That alone is enough reason to discard as just plain silly the argument that banning same-sex “marriage” is analogous to banning interracial marriage.
Now, inevitably, someone will pop up and announce that not every heterosexual coupling produces offspring. That older people sometimes marry who are too old to produce offspring, or people are infertile or sterile, or just choose not to have children. That's true, but there's more to marriage than that.
This comes as a shock to libertarians who think society doesn't exist, but marriage is a societal institution. It isn't something designed to make people feel good as individuals, or to heighten some ego-driven freak's desire to “exercise his personal autonomy in a way that maximizes his sexual gratification”, or whatever. Marriage is a way for society to celebrate and honor the obvious fact (obvious to anyone other than the four blithering idiots who composed the judicial majority on the California Supreme Court) that men and women are opposite sexes who form a whole (who become one) when joined in a loving relationship. This is most obvious in the ability to produce children and to raise them in a manner that doesn't contradict nature, but it's not limited to that.
Even if a particular marriage never produces children, it's still a societal celebration of the natural bonding of the sexes, and serves as a model for men to put aside their natural promiscuousness and often misdirected behavior in behalf of settling down with a member of the other, different half of humanity. To devote his greater physical strength and aggressiveness to her protection, since she is the bearer of all future members of the species, or at least is representative of that vitally important role in the life instinct of society.
The fact that there's a small percentage of the population that is screwed up and wants to play boy-girl with another person of the same sex is nothing but a deviancy. It's deserving of no respect whatsoever. This is why it took the Western world so long to degenerate to this point. Even standard liberalism was never sick enough to treat these filthy and degenerate “relationships” as anything worthy of respect, let alone elevation to equality with normal relationships. We had to sink to the level we're at now, which is pretty damn low, to even contemplate this. And still yet we haven't plumbed depths of depravity so low that this is accepted by the mainstream public. That's why the homosexual lobby is using the courts to force their agenda down our throats, brazenly using raw, unaccountable government power to forcibly alter a multi-thousand year old cherished societal institution. Does that sound like the behavior of government in a healthy and free society of self-governing people?
The fallout from this will be enormous, and will seriously restrict our traditional liberties. Otherwise, the modern totalitarian variety of liberals wouldn't be so enthusiastically pushing for same-sex “marriage”. Does anyone seriously believe that the leftists at MoveOn, Daily Kos, etc. are for same-sex “marriage” because they support freedom? Hell no. They support it because it degrades our civilization and will be used to justify massive expansions of government power, which will undermine traditional liberties such as religious freedom, freedom of speech, and property rights.
Once nonsense like this becomes law, we're told that the “right” to same-sex “marriage” is so important that all other rights must bow before it. This is especially important since it isn't actually spelled out in the constitution. To justify the judicial activism which created this new “right”, the left has to assert that it's such an important right that it didn't even have to be spelled out. Thus, it's more important than mere freedom of speech or other rights actually mentioned in our federal and state constitutions and in our founding documents.
So when the inevitable clashes come, when John's right to same-sex “marriage” conflicts with Jim's property rights, guess who will win? What will happen when restaurant owner Jim refuses to provide Valentine's Day discounts for same-sex couples? Well, he'll be fined. But what about his property rights? Ah, but those aren't as important as the right to same-sex “marriage”. Those are mere enumerated rights, not nearly as important as the unenumerated variety.
But what if Jim is a Christian and considers homosexuality a sin? Well, too bad Jim. Religious freedom is an enumerated right actually discussed by the Founding Fathers. Same-sex “marriage” is a freedom so overwhelming that the founders didn't even visualize its glorious heights.
But what if Jim speaks out and says he doesn't approve of same-sex “marriages” since they're immoral and unnatural. Well, Jim, I hope you have a few thousand dollars handy to pay the fine for violating the hate speech code. Oh, and by the way, Jim, the new textbooks that will be forced on your kids next term by the state describe you and your church as bigoted and will give your kids all the encouragement they need to experiment with the glorious, progressive “gay” lifestyle. At the very least they'll be programmed to sit down, shut up, and follow orders.
Anyone who doesn't see this coming is blind. Much of it is already here.
Once again, you are making the wrong argument, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
These are arguments that should be made, that have been made, to a legislative body. In California, these arguments convinced the legislative body known as the People, and they passed a law against allowing two people of the same sex to pretend to be married.
The California Supreme Court is not equipped to sift facts and arguments, integrate them with public opinion, and then to pass laws. That's not their job, and in fact the California Constitution specifically forbids them from doing so.
Therefore, the burning issue of the moment is not the compatibility of various body parts, nor the continuation of the species.
The issue at hand is the usurpation of the right of the People to legislate on matters that are within their competence. The prerogative claimed by the California Supreme Court, and by the SJC in Massachusetts before it, is the power to bind us, in all cases whatsoever, which leads back to Paine:
"Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but "to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER," and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth."
Very, very well written analysis of the situation, puroresu! Bravo!