As the SSMer above concedes, the core of marriage does not fit the one-sexed arrangement. And that is so regardless of the gayness or nongayness of the one-sexed arrangement.

On the other hand, the marital presumption of paternity kicks-in immediately, upon consummation of the marriage, and even if one of the married individuals later decided to divorce and to take on a gay persona, the husband would be presumed the father of children born to his wife during their marriage.

And that is so -- regardless of gayness or nongayness of the husband and his wife.

See, marriage's core meaning is truly neutral toward gayness.

SSM is not -- according to SSM argumentation -- since the chief feature of SSM is gayness and it is this that SSMers insist society must honor with a special status.

If they deny it, well, then, their inability to provide a special reason for special status for SSM becomes magnified. This lack of justification means that the pro-gay bigotry of the hardliners among the SSM campaign is front and center -- because they seek to use gayness to pick an identity group out of the nonmarriage category of relationships and arrangements. That favoritism is also unjustified by SSM argumentation.

The net result is a campaign in the name of gay identity politics which blatantly denies justice and instead is all about gaycentric vesion of "just us".

He did not. That's another concession.

Also note how the SSMer deliberately evaded the problem of why society accords a special status to the social institution of marriage. Instead of the societal significance of marriage, the SSMer hyper-personalizes and flees from the central problem of SSM argumentation.

There is no offered justification for a society issuing a license for the thing the SSMer demands be treated on par with marital status.

Marital status is a special status. It is a social and legal status to which society, as a whole, consents to accord the social instituton of marriage.

This is so for special reason. That reason is found in the core meaning of this foundational social institution. That core, that special reason, for special status does NOT apply to any one-sexed arrangement, regardless of gayness, regardless of straightness, regardless of adult consent.

SSMers do not understand the profound flaw in their argumentation. There is no special reason for special status for SSM. None.

Their own argumentation concedes this when SSM is described as merely an agreement between consenting adults whose private reasons suffice for society to accord a special status for this thing, SSM.

Hence the questions about consenting siblings -- in twosomes or moresomes. A declaration of love would not transform consent into eligibility. SSMers know this to be true but either are in favor of changing the boundary, based solely on consent, or hypocritically deny that the consent of some adults is on par with the consent of adults in a particular identity group -- the gaycentric group.

The questions asked earlier specifically included scenarios with gay individuals. These siblings would be eligible for SSM, according to the pro-SSM response above, just as non-gay siblings would be eligible for SSM.

The SSMer provided no justification for exclusion. There is none that SSM argumentation can provide.

Meanwhile, the core of marriage provides the just basis for legitimately drawing lines based on relatedness and on number. Once again, these lines are not drawn on the basis of consent alone nor on the basis of gayness or nongayness. The core of marriage is not sex neutral even if it is neutral regarding the gayness of the persons who'd show-up for a license to marry.

SSM is one thing. Marriage is a different thing. The core meanings are different, as the SSMer above has conceded again.

"To qualify for the special status of marriage, a couple must be composed of two consenting adults. That’s all it takes to get a marriage license. Or should be."

Really, two consenting adults is all that is needed to get a marriage license? Wow, then why did I go through all the hubbub to get married? Was I mistaken about marriage? Could it really be about the benies all along? Surely, there is more to marriage then what you propose (pun intended). I mean, if all marriage takes is "two consenting adults," doesn't that minimize marriage to no more than an aquaintance type of relationship? And if this is all it is, then why get married? What would be the need then to have relationship recognized via a marriage license?

Nor is being a good driver required to get a driver’s license, or being a good hunter to get a hunting license. Try to distinguish WHY people want to marry, not just the eligibility to marry. You’ll better understand why same-sex couples want to marry, just as opposite-sex couples do.

“To justify the special status of marriage, special reason is required”

To qualify for the special status of marriage, a couple must be composed of two consenting adults. That’s all it takes to get a marriage license. Or should be.

“SSMers insist on legal requirements but reject and seek to dinminish if not outright abolish the man-woman requirement and the marital presumption of paternity which is entailed in the consent to marry — consent of each man and woman as well as the society that accords special status to the union of husband and wife and the social institution into which they enter.”

Yes, they seek to abolish the man-woman requirement. Duh. I don’t think they care about any “marital presumption of paternity,” a notion that apparently kicks in if children are involved, which they may or may not be, and which are not a legal requirement to get, or stay, married.

Two straight men show up for a license to get married; they delcare that they are not sexually attracted to one another but are nonetheless eager to gain state and federal benefits; and they love each other as brothers; in fact, they are siblings born of the same mom and dad.

Eligible to marry or not? Why or why not?

Make it three straight men — all three siblings born of the same parents. Eligible to marry or not?

