"What’s the core meaning of fishing or driving, other regulated and licensed endeavors?"

The fact that you acknowledge that there are DIFFERENT licenses for DIFFERENT things should help point the answer to your own first question.

In case you haven't understood your own concession: Yes. We license stuff based on what that stuff actually is. Basic lawmaking entails discriminating between stuff.

As I had already said:

"http://nomblog.com/?p=360#comment-7092

"[A] license to drive is subject to what distinguish driving from other stuff. Likewise fishing. Meanwhile, a license to marry signifies entering the social institution that the license recognizes as marriage. And marriage has a core meaning that distinguishes it from other stuff."

Again @
http://nomblog.com/?p=360#comment-7281

"Can we use their 'core meanings' to discriminate against granting those licenses, too?"

The answer should be obvious to you by now. Not all discrimination is unjust. The law discriminates justly between hunting and driving, for example. Indeed, a license to hunt moose with a rifle does not empower you to shoot your rifle while driving on city streets. Basic lawmaking and common sense requires that license pertain to what society licenses -- the thing that is being regulated is distinguishable from other stuff.

As I said earlier
http://nomblog.com/?p=360#comment-7274

"The right to a license depends on what is being singled-out by that license. Try getting a marriage license by filling out the application for a fishing license. Even if you qualify for the latter as an individual, you won’t be eligible to marry the fish you catch."

SSM argumentation defines SSM by a supposed gayness factor. The rest is just empty rhetoric in the cause of falsely equating nonmarriage with marriage. SSM argumentation emphasizes gayness but can provide no sexual basis in the law for special status.

Marital status is not 'equal status' -- it is a special status based on special reason. See the core meaning of the social institution. Contary to SSM argumentation, the license to marry, as a device to regulate marriage, is NOT the core meaning of marriage. It is more like a gateway into the social institution that is distinguished by its essentials -- by its core meaning.

If there was a gateway for whatever you mean by SSM, would gayness be an essential for the people who show up and want to enter? Your rhetoric screams, YES!, but your actual reasoning, such as it is, shyly concedes, nope.

The sexual basis for the marital presumption of paternity is not homosexuality nor is it asexuality nor is it heterosexuality.

The sexual basis of the social institution into which people enter when they marry? See the integration of the sexes; see responsible procreation; see these as a coherent whole. Without this, the rest is just a bunch of bits and pieces none of which is essential.

The basis for SSM is not even homosexuality, really, but identity politics which is asserted for the sake of supremacy. Supremacy over our laws, over the foundational social institution of civil society, and over our constitutional republican form of governance.

No SSMer has been able to reconcile that fact of SSM argumentation with the repudiation of identity politics with the dismantling of the anti-miscengenation system that was based on the racialist kind of identity politics.

That ought to weigh heavily on the SSM campaign and on anyone who feels pressured to relent to the emotivism of SSM argumentation. It is quicksand.

Better to defend marriage on firm ground rather than join SSMers in the sinking bog.

Sexual orientation is not in the criteria for eligibility nor for eligibility. Neither is identity politics. Two straight men cannot marry each other, but a gay man and a gay woman can marry each other, so that must be anti-straight discrimination, according to the simple-minded assertions of SSM argumentation.

It is the SSM campaign that presses gayness as a factor in the marriage law. That's all they do say: that gay identity politics trumps marriage, the constitution, and our democratic form of government.

The comment above has just conceded this key point ("That’s about all I’ve been saying") -- once again.

When an SSMer relies on the abuse of judicial review evident in the Iowa high court's pro-SSM opinion, he relies on an anti-marriage assertion in the name of identity politics.

No SSM law (anyplace where SSM has been imposed) includes a gayness requirement that those who show up for a license to SSM. SSMers such as the commenter above has expressly demanded that sexuality be taken out of consideration altogether. There is thus no sexual basis for a license to SSM. As such it is no different that the rest of the nonmarriage category of living arrangements and types of relationships.

The nonmarriage category is not loveless and is not without need for protections and yet the SSM campaign and its argumentation seeks to raise the gayness factor to a special reason for special status. That is discrimination, whether or not the SSMer will admit it. The discrimination is between one type of nonmarriage and the rest of nonmarriage.

Marriage is, by law, a sexual type of public relationship that unites the sexes and which provides for responsible procreation. The sexual basis for the marital presumption of paternity is not sex-neutral; the equal participation of man and woman is not sex-neutral; and the societal significance of this core of marriage is not indiscriminate. Hence society shows preference for the foundational social institution which has always had this meaning throughout history and across the anthropological record.

No SSMers has justified special status based on gayness. The demand is based only on an axiomatic belief, not on reasoning, that the core of marriage is bigoted. And suppression of the corre of marriage is something that they seek the Government to enforce on all of society -- on those married now and those who'd marry in future generations. The bigotry is on the pro-SSM side as there is zero tolerance for dissent and opposition. The goal is to innoculate gay identity politics and raise it above our laws, our constitutional jurisprudence, and our form of governance. This is a throw-back to racialist type of identity politics that has long been repudiated with the dismantling of the system that barred "interracial" marriage.

“That same individual has failed to distinguish marriage from nonmarriage.”

Marriage is when two people are married. Nonmarriage is anything else I guess.

“Among all the possibilities, the SSMer demands special treatment based on gayness.”

If that’s true then aren’t OSMers demanding special treatment based on straightness?

