know what’s tiresome? People who have the right to marry the person of their choice who unequivocally want to deny that right, which they insist on for themselves, to others.

So whats wrong with that statement?

In truth, no one gets to marry anyone they choose. Its the adolescent view of "I can do anything I want" with the same fallacy behind it.

First, marriage commiting to loving and supporting as the other parent of your future kids. Its a commitment founded in our biology of how we have kids, for the sake of the kids and each parent.

I don't think it is less than obvious how that impacts our choice of who we marry.

Even with that understanding (which is basic) most of the world is off limits at any given time. Either they are too young, already married, not interested in you, related, be someone who you might be able to have kids with at all...

etc...

But if the world doesn't revolve around you, (and you feel to cry out that its not fair, its not equal) Sorry, but in that way the world is fair to all of us. The world doesn't always work the way we chose it too.

Awesome! We have a set of rules and regulations, called marriage, that accomplish this.

But then what institution will look after the equal recognition of rights and entitlements of everyone involved in creating a child (man + woman)?

You don't have any use for it, it shouldn't exist?

Yes, it should exist. That is how we tolerate and care for others that are not like us. We appreciate their uniqueness and allow value to be placed on what they have that we don't.

That is where true peace, both inner peace and global peace, comes from. But flattening any difference, or anything you don't have a use for, is simply mean spirited to the others.

. I AM thinking about how others are treated:

Great! Then you'll let marriage be marriage and let homosexuality be homosexuality?

But they’re raising kids, and those darn kids deserve the best shot at having the two adults raising them stay together.

See, even when you try to consider what is best for the kids you can't help but pander your select group.

If someone really loved the kids they created, they'd love honor and support the person they created them with.

If they really loved the kids they wanted to raise, they'd make sure the house had equal gender representation.

Not bigoted discrimination against another gender. That's no model of equality to teach the next generation.

But alas, they love themselves more. And as such, I suppose we should do the best we can for the kids inspite of the "me, me, me" parenthood. As if children are resiliant, and the adults are the victims to be pandered to.\

Its not that they don't love and care for the kids, and that should be recognized. But its the difference between loving and caring for them, and doing whatever you can do to provide what is best for them.

One involves having them sacrifice their opportunity for your convenience. The latter invovles sacrificing your opporutnity to facilitate their best interests.

And those are entirely seperate altruisms, the latter being one that should defninately be recognized with its own institution.

stefanie and jeffrey are the future because they, like the new generation of Americans are starting to see the world as gray.

Sounds like a cloudy day to me. Perhaps they need to get out from under the clouds and look around more.

Because there are many home situations which need help and support. The equality they profess is undermined each time they only say "homosexual" or some variant. Its undermined every time they say "same-sex" but really just mean homosexuals.

If they are young then they have hope yet to get out in the sunshine and see things in a whole new and more clear light.

and your black and white world breaks apart a little

There we go, Perry, the Rush Limbaugh of neutering marriage.

Speaking of black and white, the all-black and all-white schools are another example of how seperate is not equal. Along side an all-male and all-female marriage.

I mean, if they really wanted to get married they would. Whats stopping them? The expectation of equal gender participaiton ranks against their bigotry against the other gender?

Well that and many more problems, I'm sure.

Jeffrey, that was not an ageist remark and I merely remarked about the similiarities between you and stefanie’s way of thinking with the mentality of the younger generation of America.

Did Perry really just say Jeffrey thinks like a teenager still?

I'd have to agree with that, except many teenagers have a better grasp on realith than to say some of the singers Jeffrey has.

My favorite whack-a-mole from Jeffrey is the whole making same-sex marriage "illegal" as if people will be thrown in jail if they have a ceremony and live their lives together. Every time I point out how inane that statement is he leaves it lie, to pop it up fresh 1-12 comments later.

My other favorite from Jeffrey is how every so many comments, he relates same-sex marriage to divorce and adultery as if he wants it to be as well accepted as those maladies.

