You made the assertion, not I. Back it up, if you can. It is okay if you can't.

You made the assertion, not I. Back it up, if you can.

In your view, the nonsexual basis is ... ?

@ Son of Adam

"And for all your "statistics" about gay sex, you ARE aware that legal marriage is a good way to CUT the rate of STDs, right?"

And yet, it doesn't. The number of AIDS cases have risen dramatically since SS"M" was imposed by the courts

I have said many times before, gay marriage has not caused an increase in HIV/AIDS in Massachusetts. As the CDC explained,

This increase was expected, due to the fact that antiretroviral treatment has greatly extended the life spans of people with HIV, and because more people become infected with HIV than die from the disease each year.

As this website points out, the figure you should be citing is the number of men contracting HIV from having sex with other men. However, as the Massachusetts Department of Public Health Office of HIV/AIDS reports, in 2010 the number of men contracting HIV from gay sex each year decreased by 40% since 2004. So it appears the advent of gay marriage in Massachusetts has negative correlation (but again, not causation) to the number of gay men contracting HIV.

This is completely intuitive, as MarkOH pointed out. Government subsidy of a relationship structure that generally involves monogamy is a good way to prevent the spread of HIV, which occurs from promiscuity.

Your assertion is an empty statement. Provide the content.

By the way, the basis for marriage is a two-sexed sexual basis. It is not a nonsexual basis.

But your assertion is on the record. You claim an equivalence. There is a nonsexual basis for SSM, you said, and it is no different than the nonsexual basis for marriage, you said.

Let's see how such a basis might distinguish the type of relationship you have mind from other types of relationships in the non-marriage category -- and presumably the non-SSM catoegory at the same time.

---

By the by, you have left most of my questions unanswered ... especially the query you brazenly dodged thusfar. Readers can take that as a silent and dumbfounded shrug from you on the most basic task your own rhetoric had given you and all other SSMers. Robert George's book will do more than issue the challenge again. It will deal rigorously with the answers offerred by prominent SSMers more prepared than yourself to defend their certitude.

"And for all your "statistics" about gay sex, you ARE aware that legal marriage is a good way to CUT the rate of STDs, right?"

And yet, it doesn't. The number of AIDS cases have risen dramatically since SS"M" was imposed by the courts

If you are trying to imply that gay marriage in Massachusetts has helped HIV/AIDS become more widespread, you are mistaken.

I have said many times before, gay marriage has not caused an increase in HIV/AIDS in Massachusetts. As the CDC explained,

This increase was expected, due to the fact that antiretroviral treatment has greatly extended the life spans of people with HIV, and because more people become infected with HIV than die from the disease each year.

As this website points out, the figure you should be citing is the number of men contracting HIV from having sex with other men. However, as the Massachusetts Department of Public Health Office of HIV/AIDS reports, in 2010 the number of men contracting HIV from gay sex each year decreased by 40% since 2004. So it appears the advent of gay marriage in Massachusetts has negative correlation (but again, not causation) to the number of gay men contracting HIV.

This is completely intuitive, as MarkOH pointed out. Government subsidy of a relationship structure that generally involves monogamy is a good way to prevent the spread of HIV, which occurs from promiscuity.

"What, if anything, is the nonsexual basis for SSM? "
The same, nonsexual basis as for opposite sex marriage.

Given the answers you provided in your recent comment, there is -- in your conception of SSM -- no sexual basis for the pro-SSM complaint based on sexual attraction, sexual behavior, group identity.

There is no gay criterion for ineligibility under the bride-groom legal requirement. Non-gay menare not eligible to marry each othe, for example. The pro-SSM complaint is based on a different type of relationship rather than some gay criterion for ineligibility to marry.

Meanswhile, as already demonstrated in my earlier remarks, the union of husband wife entails the two-sexed sexual basis ... embedded in the marriage law.

Take consent. Marital status includes mutual consent to the sexual basis for the default that the husband will father the children born to he and his wife during their marriage. This is one of the most vigorously enforced legal presumptions in our legal system And one of the most reliable ... even when challenged on a case-by-case basis in courts. It is part of the coherent whole that hangs together in reasonable requirements and provisions in marriage law. See the two-sexed sexual basis for consummation, annulment, adultery/divorce, monogamy, and so forth.

That sexual basis is foreign to the one-sex-short scenario. Those who'd SSM do not consent to that sexual basis. There is no sexual basis for a default of mutual consent to procreate within the scenario; no sexual basis for a theoretical default of mutual consent to co-equal parental status; and no sexual basis for mutual consent to engage in same-sex sexual behavior. You cocede the the sexual stuff is not key to your concept of SSM in law.

What, if anything, is the nonsexual basis for SSM?

You insist that the lack of a legal requirement that makes this or that mandatory (such as for same sex sexual stuff) must stand decisively against using this or that as the basis for lawmaking on SSM ... and so that applies to its imposition with special status (marital status is a special status) and for limiting eligibility.

Thusfar, you are unable to distinguish the type of relationship you have mind from the rest of the types of relationships and types of living arrangements that populate the non-marriage category. Nor have you been able to state the essential(s) of your favored type such that it merits special status over and above the rest of non-marriage.

Answer your own questions, if you can, without slamming into your own objections.

