[Ohioan]

You need to start by understanding what the State's role in marriage is. It is not, in our free society, to dictate choices; but it is to protect the sacredness of personal commitments--the marriage contract--which grow out of the fundamental natural procreative drives of any people. Marriage is simply a solemnification of mating--a human elevation of what every species of sexual being does to continue from generation to generation. It has no common function, outside of that natural function--nothing that requires any protective involvement outside of that function.

Society did not get involved in protecting marriage because married people decorated their own homes, or settled in a particular community, or attended a particular church, or engaged in a particular form of foreplay, etc., etc.. The Societal involvement--the societal recognition of marriage--from first to last, relates to the mating concept; relates to the perception that it is important to enforce contractual rights in a situation, where the well being of the next generation is involved. The Societal involvement is basically a collective desire to protect the reproducing family.

The very notion of "same sex marriage" is an oxymoron. While you can call anything, anything, that does not an argument make. You could call a man purchasing a car, a "marriage," but that would not make such a "marriage" in any sense equivalent to what rational people, using language in a rational manner, mean by the term "marriage."

When you debate with others, always go back to the original premises of the subject. Always ground your argument on what is undeniable--what is real and true and basic.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

[NutCrackerBoy]

It is important to enforce contractual rights in a situation, where the well being of the next generation is involved.

Well done.