Well, his wish is granted, and the comparison (his not my own) is duly noted.

You really wish, Perry, that more people thought like that?

I wish they had better reasoning skills, if you ask me.

Still though, isn't there a valid argument to be made that opposite-sex marriages deserve to be recognized, celebrated and rewarded on their own merit, specifically AS and for their unique, opposite-sex struggles?

I realize people often point out that we don't separate inter-racial marriages, childless marriages, etc. from others. It's all under the same umbrella.

But sexual attraction is the very thing that usually brings people together into a marriage. It's the core, "defining" dynamic that creates a marriage in many ways.

It's true that both same-sex and opposite-sex partners commit to one another, but one relationship binds identical sexual contexts into a parallel partnership, while the other binds polarities into a complementary whole.

It's not that I want to see gays prevented from "marriage." I just wish there was a way to preserve the specialness of the male/female union too.

I'm going to my nephew's first birthday party tomorrow. A very special birthday! But we're also going to be celebrating another nephew's birthday at the same party.. Even though his birthday is weeks away, they thought it'd be more convenient to just do both in one party, on one day. But don't they both deserve their own parties?

I dunno, I'm just asking. I keep going around and around with this issue, and never seem to find a solution that seems fair to everyone.

I agree with your sentiments but I have a bit of resentment that you think it's only the young who have the ability to play fair with marriage: I'm over 50.

No one's screaming. I AM thinking about how others are treated: I am a heterosexual male who believes there is no rational reason why the lesbian couples down the street, with two sons, by the way, should not solidify their relationship through marriage. I don't even know if they are particularly interested in getting married, to be honest. But they're raising kids, and those darn kids deserve the best shot at having the two adults raising them stay together.

Awesome! We have a set of rules and regulations, called marriage, that accomplish this.

You know what's tiresome? People who have the right to marry the person of their choice who unequivocally want to deny that right, which they insist on for themselves, to others. These people come up with the most inane arguments for why they should be allowed to do something, but others can't. And they're willing to hurt children in order to get their way. It's beyond comprehension but I know change can be hard for some people. Terrifying, evidently.

Jeffrey and Stephanie are giving us prime examples of the future of not only marriage, but legal understanding.

We can see that they will throw anything and everything that has humanitarian value under the oh-so-noble "Gay pride" bus.

I'm not against supporting gay relationships through government recognition. But I don't think I'm the only one getting tired of the "if your logic doesn't work for me I'm going to find another group of people to punish with it". I'm also noting how everything has to be gay focused, or nothing can have any focus at all.

If only they though more about how they should treat others, rather than screaming about how people should treat themselves.

They’re suggesting that we remove the gender requirement altogether, making it “gender blind.”

Correction, the requirement for equal gender participation.

If only Governor Wallace were as smart as you, perhaps he could have simply stated his all-white and all-black schools were "race neutral" because they didn't require them to be integrated.

Good going Stephanie, you and Gov. Wallace would be good friends. Segregationists of the same feather.

Jeffrey,

Should we force mixed marriages, so that races get included?

Laughable!

Marriage equality includes both genders in the same marriage.

Good luck including all races in the same marriage

Oh, and I'll also note that forced mixed marriages has been a historic way of committing cultural genocide.

Or how can you include all religions?

I'm beginning to see a pattern here. People gullible and ignorant enough to speak as Jeffrey and Stephanie, are the very models of the kind of thinking required to neuter marriage.

Well, what about race inclusion? Should we force mixed marriages, so that races get included? How about religions? Or is your "gender inclusion" proposition unique to gender for some reason? Let me guess!

How so?

No one is suggesting that we create a separate institutions for same-sex and opposite-sex marriages. They're suggesting that we remove the gender requirement altogether, making it "gender blind."

You can't have it both ways. Half the time we hear about "neutering" marriage, implying that gender will no longer matter. The other half we hear how SSM is somehow bigoted towards excluding a gender... or something like that, I can't wrap my head around that point.