Is opposite-sex sexual attraction mandatory for those who'd OSM? Nope. Nor opposite-sex sexual behavior. Nor hetero identity. See? you've supported my very views. You are unable to support marriage as only between one man and one woman.

Is same-sex sexual attraction mandatory for those who'd SSM? Nope. Nor same-sex sexual behavior. Nor gay identity.

So why your gay emphasis? Does it bespeak your obsession with sex? Or with identity politics, perhaps? It is your SSM idea -- designed for the type of relationship you have in mind.

Maybe you are uncertain. You backtracked and claimed you have mind a sexual type of same-sex relationship but that is not a legal requirement, by your own account.

You conceded that same-sex sexual behavior is not a requirement for those who'd SSM. According to your own line of argument, that behavior does not define SSSM. Please clarify.

And answer your own questions, if you can, without slamming into your own objections.

That comment strongly suggests that you do not understand that marital status is not a conditional status; and that your authoritarian impulse has obscured, for you, the reasonable limitations on governmental power.

The sexual basis for the marital presumption of paternity is the same sexual basis for consummation, annulment, adultery/divorce, monogamy, and so forth. People who enter marriage, and society via marital status, consent to that sexual basis. It is two-sexed and not one-sexed nor sex-neutral. That is the starting place: this pre-exists the law and the state and the government. It is recognized rather than prescribed. Marriage is a public relationship but its deeply intimate essence does not empower government to peer into the marital bed for the antimarriage goal of proscription post hoc. That is reasonable both in principle and in practice.

You conceded that your concept of SSM is not a sexual type of relationship. Besides, sexualized or not sexualized, there is no sexual basis to presume a man would impregnate another man; or that a woman would be impregnated by another woman. Procreation is outside of (not intrinsic to) the same-sex scenario. Same-sex sexual behavior is not decisive, by your own account. Likewise same sex sexual attraction.

So you lack justification to use relatedness to draw lines of eligibility. It would be unjust to bar people arbitrarily.

Explain your concept of SSM: how might someone become more closely related to an unrelated person of the same sex than to someone to whom one is already too-closely related to be eligible to SSM?

And, if so closely related, how are participants in SSM not too closely related for incestuous sexual behavior?

The core meaning of marriage provides the principled grounds for the line drawn based on relatedness. A society made blind to that core meaning, as per your pro-SSM thinking, would abandon those grounds and might have no alternative grounds under the concept of SSM. You have offered zilch from within the type of same-sex relationship you have in mind.

Plainly state the essential(s) of that type of relationship such that limits on eligibility flow from relatedness. You already ruled out sexual behavior and procreation for these, according to you, are not legitimate bases for lawmaking on eligibility. Arbitrarily making relatedness a factor is insufficient. Justify it first.

As for your second question Dan, I again ask you to look at my past posts. Never once did I attack homosexuals, my issue is with the activists and leftists who are assaulting our religious freedoms and first amendment rights. Are there bad male/female parents? Of course! Are there children who neglected by their male/female parents? Of course! I am not disputing the troubles that our society has created surrounding the issue of families. I don't blame anyone except the counter culture movements of the past that have changed Marriage from something that was ordained by God, to a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship that merits no responsibility.

But that is not a mandate for changing what a Marriage is, neither is arguing that sterile couples can marry. My argument has been fairly consistent; men and women are inherently different and it is only those differences that contribute to raising a healthy child. There is a compelling interest for society to uphold that, because only a man and a woman are capable of bringing new life into the world. There are qualities only a woman can give to a child and there are qualities only a father can give to a child.

That does not discount homosexuals as parents. I believe it is better for a child to be raised by two people of the same gender but I oppose dismantling the barrier between the two sexes. Whether or not that is the intention is irrelevant, that is and will be the end result. If the purpose of Marriage is not to tie parenthood with procreation and ensure a stable home for children to properly grow(not all couples can achieve this), then what purpose does it serve?

In this thread alone I have discussed the core meaning o marriage, multiple times. Readers can see that.

I have already answered the query. How did you miss it?

The core meaning of marriage: 1) integration of the sexes (see the bride-groom requirement and the sexual basis for consummation and so forth), 2) provision for responsible procreation (see the marital presumption of paternity and its sexual basis), and 3) these combined as a coherent whole (see marriage as the foundational social institution of civil society due to this type of relationship's comprehensiveness).

Objections from you would not answer the query. You are still on the hook for answering the query about the type of same-sex relationship you have in mind.

But, please, for ONCE define the term "marriage" - simply and precise.

I did not say that. You did.

I have discussed the conflict between the SSM idea and the marriage idea. You have runaway from that substantive discussion because you cannot provide a sond answer to the query that your own rhetoric has set before you.

You owe this discussion your answer. You already have mine regarding the husband-wife type of relationship. What is your answer for the type of same-sex relationship that you have in mind? Icky has zilch to do with it, I would hope. You might clarify.

The annulment provision in law and in culture is reasonable. Annulment means there was no marital relationship. So your odd comment bespeaks a profound misunderstanding of marriage, annulment, and lawmaking. Also, that comment belies your authoritarian impulse.

Likewise with your utter confusion regarding the provision for responsible procreation both in culture and in law. The sexual basis for the marital presumption of paternity pre-exists government. That sexual basis is highly reliable in our legal system. You misrepresent the pro-marriage view of responsible procreation because you need to do that just to puff up another strawman. that is not a valid approach to reasoning in an open annd civil public discourse. You can do better, I hope.

