After mulling over your post for a couple of days, I figured it was time to respond.

First, from what I gather from your post, it seems to me that being male and/or female, as we were created by God, is problematic. In other words, it is not enough to be male and/or female, but that we feel the need to confuse the two genders. I mean, we are all apart of humanity and being male and female is just a social construct, right? If that is true, then why are we still being created as male and female from the get go (when we are born)? If gender is moot, then why does God continue to create us as male and female?

Second, as to your admission that some of God's laws are no longer applicable, why is that? Because they were written so long ago? Only applied to the Jews? Or do you have something else in mind? At that, as I understand Orthodox Judaism, they adhere strictly to the Oral and Written Tradition/Law that was instituted at Mt. Sinai and passed down in successive generations so indeed these "ridiculous" laws are still practiced, just not wholesale by society.

Lastly, wherein am I judging you? Have I said anything that would be deemed as such? I am just stating the case for marriage as created by God just as you are stating your case for SSM.

Non-marriage is far broader than civil union or domestic partnership. Draw a cricle and within it is marriage. Outside of that boundary is nonmarriage.

Where does the line get drawn?

This boundary is drawn around the core -- the essentials -- of the thing that is recognized, shown preference, and accorded a special status in our society.

Societies may vary the line but it is always drawn around what marriage actually is. And in our society the law expressed the core meaning and vigorously enforces legal requirements.

1. The man-woman criterion stands for the integration of the sexes.

2. The marital presumption of paternity stands for responsible procreation.

3. The Law recognizes a foundational social institution of civil society (it pre-exists any government) and no government owns civil society. Quite the other way around.

Marriage is recognizable by its core, its essentials, its universal features.

As for SSM, Gay Union, or whatever, there appear to be no such core, no such essentials, no universal features -- but instead a great emphasis on gayness. But there is no legal requirement for gayness in any place where two people of the same sex might show up for a license for SSM or Gay Union. There is no proposed requirement for gayness. This would disqualify gayness as the core, the essential, the universal feature of the type of union that the SSM campaign has been demanding society issue licenses for.

So it is not a sexualized arrangement, at law, nor in concept, nor in argumentation. As such it is no different than the very large category of nonmarriage in which mutual support, love, and even childraising are chief variable features.

Whatever the merits, and demerits, of the type of relationship you have in mind, Lynn, it is not distinguishable from the nonmarriage category.

Promoting gayness as the special reason to pluch this subset of nonmarriage out of the nonmarriage category and elevating it on par with marital status would be unjust.

If it was just, you would provide the special reason other than the assertion of identity politics. You haven't so far. You have justified the raising of gayness to the level of societal significance for which civilizatons have long recognized marraige -- its special reason for special status -- its core meaning.

On the other hand, vulnerable families outside of marriage merit protections. SSM argumentation talks a lot about protections, for example, but mistakes marriage for a merely protective status. Well, the nonmarriage category includes a vast range of scenarios that are not gay and not sexualized but which merit protections of the very kind that SSMers have been claiming in the name of gayness. The provisions for designated beneficiaries has long-existed -- predating civil union or domestic partnership -- and is not restricted on the basis of gayness. It is nonmarriage, sure, but it serves a different purpose and is not designed to compete with marital status.

Merging nonmarriage with marriage would NOT lift relationship up to the status of marriage. It would eliminate the core meaning of marriage. THat would remove the special reason for special status. And that would demote the social instituiton of marriage to a protective status.

Actually, given the rehtoric of the SSM campaign, such a merger would demote the core of marriage from its preferential status, below a protective status, and down to a barely tolerative status. It would be slurred as bigoted and hateful and barred from social policy and even exiled from polite society. Children will be taught this and so the SSM campaign would change not just the law but the culture that supports the rule of law.

But what would distinguish the SSM-merger from nonmarriage if not gay identity politics? Nothing. Just the arbitrariness of Government ownership of the substitute that SSMers would impose on society. And the rejection of the core meaning of society's most pro-child social institution -- a foundational social institution of our civilizaton.

Gayness -- gay identity politics -- does not justify any of that.

Marriage is special.

What is so special about SSM that it must negate the core meaning of this institution?

Are you suggesting, then, that because humanity is constantly in flux, that God should be too? Why? Wouldn't this make God schizophrenic and not to be trusted? In other words, if God is uncertain about His creation, at what point could He be trusted to lead, guide, and direct those who depend on Him? At that, what about forgiveness of sins? Would He one day say your sins are forgiven and the next day say they aren't?

Also, if you cannot shut off your "gayness," as you suggest, then the onus is on God. Yet, you continue to "choose" to be in a SS relationship. Or is the same-sex person you are with beyond your control as well? In other words, could you not "choose" to be with another same-sex person?

"the issue seems to be mostly about the word “marriage” in the religious sense"

1. The argument for marriage (and against the SSM-merger) is not purely religious. It does not stand or fall on religious beliefs.

2. The argument for marrige (and against the SSM-merger) is not about the label alone but it is about the core meaning of the social institution of marriage.

Lynn, if you would like to discuss the actual disagreement you will need to address the questions put to you earlier.

What is the union of two persons of the same sex -- the type of relationship you have in mind -- and how is that different from the rest of the non-marriage category?

Please explain whether you are in favor or against the special status of marriage? If against, as suggested in your earlier comments, then, why are you in favor of flattening the status of marriage to that of non-marriage?