“He does not, or can not, say why gayness is a factor that should be read into the law”

That’s about all I’ve been saying: don’t discriminate against gay people, because doing so violates Equal Protection guarantees of the US Constitution. Don’t use gender or sexuality to determine who can access the rights and obligations of marriage. It’s discrimination. And it’s illegal.

“The marriage law does NOT rely on gayness for ineligibility nor straightness for eleigibility”

Yes it does, de facto, according to the well-reasoned decision of the Iowa Supreme Court. Offering marriage licenses only to opposite-sex couples amounts to favoring straight people for marriage and discriminating against gay people.

Naturally, that would entail plainly stating what would distinguish SSM from the rest of the nonmarriage category.

Nothing was offered. Instead, it was a repeat performance: the SSMers tried to lift nonmarriage up onto the back of marriage.

He failed to even attempt to meet the challenge. So he returned to the pro-SSM talking points which have already been refuted.

"No one is merging nonmarriage, with marriage. [...] Nor is anyone asking for special treatment for gays, just equal treatment."

That same individual has failed to distinguish marriage from nonmarriage. His remarks are premised on the merger he now would deny.

There is a nonmarriage category. Among all the possibilities, the SSMer demands special treatment based on gayness. He does not, or can not, say why gayness is a factor that should be read into the law and so cannot distinguish SSM from non-SSM within the nonmarriage category.

To sum: The SSMer cannot say what marriage actually is; nor can he say what SSM actually is; so he talks in such generalities, and in contradicition of his own stated standards, that the effect is to blur and merger marriage and nonmarriage. He does so because he insists that since SSM lacks distinction, then, for the sake of Government enforcing a false equivalency, marriage must be rendered as indistinguishable as SSM.

The marriage law does NOT rely on gayness for ineligibility nor straightness for eleigibility. The freedom to marry is not restricted on such a basis.

Meanwhile SSM laws do not include a gayness requirement.

So the SSMer above has abanoned the law and common sense and demands that society behave as insane as his ideas.

You made key concessions and now you pose as if you haven't a clue about the ground already covered. You have proven yourself to be an intellectually disohonest participant in these comment sections.

The types of personal attacks that went on in California especially, the anthrax scares, graffiti, the riots, the hate maps where they listed the names and addresses of prop 8 supporters WITH DIRECTIONS TO THEIR HOUSES....I'm surprised you would condone this as appropriate. It was shameful, low behavior. You should be ashamed. This movement isn't about love or tolerance or acceptance. Forcing people to do what you want with threats is not right.

and we're supposed to believe that those with differing views from yours would be protected if gay marriage were the law in this state, I doubt it highly. It is a war of ideas, your way or the highway. disgusting.

Wait, you're advocating violence?

The problem in your analogy is that women wanted democracy with the same definition it always had. SSM seeks to change marriage.

I’m quite certain in my view that same-sex marriage strengthens marriage, just as extending voting rights to women strengthens democracy. The people who think same-sex marriage “hurts” marriage seem to be indifferent to the massively corrosive effects of adultery and divorce on the institution of marriage, which was intended as a lifelong commitment. I was merely pointing out the hypocrisy of the position that even if marriage was somehow damaged by same-sex couples participating, it’s a minor concern compared to legal adultery and legal divorce. Talk about having it backward!

Kind of like having a patient in the emergency room with a severed arm and bleeding profusely, and you recommend we attend to their bad haircut first. The entire notion that opposing SSM is merely to “protect” marriage is completely, utterly dishonest and unfounded.
Brando I’m quite certain in my view that same-sex marriage strengthens marriage, just as extending voting rights to women strengthens democracy. The people who think same-sex marriage “hurts” marriage seem to be indifferent to the massively corrosive effects of adultery and divorce on the institution of marriage, which was intended as a lifelong commitment. I was merely pointing out the hypocrisy of the position that even if marriage was somehow damaged by same-sex couples participating, it’s a minor concern compared to legal adultery and legal divorce. Talk about having it backward! Kind of like having a patient in the emergency room with a severed arm and bleeding profusely, and you recommend we attend to their bad haircut first. The entire notion that opposing SSM is merely to “protect” marriage is completely, utterly dishonest and unfounded.

A few people reacting badly to having their right to marry the person they love is hardly a condemnation of legitimate social change. Blacks behaved pretty violently at times, too, in protest of their treatment.

Is there a gracious way to react when you’ve have the right to marry taken away from you? How would you react if you had the right to marry and then a slight majority voted to take that right away from you? If my right to marry were taken away from me, let me assure you, I would react with great hostility. And it would be entirely appropriate to do so.

Is that what the riots in CA were Kevin? a bit of social upheaval? the personal attacks? how about the thugs who shouted down the old lady of el coyote? the one who was trembling so hard trying to explain her 100 dollar donation that she had to have her daughters literally support her elbows... was that social upheaval? I call it disrespect for the system, the people and the antithesis of tolerance.

It sounds like you're saying that you're not sure whether same-sex couples hurt marriage or not. There are a lot of people that believe it indeed does hurt marriage. If you're not even sure....sounds like we need to back up a bit and do the social science before we tinker with marriage. Just because adultery and divorce are not addressed to your liking, that doesn't mean we should allow more cracks in the levy system. Sounds backwards to me.

I realize we’re seeing a minor bit of social upheaval as same-sex marriage becomes the norm in America but it’s nothing compared to freeing slaves or giving women the vote. And even if same-sex marriage somehow threatened opposite-sex marriage, it would nothing compared to adultery and divorce, both of which are perfectly legal and widely practiced in this country, with no objection from anyone, least of all NOM.