Your authoritarian impulse has confused your understanding of the reasonable limits on governmental powers, as well. But you have now invoked absolutist standards of argumentation that destroy your SSM idea. You are demonstrating the way SSM rhetoric swallows all limitations on eligibility and destroys the pro-SSM complaint and proposed remedy.

In short you have invalidated the SSM campaign. You did that with little to no prompting from me.

Society may justly discriminate between marriage and other types of relationships that are not marital. So the question of whether the marriage law is right or wrong depends on the query you have yet to answer.

The marriagea -- as I described -- merits special status in culture and in law. Societal regard for the core meaning of marriage (ie for its essentials) justifies the boundaries a society draws for eligibility and ineligibility.

But the SSM idea is quite a different thing. Thusfar, it is ill-defined by SSMers themselves. The query is evaded for unstated reasons. In the meantime, no justification for special status and none for limitations on eligibility -- none that flow from within the type of same-sex relationship that the SSM advocate has in mind. But the gay emphasis is unmistakable so that needs to be made a legal requirement for those who'd SSM or it is a misplaced emphasis, according to the line of thinking on display by SSMers here.

If the special status and the boundaries for eligibility are arbitrary (i.e. unjustified), then, the SSMer directly contradicts the pro-SSM demand that the law be justified.

It is becoming clear that SSM rhetoric and argumentation is very prone, perhaps inevitably, to shooting itself in the foot.

You know, before the law enters the picture.

Is there any type of same-sex couple that would be ineligible to SSM anyplace it has been imposed, enacted, or proposed? If yes then your comment is a complaint against those limitations.

You also now owe the discussion your defining criteria for the term, bigotry. State your intended meaning such that your own remarks can be assessed for bigotry.

Your namecalling is boorish and that namecalling and virulence is your burden, not mine. You are invited to do better. You owe this public discourse much better.

Teen pregnancy is bolstered by the degrading family values that affirms the hedonistic notion that coupling is more important than procreation and the rearing of children - a notion heartily supported by SS"M" supporters.

And according to the US Department of Justice, heterosexual relationships experience significantly less intimate partner violence than do homosexual relationships.

And of course there wouldn't be any unwanted children or overpopulation or abortion without heterosexuality because then there wouldn't be any people! Can you possibly be more specious?

This country was founded on equal rights but, initially, blacks and women were not given all the rights that white males had. Did some of the things that people warned against happen after they were given those rights? Possibly. but you cannot deny Americans their full Constitutionally protected rights out of fear of a "what if".

Namecalling is the best you can do. Your comment assumes that bigotry is not a good basis for marriage law, but that is not the basis of my argument. look at your argument (and contraryism) and note how it has defeated your own complaint against the marriage law. Also, your own remarks exhibit a stubborn refusal to accept reason; and an intolerant and irrational prejudice; in short, your own words accuse you of bigotry.

Back to the query. The opening question in your latest comment depends, utterly, on a substantive answer to that query. Otherwise your evasions speak against your pro-SS stance which remains unjustified even by yourself.

I leave you with the task that your own pro-SSM rhetoric has dropped in your lap.

But, if you want to look forward, look at the website of the polyamorists and the polygamists. They are making the samecivil rights arguments that homosexuals have made.

And if you wish to see where plural marriage has occurred already, look at the Netherlands, which I think was the first country to legalize genderless marriage. A man was permitted to legally unite with two women several years ago. Probably more have taken place since.

There are many slippery slopes and we are quickly sliding down all of them - back into the mire from which we escaped thousands of years ago.

By your logic, single race marriage should be illegal because it segregates the races. And, if a couple chooses or is unable to procreate, they should be forbidden to marry. And, trust me, I care for MANY opposite couples who are no longer sexual so I guess, by your logic, they should also have their marriages annulled.

But, most importantly, as legal case after legal case has shown, allowing same sex couples to marry does NOTHING to the marriage of opposite sex couples. It is sad to see an individual who is so willing to discriminate against their fellow American citizen for no reason other than gays are icky.

The union of husband and wife is sex-integrative but the one-sex-short scenario is sex-segretative. Your gay emphasis misses the target, too: marriage integrates by male and female sexual attraction (see the sexual basis for the presumption of paternity for an obvious reminder) but SS, according to your complaint, is segretive by male-only or female-only sexual attraction. Marriage is a sexual type of two-sexed relationship (see the sexual basis in marriage law for an obvious reminder) but, by your own concession, SSM is not a sexual type of relationship at law. The differences mount and mount and the contrast between the SSM idea and the marriage idea becomes more and more stark.

The core meaning of marriage justifies the special status accorded this type of relationship. It sets marriage apart from nonmarriage. It justifies the boundaries for eligibility and ineligiblity of various two-sexed scenarios.

That core meaning you have now alighted upon in your recent comment in which you conceded the obvious difference. Marriage integrates the sexes; it provides for responsible procreation; it does so as a coherent whole.

The SS idea, by your own concessions, is a rejection of the core meaning that explains the special status of the union of husband and wife.

Why do you demand that society favor the gay subset of nonmarriage? That is discriminatory but perhaps you might offer your justification. The funny thing is that you have fled the query even though your complaint and proposed remedy invite that query upfront.