You are also mistaken when you calimed that "California allows HALF of it’s gay couples to be married". Maybe you meant to say something else?

"In a worst case scenario, I might agree that homosexuality is detrimental to society and promotes its decline, but to embrace that decline as part of a world solution is new to me."

That final solution is also new to me, but is apparently not so brand new to gay activism. I think Lynn may have coarsely misstated the notion. But the misstatement does get at the political gist of the theme in SSM argumentation: how much worse could it get?

* * *

Nicholas said:

"The logic doesn’t follow."

You are right. The logic is flawed and undoes Lynn's suggestion -- and would make irrelevant her discussion of God's purpose.

Your remarks amount to a "God is on our side" claim that is not supported by Scripture. Your remark about Leviticus, on its face, expresses a desire to discredit the authority of Scripture. So, that kind of throws out Scripture as a basis for your views on SSM.

Maybe put that aside and speak to the opinion you say has been formed by your personal experience and knowledge. You might stand on firmer ground there.

You said:

"Why should I be denied the right to legalize my union, when everyone else can just because they happen to love the opposite sex?"

I think you are stuck on the false dichotomy of gay-straight.

The marriage law has always included boundaries governing eligibility. Not all opposite-sexed combinations are eligible. The boundaries are drawn around the core of marriage. Love is not a requirement -- as per you previous comment insisting upon making things compulsory.

Indeed, what kind of love do you have in mind? How would the law of eligibility determine who meets and who falls short?

There are opposite-sexed combinations which are ineligible even if the would-be-spouses declare themselves to be sexually and romantically in love. They don't get a pass based on such a declaration.

Think about the boundaries and ask yourself what is the core around which those boundaries are drawn. It is not arbitrary. Each society -- for millennia -- has dealt with that core one way or another, in marriage.

Put it another way: what is the core meaning of the relationship type you have in mind -- i.e. the type of arrangement you mean when you refer to the notion of "same-sex marriage"? Justify the boundaries, if any, that would be drawn around that core.

This you might consider as you consider whether or not you favor preferential or special status for SSM.

Afterall, you'd be attempting to differentiate SSM from the rest of the nonmarriage category -- the ineligible types of relationships and the ineligible kinds of arrangements. That category includes SSM, but not in your viewpoint, so you will need to explain how ineligibilty in "this new world" should be altered ONLY for gayness, if that is where your considerations lead you.

"The opposition to SSM believes that being gay is a choice. That is simply not true. WE CANNOT CONTROL IT."

"It" is not gay, Lynn, but rather "It" is same-sex sexual attraction or feelings. While homosexuality may, or may not, be inborn, no socio-political identity is inborn. Gay identity is no exception. That the identity is promoted as one and the same as the feelings is no surprise since the identity is reinforced by "the community", as gay activists refer to it. Not all who experience the feelings, or who might meet the highly subjective criteria of same-sex sexual attraction, are gay, Lynn. The conflation is itself a hallmark of identity politics -- which leands heavily on placing the group identity above even the individual's choices of behavior and belief.

You may have constructed your identity around the notion of gayness, but that does not relieve you of choices, as your own comments indicated. You may judge these choices positively and others may disagree, but choices they were (and are) nonetheless.

Since SSM argumentation places such over-riding emphasis on gayness, you should not complain that marriage defenders respond forthrightly to that emphasis. Also, when it comes to identity politics, marriage defenders can fairly point out that pressing identity politics into marriage law is unjust -- it was repudiated, for example, in the case of racialist identity politics that produced the laws against inter-racial unions of husband and wife.

If you depend on identity politics to over-ride the marriage law, you will need to refute that repudiation. No SSMer has done so, that I know of, but maybe you will surprise. Most SSMers -- well, virtually all SSMers -- instead choose to hide behind the racialist analogy that has been fabricated by the SSM campaign to disparage marraige defenders. However, the racialist analogy, sadly, fits the SSM side very closely.

"please explain to me why marriage is considered 'special status,'"

The "why" in your request has already been answered -- in my comments and in those of others.

But it appears to me that you now intend to challenge the fact that marriage is a special status, as your way of dodging the need for YOU to answer the "why" question.

Read the pro-SSM opinion of the Goodridge court in Massachusetts. Read the court opinions and the arguments from the plaintiffs in all cases where SSMers challenged the marriage law. Read the SSM argumentation put out there by the leaders of campaigns against the 31 state marriage measures. Read the marriage statutes and the laws and policies that treat marriage with a preferential status -- which SSMers have been demanding for SSM.

If, after all of that consideration by your fellow SSMers you are still in the dark regarding the special status of marriage in our laws, customs, and traditions, then, you might better represent yourself as one who OBJECTS to society showing preference for the social institution into which people enter when they consent to forming the conjugal relationship of husband and wife.

Such a stance in opposition to the special status of marriage might be reasonably defended, but not out of ignorance of that special status, Lynn.

Do you oppose special status for marriage in our society?

Wow. That's a pretty dark view of homosexuality. It's pretty much as anti-family, anti-society as you can get. If you really think that then why do you want to promote homosexuality and normalize it in society Lynn? Do you really think homosexuality is the cure to the human plague on the face of the earth? If only we embraced it, we could annihilate humanity and do the job war, disease and poverty have failed to do?

In a worst case scenario, I might agree that homosexuality is detrimental to society and promotes its decline, but to embrace that decline as part of a world solution is new to me.