion is that the ultimate goal is to have homosexuals, a group based on behavior, classified as a minority with federal protection.

My posts do not rely on changing definitions

And right now the definition is that marriage is between people of the opposite sex.

And homosexuals are not a protected minority

Re:
"..You dismiss the notion that polygamy and incest are just as
legitimate as same sex marriages. On what basis?...."

You're kidding, right?

The topic is the inability of two people to obtain a legal marriage
certificate because they are not of opposite sex. The topic is not
about three or more individuals wishing to group-grope legally, or
close family members wishing to cavort among themselves with
legal benefits for doing so. Nor is it about man and sheep, woman
and donkeys or you and the FR religious right.

[sorry for that outburst]

It's ridiculous to compare a one-on-one loving relationship between
two individuals that wish to commit themselves to each other for life,
to anything otherwise. Those that make such a bond for life deserve
the same respect and benefits for making such a commitment both
legally and morally, as anyone else. There should be no sexual qualifier
any more than there should be a requirement to have a child.

If the State licenses it, it can not discriminate prejudicially.

Argue it all you desire, the courts have said exactly what I have
and they will continue to do so, right up to our Supreme Court.

What's right; is right.

If you or the FR far right are so afraid that a couple of gays getting
married is going to undermine your own marriage, then you have
a lot more to worry about than exterior forces causing your marital
dismay.

UGH.

No, you're artificially limiting the topic and/or missing the point - on what basis do you deny the benefits to the institution of marriage and the legal protection and name of marriage to "group gropes"?

Or, for that matter, why limit the legal protections that marriage provides to sexual unions, only? "Family" doesn't necessarily mean some members are having sex with each other, for pity's sake.

One of my patients always comes to mind when this subject comes up: A 20-something unmarried college graduate professional woman who was supporting her 60 year old grandmother. Why shouldn't this young woman and her designated family-by-choice (not really - the older woman had diabetes, no skills, and no other family members would step up) receive the same "family" insurance benefits, tax breaks, and whatever legal protections there might be in marriage?

Your refusal to answer my own and other poster's demonstrably legitimate "slippery slope" questions leaves only one logical conclusion. You don't want to limit the definition of marriage to anything other than what you want. A typical postion of the self-annointed, after all, how could you and a handful like-minded agenda driven jurists be wrong when all we bigoted rabble have to stand on is the entirety of the political, social and cultural history of western civilization?

The proposition that marriage should be a religious institution with no government involvement is a principled one but, aside from the fact that there are legitimate interests in marriage from those who are not religious, it is really irrelevant to the public ploicy debate of revising the definition of marriage.

Marriage is inextricably wound into the fabric and laws of this country, both state and federal, and is not going away. So, while I understand your position and might even have sympathy with it, it doesn't obtain.

The question before us is whether or not the definition of marriage should be expanded and if it is expanded, why should it be limited to a small subgroup of Americana.

From what I understand about the rule of law, we're faced with 2 choices. Either we convince the proponents of same sex marriage to leave things alone or we accomodate civil unions with legal associations and benefits similar to those afforded married couples but for couples - and groups of people - other than one man and one woman.
Frankly, I don't see either one being achieved easily. I wish that the pro-marriage factions would preempt the issue and create family corporations or communal associations under civil law --- and take marriage back to the church.

One way I make decisions about which laws I like and which I don't is to consider whether I am willing for that law to be enforced at the point of a gun (and whether I am willing to risk my own, a policeman's or soldier's life or liberty to enforce it).

Beyond the symbolism, and social connotations, marriage is the wrapping paper over a box of rights and duties that attend it per civil law. I wish there were more discussion about that, as it pertains to gay marriage, polygamy, and the like, and less on a priori assertions, which while valid to the individual, and not to be trivialized, tend to shut off constructive debate about these other important aspects of the issue.

In that regard, I think the case for gay marriage is decisively in its favor, and as to polygamy, decisively against. With respect to polygamy, the loss of rights to the older wife, and attenuation of the man's duties vis a vis her, when the man brings in a younger model, are simply unacceptable. It also creates a pressure cooker atmosphere for women in a polygamous community to marry while mere children, and be kept ignorant, barefoot and in the kitchen. That is why polygamy will not be legalized for the foreseeable future. It simply is infra dig to those who are decisive in fashioning the laws, in particular the elite legal community.

None of the above however pertains to gay marriage. It creates financial incentives to maintain stable relationships, and that is all to the good.

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