Readers can draw conclusions, perhaps tentatively, from your deliberate evasions. But among the SSM supporters far and wide well; you are not alone in demonstrating this failure of the SSM campaign.

You are still stuck on attacking the marriage idea instead of justifying your SSM idea. Show some moral and intellectual courage; your pose had held such a promise implicitly yet you have not delivered.

Readers might weigh that in the balance, too.

"And for all your "statistics" about gay sex, you ARE aware that legal marriage is a good way to CUT the rate of STDs, right?"

And yet, it doesn't. The number of AIDS cases have risen dramatically since SS"M" was imposed by the courts

I have said many times before, gay marriage has not caused an increase in HIV/AIDS in Massachusetts. As the CDC explained,

This increase was expected, due to the fact that antiretroviral treatment has greatly extended the life spans of people with HIV, and because more people become infected with HIV than die from the disease each year.

As this website points out, the figure you should be citing is the number of men contracting HIV from having sex with other men. However, as the Massachusetts Department of Public Health Office of HIV/AIDS reports, in 2010 the number of men contracting HIV from gay sex each year decreased by 40% since 2004. So it appears the advent of gay marriage in Massachusetts has negative correlation (but again, not causation) to the number of gay men contracting HIV.

This is completely intuitive, as MarkOH pointed out. Government subsidy of a relationship structure that generally involves monogamy is a good way to prevent the spread of HIV, which occurs from promiscuity.

And for good reason: because it is the cornerstone of a stable and productive civilization in which its citizens are raised in an environment with a male and female role model. Supporters of SS"M", however, insist that marriage is only about coupling while children are an irrelevant byproduct. Such a view is destroys the whole point of having marriage which is to provide a family environment for kids with a mother and a father. Why do you think marriage rates have dropped so drastically in Scandinavia?

"And for all your "statistics" about gay sex, you ARE aware that legal marriage is a good way to CUT the rate of STDs, right?"

And yet, it doesn't. The number of AIDS cases have risen dramatically since SS"M" was imposed by the courts and only a small minority of gays get "married" anyway. And many who do keep their marriages "open".

>> More fundamental transformation.

"Since gay couples can raise children without marriage being legal, why aren't you fighting against gay parenting/adoption?"

I'm not. I never said I was. Dan if you actually read my posts on past blogs, I'm for full legal recognition of same-sex marriage without the title of Marriage. However, I am also for defending religious liberty, that means if an adoption agency on the grounds of their religious faith refuse to adopt a child to a same-sex couple, that decision should be respected not challenged. Same goes for businesses or individuals who refuse to hold ceremonies on their property or facilities on the grounds of their religious beliefs.

"Since gay couples can raise children without marriage being legal, why aren't you fighting against gay parenting/adoption?"

I'm not. I never said I was. Dan if you actually read my posts on past blogs, I'm for full legal recognition of same-sex marriage without the title of Marriage. However, I am also for defending religious liberty, that means if an adoption agency on the grounds of their religious faith refuse to adopt a child to a same-sex couple, that decision should be respected not challenged. Same goes for businesses or individuals who refuse to hold ceremonies on their property or facilities on the grounds of their religious beliefs.

As for your second question Dan, I again ask you to look at my past posts. Never once did I attack homosexuals, my issue is with the activists and leftists who are assaulting our religious freedoms and first amendment rights. Are there bad male/female parents? Of course! Are there children who neglected by their male/female parents? Of course! I am not disputing the troubles that our society has created surrounding the issue of families. I don't blame anyone except the counter culture movements of the past that have changed Marriage from something that was ordained by God, to a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship that merits no responsibility. But that is not a mandate for changing what a Marriage is. My argument has been fairly consistent; men and women are inherently different. There is a compelling interest for society to uphold that, because only a man and a woman are capable of bringing new life into the world. There are qualities only a woman can give to a child and there are qualities only a father can give to a child. That does not discount homosexuals as parents. I believe it is better for a child to be raised by two people of the same gender but I oppose dismantling the barrier between the two sexes. Whether or not that is the intention is irrelevant, that is and will be the end result. If the purpose of Marriage is not to tie parenthood with procreation and ensure a stable home for children to properly grow(not all couples can achieve this), then what purpose does it serve?

Anti-marriage, yes. Undermining the pro-SSM complaint and proposed remedy, yes. But 'anti-gay'?

I find it amusing that such twisting and spinning by SSM commenters would concede so much so readily. But to what end?

Contraryism, I suppose. Dunno. Thanks for providing that context, Byrd, and for prompting the SSMer's concession.

There is no gay criterion for eligibility to SSM anypace where SSM has been imposed. In fact and in law.

Meanwhile the bride-groom requirement is a legal requirement arising from the cultural regard for the core meaning of marriage. The two-sexed sexual basis for that requirement is expressed in our marriage laws clearly on sexual consummation, annulment, adultery/divorce (and monogamy), and the marital presumption of paternity. Further, that is the same sexual basis society regards when drawing just lines or boundaries around eligibility and ineligibility -- see age limits, consent limits, relatedness limits, and the two-person (one mand and one woman), the one marital relationship at-a-time.

The SSM idea lacks justification for these limits and lacks a core meaning that merits the special status accorded the union of husband and wife in law and in culture. In fact.

Marriage integrates the sexes, provides for responsible procreation, and does so as a coherent whole.

Each one-sex-short arrangement (sexualized or not) is sex-segregative and cannot provide for procreation,much less responsible procreation, within the arrangement. The SSM idea lacks coherency. It is not foundational to civil society. It is not intrinsically distinguishable as a type of relationship or type of living arrangement; it is merely a subset of the broader one-sex-short subset of the range of types or relationships and types of living arrangements that populate the non-marriage category.

The choice to form a non-marriage scenario is a liberty exercised and not a right denied.

SSM argumentation swallows whole all the limitations on eligibility such as the lines drawn against polygamy and polyamory and relationships of related people. That is not a slippery slope but a leap off the cliff.

Go back to the essential(s) of the type of one-sex realationship or living arrangement the SSM supporter has in mind.

There are forthright admissions among SSMers that their SSM idea does embrace polygamous-like SSM and polyamourous SSM and -- yes -- even underaged SSM and incestuous SSM.

When the SSMer notes that SSM, at law, is not a sexual type of relationship, much is conceded.

First, that destroys the pro-SSM complaint based on sexual attraction. Second, it destroys the pro-SSM proposed remedy based on sexual attraction. Third it removes the sexual basis for the special status of SSM-as-marriage. Also, it directly undermines the sexual basis for age limits, relatedness limits, and limits on number or SSMs at-a-time and number of concurrent SSM partners.

A nonsexual basis has not been brought front and center by the SSM campaign. A nonsexual basis for special status has not been forthcoming. A nonsexual basis for limitations derived within SSM has not been put forth to justify boundaries for eligibility and ineligibility.

These are the failings of the SSM campaign and SSMers eventual concede all of it with a shrug.

It goes back to the question, what is marriage? The book will get at this more thoroughly and more rigorously than I have here. I look forward tol reading the book which expands on the previous article in the Harvard Law Review.

When we refer to "natural marriage" we use a phrase with redundancy because we contrast marriage with the idea behind the oxymoroni phrase same-sex marriage" or "gay marriage". On one side, a redundancy, and on the other side, an oxmoron.

Marriage is organic. It has a reality independent of law and culture. A reality that law and culture recognize but do not create nor own.

The mom-dad duo raising their offspring is the basic organic unit of civil society and is pre-political. Much follows from this. But there are priror 'givens' from which societal regard for the marital relationship arises directly. To wit: the nature of humankind -- tow-sexed; the nature of human procreation -- two-sexed or complementarily sexed; the nature of huma community -- also two-sexed or both-sexed. Here "the nature of" takes the obvious sense of "the essence of" as in that without which humankind would not be humankind, or human procreation would not be human procreation, or human community would not be human community, or marriage would not be marriage.

Hence the query I posed which is not about asserting what ought to be from what is. Rather we reason about what is and figure out, rather than proscribe, what ought to be.

Beasts do not reason but rely on instinct and reflex and the like.

Surely you would not reduce the SSM idea to a kind of 'beastiality' in the guise of human-on-human sexual urges.

My query has generously assumed that SSM supporters have reasoned to their certitude. Perhaps that is proving to be an unwarranted, if charitable, assumption.

Opposing man/woman marriages would mean the end of civilization. Opposing SS"M" does not.

Once marriage is no longer confined to a man and a woman, and the sole criterion becomes the presence of "love" and "mutual commitment," it is impossible to exclude virtually any relationship between two or more partners of either sex. To those who scoff at concerns that gay marriage could lead to the acceptance of other harmful and widely-rejected sexual behaviors, it should be pointed out that until very recent times the very suggestion that two women or two men could marry would have been greeted with scorn. The movement to redefine marriage has already found full expression in what is variously called "polyfidelity" or "polyamory," which seeks to replace traditional marriage with a bewildering array of sexual combinations among various groups of individuals.

Homosexual activists have a political agenda: to radically redefine the institution of marriage.

Homosexual activists admit that their goal is not simply to make the definition of marriage more inclusive, but to remake it in their own hedonistic image. Paula Ettelbrick, former legal director of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, states, "Being queer means pushing the parameters of sex, sexuality, and family, and ... transforming the very fabric of society." Homosexual writer and activist Michelangelo Signorile rejects monogamy in favor of "a relationship in which the partners have sex on the outside often ... and discuss their outside sex with each other, or share sex partners."

Dan has fled the challenge I have posed. However, he has invited you to discuss the failings in his comments.

I'll leave off with more thanks for your steadfast efforts in these coment sections, Zack. Cheers.

And I noticed, as always, you are UNABLE to com up with ANY proof of your assertions. Just your fear mongering.

"Zack, clearly it is YOU who lack the idea of how a Democracy works."

People went out to the polls and voted, same-sex marriage passed. I think that's how democracy works. Did I miss something there?

Why only two? That's discrimination. What are you basing 'two' on?

Heck of a job there buddy. : )

Would your ten year old nephew be ineligible to form a nonsexual freindship with your aunte? Must a license be obtained for such a friendship?

The marriage idea, and its sound argumentation, is about the marital type relationship. It does not demonize the gay identity group.

But the SSM campaign has set out to demonize those with whom SSMers disagree in the conflict they have introduced betwenn their SSM idea and the marriage idea. Losing ground to bigotry did not stop me from opposing the supremacy of white identity politics and it won't stop me opposing the supremacy of gay identity politics.

I stood against tyrany, totalitarianism, authoritarianism, and the absurd ideologies that inviked the very sort of confuddled thinking that the SSM campaign has demonstrated for more than a decade. Loss of life and limb was lost ground in those conflicts and so your bashing your shoe on the table and telling me you will crush us, well, I will thank you for the open threat and the forewarning.

To pro-marriage readers and those undecided on the issue: please read this thread from the top and note the weakness and virulence of the SSMers whose cheers for the election results flow from dark and murky depths. But their waves are shallow when beached on reality.

And your comments do reveal a dark side to SS"M" advocacy implying that those who don't think like you should be expelled from your idea of a civilized society and shouldn't be allowed to vote and should die.

It is that kind of attitude that has established many a genocidal totalitarian regime. So much for tolerance.

The nature of humankind is two-sexed; the nature of human procreation and mating is two-sexed; the nature of human community is also two-sexed. Reason and religious teachings happen to acknowledge these as givens. These are truths with consequences.

Gay identity politics supplies a blindfold that is used to obscure the truth and to soft-focus the conseqences. Why would falsehoods be favored over reason and truth, except for pro-gay bigotry?

Justice demands otherwise. The supremacy of white racist identity politics has been repudiated, as even your own comment strongly implies, but why then defend the asserted supremacy of gay identity politics over marriage? Justification remains lacking.

Meanwhile readers might consider the central theme of the SSM campaign. It attacks the marriage idea with ad hoc arguments they intend as challenges to the justification of the marriage law. They attack the special reason for the special status of marrage. Then they propose a substitute reason for marital status. But their proposal is negated, nullified, neutralized, destroyed by the very same thinking they use to attack the marriage law.

Then, when queried, SSMers like Layne fold their arms, stamp their feet, and refuse to justify what they had demand be justified only moments earlier. They claim the marriage law is unjust but they end-up relying on an arbitrary exercise of governmental power to 1) abolish the bride-groom requirement and to 2) replae the marriage idea with the SSM idea.

The pro-SSM failure to answer the basic query is not an oversight on ther part. They are ill-equipped by their own rhetoric and argumentation which destroys their pro-SSM complaint and their proposed pro-SSM remedy.

Layne, your comment has conceded far more than your might acknowledge as you beat a hasty retreat fro your own demand that the marriage law be justified.

By whatever meanss it might be imposed or enacted, the SSM idea is unjustified even by the account of SSMers.

Also note that the secular case against the SSM idea and for the marriage idea (two ideas, conceptualizations, or core meanings that are in conflict) is waved off by Layne because he admits he has no interest in forthrightly engaging in a public discourse on marriage ... civil marriage or otherwise.

Again, much thanks to Layne for his illustrative comment. Maybe others will do better instead of running away from the query that arises from their own rhetoric and argumentation.

What you described is friendship with no mention of sexal basis for special status nor for limitations on eligibility. Commitment to another's happiness, health, and well-being befits nonsexual friendship.

For those who'd SSM, do you propose a ban on platonic friendships between persons of the same sex? Do you propose making same-sex sexual behavior mandatory; or same-sex sexual attraction; or same-sex sexual romance; or gay identity? Do you really think that a license to SSM is needed to engage in any of that? Is the ability or desire to engage in any of that mandator under any law that enables SSM anyplace in the country?

I expect you know better than to contradict your own attack on the bride-groom requirement. But perhaps the rule of noncontradiction does not apply to your pro-SSM comments. Lease clarify.

Note that to which consent (and commitment) is given is they key. Consent of the participants and consent of society. See the sexual basis for the bride-groom requirement. That is a legal requirement accompanied by the sexual basis for consummation, annulment, adultery/divorce (and monogamy btw), and, of course, the marital presumption of paternity.This two-sexed sexual basis is extrinsic (outside) the one-sex-short scenario -- sexualized or not.

And, according to your comment, Chuck, we must consider friendship the basis for SSM because of the lack of a legal requirement making same-sex sexual stuff mandatory. That stuff occurs without a license, anyway, just as platonic friendship does, anyway. The sexual stuff is not intrinsic (inside) the good of friendship, you might agree.

The comprehensive relationship of husband and wife is not a tool or a widget that exists to make other good stuff. Marriage is a good in itself.

So we return to the same-sex type of relationship you have in mind. It clearly is not the same as the union of husband and wife, if your own comment is to be taken as your best description of the SSM idea.

Not to mention the fact that nobody needs to justify marriage equality to you. If you don't like it, don't marry someone of the same gender.

Nobody owes you any explanation for why we support marriage equality. You can try to spin, rationlize and intellectualize (if your ramblings can be defined as "intellectual") your aniums all you want.

The judges have spoken, the legislatures have spoken, as of Tuesday night the people have spoken. Get a clue. Marriage equality is moving forward with or without you.

But yeah have fun obsessing over other people's privates lives as you write sentences like: "However you resorted immediately to a line of thinking that nullifies same-sex sexual attraction, same-sex sexual romance,same-sex sexual behavior, and gay identity as the basis for the type of same-sex relationship you have in mind for SSM."

....Whatever that means....

Plainly state the essential(s) of the type of same-sex relationship you have in mind. The stuff that makes it the same as the union of husband and wife but, at the same time, makes it different from the types of relationships that are neither SSM nor marriage.

Whatever the essential(s), why special status in culture and law?

Consent is insufficient. That to which consent is given is the key. Consent of the participants is insufficient. Society consents in terms of special status and in terms of eligibility limitations. Both the status and the limitations derive from the essential(s) of the type of relationship. So start there.

You said gender is not the basis but that contradicts the claim that sexual attraction is the basis for the pro-SSM complaint.

You reiterated your disagreement with the sexual basis for the bride-groom requirement, as I had anticipated. That sexual basis is the sexual basis for the legal presumption of paternity, consummation, annulment, adultery/divorce, and so forth. It is not the sexual basis for SSM, obviously.

I said, sure you might disagree, but that disagreement does not answer the query. And your follow-up comment did not. However you resorted immediately to a line of thinking that nullifies same-sex sexual attraction, same-sex sexual romance,same-sex sexual behavior, and gay identity as the basis for the type of same-sex relationship you have in mind for SSM. There is no legal requirement proposed, even, that would make any of that stuff mandatory for those who'd SSM.

Your own thinking must reject that stuff as a legitimate basis for SSM. Please read the query and start there rather than hastily run away to the weeds of SSM rhetoric. What justifies special status and limitations on eligibility when it comes to the same-sex scenario?

You are not alone among SSMers in failing this basic task. The onus is on SSMers to answer the query which arises directly from your own pro-SSM complaint and your own pro-SSM proposed remedy. The SSM campaign invites the query but runs away from it. Be forthright. Plainly state your answer.

By now SSMers ought to have well-reasoned answer to such a basic query.

You would also know that the slippery slope argument does apply. Since no fault divorce was established by CA decades ago, many states have followed suit producing unprecedented divorce rates. With SS"M" and the promotion of the message that marriage is all about the fulfillment of adults, illegitimacy has skyrocketed with more and more kids being raised without a father as can be seen in Scandinavia.

And all the studies done on same sex families are based on asking how they and the kids they are raising are doing. Hardly sound statistical and scientific evidence.

As far as potential harmful long term consequences regarding children, they just aren't happening. I know it probably goes against what you believe but facts are facts. And from the studies done so far on same sex families, children are doing just as well as in opposite sex families.

Actually, one of their reasons usually given is - so we can start a family. While one need not be married to have children, one does need marriage in order to provide a healthy productive raising environment - and that's with a mother and a father. That aspect is the reason why marriage has been established in the first place.

There is a reason why only an average of 5% of all gays get "married" to each other as opposed to well over half of straights. There is also a reason why heterosexual relationships last longer than homosexual relationships. It is because men and women form a unique bond between each other established by nature and evolution and also provide the ideal raising environment for their offspring.

Redefining marriage for homosexuality makes the institution only about coupling while children are considered an irrelevant byproduct - secondary in importance to the law. And that is not only harmful to kids, but to society at large.

The slippery slope arguments should be used as well. The left began attacking marriage decades ago and the definition of "family" has long been diluted. A woman and her children by multiple fathers is now a family. Allowing two men to marry isjust one more nail in the coffin. What happens when 3 men want to claim a civil right to "marry?" How can it be denied? On what grounds? Or let's say aging siblings (there are scenarios here where "marriage" would be desireable) or groups? Why not de regulate marriage entirely, eliminating all age and consanguinity limits?

And we have to refuse to be silenced. When attacked, we must fight back, not retreat.

Why is it that Straight couples are encouraged to date, get engaged, marry and build lives together in the context of monogamy and commitment, and that this is a GOOD thing … yet for Gay couples to do exactly the same is somehow a BAD thing? To me this seems like a very poor value judgment.

Ask any Straight couple why they choose to marry. Their answer will not be, “We want to get married so that we can have sex and make babies!” That would be absurd, since couples do not need to marry to make babies, nor is the ability of even desire to make babies a prerequisite for obtaining a marriage license.

No, the reason couples choose to marry is to make a solemn declaration before friends and family members that they wish to make a commitment to one another’s happiness, health, and well-being, to the exclusion of all others. Those friends and family members will subsequently act as a force of encouragement for that couple to hold fast to their vows.

THAT’S what makes marriage a good thing, whether the couple in question is Straight OR Gay. It looks like American voters are starting to accept that.

You did not answer my query.

What merits special status? What distinguishes marriage from nonmarriage? The answer to these basic questions need to be identical.

Consent? That to which consent is given is the key. The limits on consent derive from the first two questions about special status and the distinction between marriage and nonmarriage.

Gender? SSMers insist that gender is of the utmost importance. Hence the claim that some people cannot be expected to form a union of husband and wife and so the law must be changed.

The marriage law certainly does entail the marital presumption of paternity which is that to which consent is given ... by the participants and by society. The sexual basis for that legal and pragmatic default is the sexual basis for consummation, annulment, adultry/divorce, and so forth. So procreative type sexual behavior is the basis not just for that to which consent is given, but also for the just limitations on eligibility to marry.

You can disagree, sure, but that would not answer the query I posed to John B. ... and have posed to all SSMers.

So instead of arguing against that sexual basis, howzabout arguing for the one-sexed type of relationship you have in mind. Stick with that scenario and state the essential(s) such that special status is merited (marital status is a special status). Whatever your answer, how does that distinguished from one-sexed scenarios that are not the type of same-sex relationship you have in mind?

Perhaps read myprevious comment and explore the possibilities within the one-sexed range of relationship types.

No, I don't expect Mississippi or South Carolina to vote in support of same sex marriage anytime soon, but places like that wouldn't have voted to end segregation either had it not been more or less forced upon them. The courts are going to take it from here.

Chairm, if you or ANYONE at NOM can state what you see as the "meaning of marriage", perhaps we can start there. I see marriage as a covenant between two consenting adults, NOT as it always has been. Yes, there are some age restrictions, because that is what is meant as 'consenting'. It is not based on race, religion, gender nor procreation. That is how I define CIVIL marriage, with all the benefits society offers it.

No SSMer managed to do that during this election campaign. Nor in previous legislative efforts. Nor in court argument, briefs, and pro-SSM court opinions.

It is a remarkable record of failure on the part of SSMers.

The SSM idea is in conflict with the marriage idea. So you might as well attempt to succeed where all those other SSMers have failed. Plainly state the essential(s) of the same-sex scenario that imakes it the same as the union of husband and wife while, at the same time, distinguishable from all the types of relationships and living arrangements that are neither marriage nor SSM.

Given your comment emphasizing the imposition of SSM by various means, you might be ready, immediately,to provide a substantive answer to this query.

Or you might flee and pretend that the imposition of SSM needs no justification.

Either way your reaction will illustrate the profound flaws in the rhetoric and argumentation of pro-SSM activism. It is stuck on an anti-marriage view of the real world.

But you might do better and surprise. Given your comments the onus is on you.

You have no idea how Democracy works do you? I mean you think just because we had a terrible night that is a mandate for this fundamental change in our culture.

"start with your own marriages, and the marriages of your leaders. Try leading by example, rather than by trying to control other people's choices and other people's lives."

Ahhh, leftist strawmen, how I've missed you.

"Live up to your name and try actually SUPPORTING marriages, not preventing people from getting married."

They are supporting Marriage. Two people of the same gender lack the basic components of what a Marriage is, therefore no matter what the law says, they aren't "married".

Here's my suggestion: don't just talk the talk, you need to walk the walk. If you're going to be about "supporting" or "defending" marriage, start with your own marriages, and the marriages of your leaders. Try leading by example, rather than by trying to control other people's choices and other people's lives. Live up to your name and try actually SUPPORTING marriages, not preventing people from getting married. Maybe then you'll get a little more respect and get back some measure of credibility.

Social issues have nothing to do with it. It has to do with the fact that Romney didn't promote the stark contrasts between him and his rival. Remember, Obama himself said that there were two distinct choices. Romney never mentioned that.

Please, social issues are anything but suicidal for the GOP. And besides, most social issues happen to be tied into economic issues.

SSM is an outright rejection of marriage. Supporting that is unjust. SSM supporters have always applauded the abuse of power via the abuse of judicial review and of executive authority. The pro-SSM arguments are as weak and self-refuting as ever so the question is how that toad got in the gate post in the first place.

LOLing your way around that blatant problem in the SSM campaign belies insincere participation in the public discourse on the SSM idea.

Readers might take notice of how SSMers react to this election campaign and these election results.

Instead we got far more efforts from SSMers in telling blatant falsehoods such as the nonsense about harming senior citizens. That is the best that SSMers managed to do. Their pro-SSM arguments are anything but pro-SSM, it turns out, but anti-marriage and deliberately (and misleadingly) about other stuff. That is inevitable because SSM is not marriage and, apart from its rejection of marriage, is really about other stuff.

Layne pounced to make the first comment here but he has yet to deal forthrightly with his advocacy of the asserted supremacy of gay idenntity politics. That assertion is closely analogous with the supremacy of white racist politics.

Yet Layne is quick (to the point of rapid stupidity) in telling a very big lie. Brazenly and early and often.

"end of story"? LOL. You are the final arbiter of what is innate and what is not? Just curios as to your qualifications (please don't say common sense for obviously reasons). Regardless, the whole nature/nurture debate is entirely moot. 8 states now have legal SSM, 3 of which by way of popular vote. The courts have no choice now but to declare DOMA unconstitutional. All legally married couples are entitled to equal protection under the law as granted by the 14th amendment to the US Constitution....THAT, my friend, is the real "end of story".

Everybody has a mother and father, and everybody can already marry - find someone of the opposite sex and you're in. SSM is a deception, people can't even live lives consistent with their own bodies, compatible with the opposite sex.

Aside from the poor grammar, the problem with your post is that basic human anatomy and physiology is not dependent upon religious beliefs. Men are obviously designed to copulate with women and vice-verse. Sexual relations between men or between women is an obvious perversion. To claim otherwise is to be in denial of the highest order.

DJ we do not not live under the Declaration of Independence. The law of this land is the US Constitution.

Preserve marriage please, show SOME proof that people can change their sexual orientation but as a doctor, I KNOW it can not be done. Behavior can be changed, like forcing a left handed person to write right handed, but it doesn't change the inherent handedness of the person.