Take the love part out of the equation. Eligible to marry or not?

Really, Chairm, I think you can do better than this!!

"And that would make drawing the boundaries around the SSM-merger a purely arbitrary function. There would be no standard of justness, just reliance on the emotivism of identity politics. That contradicts one of the central complaints of SSM argumentation: that the marriage law’s man-woman criterion is arbitrary and thus unjust. SSMers would commit the very thing they supposedly stand against."

It would be unjust; SSMers concede that, too, when they cannot or choose not to provide justification for special status much less for drawing lines around what SSM/marriage would be and would not be.

To justify the special status of marriage, special reason is required. SSM falls far below that standard.

The core meaning of the social institution of marriage does NOT mean that marriages exclude love. Far from it. The integration of the sexes is combined with responsible procreation. This combination fosters the bond between husband and wife and their children.

SSM might be about something else -- some vague notion of "gay love" -- but there is no core meaning expressed in the laws. SSMers insist on legal requirements but reject and seek to dinminish if not outright abolish the man-woman requirement and the marital presumption of paternity which is entailed in the consent to marry -- consent of each man and woman as well as the society that accords special status to the union of husband and wife and the social institution into which they enter.

That standard does not draw eligibility and ineligibility based on gayness.

Lines based on relatedness, for example, are drawn around the core of marraige and not around some vague notion of "human love".

Loving relationships between some related people are ineligibile for marriage. Why? The societal concerns about sex integration and responsible procreation form the basis for drawing lines of eligibility and ineligibility. Siblings are ineligibile to marry each other even if they were to accept an invitation to declare that they loved each other -- sexually or nonsexually.

But not all related people are ineligible; only some -- and that is not based on "human love" -- for that is not the government or legal standard.

SSMers cannot justify such a line based on some vague notion of "love". What kind of love? How much love? And, as per SSM argumentation's attack on the core of marriage, what legal requirement makes that particular version of love compulsory?

On the contrary, SSMers fluff up "love" and make it so vague that it stands as a mere sentimental trope rather than a standard for making law, social policy, or sustaining civil society's foundational social institution. It would mean anything but really nothing.

And that makes drawing the boundaries around marriage a purely arbitrary function. There is no standard of justness, just reliance on the emotivism of identity politics. That contradicts one of the central complaints of SSM argumentation: that the marriage law's man-woman criterion is arbitrary and thus unjust. SSMers would commit the very thing they supposedly stand against.

At this point SSMers are likely to shrug and say that line-drawing is itself an intrusion that cannot be justified. Or somesuch.

Two gay men show up for a license to SSM; they delcare that they are not sexually attracted to one another but are nonetheless eager to gain state and federal benefits; and they love each other as brothers; in fact, they are siblings born of the same mom and dad.

Eligible to SSM or not? Why or why not?

Make it three gay men -- all three siblings born of the same parents. Eligible to SSM or not?

Take the love part out of the equation. Eligible to SSM or not?

I invite you to proclaim to your spouse that you chose him or her not because of love or commitment but because he or she was merely someone of the opposite sex. Love and commitment are the motivation to marry, not the standard the government applies for marriage. A stronger argument, if it were possible, would be to say that same-sex couples do not experience love, or cannot commit to each other, and therefore should not be permitted to marry. But so long as same-sex couples are motivated by, and experience, love and a desire to commit, it seems odd to deny them access to the institution that formalizes love and commitment: marriage.

Reducing marriage to merely a “union of one man and one woman,” as many state constitutions now do, renders marriage a dreary, loveless, commitment-free zone, doesn’t it? I thought we were trying to “promote, protect and defend” marriage, not make it dreary, loveless and free of commitment! It doesn’t sound very appealing to define marriage as nothing more than a union between one man and one woman!

If marriage were nothing more than the sexualized union of one male and one female, any sexually capable male could marry any sexually capable female. Since most of us are a bit more particular about whom we marry, there must be more to marriage than mere “opposite genderness.” And if marriage is nothing more than two opposite sex persons having sexual intercourse, and procreating, there would be little reason to divorce, so long as neither person had a sex change operation, and the union produced children.

How very odd to insist that marriage is nothing more than the union of one man and one woman! What a horrible public relations campaign! No wonder marriage is falling out of favor and few marriages last a lifetime. I feel blessed that my marriage was not so mundane, even if short-lived!

Love exists outside of marriage and can be absent within marriage. The Love is not a legal requirement; Government does not mandate human love for those who marry; nor does the law and Government force those who love to marry.

On that basis the gay-straight dichotomy remains false. The arguments made by SSMers sayso.

Tradition is no justification for SSM. SSMers sayso when they trash tradition. The historic and anthropologic record shows that there has not been a tradition of merging SSM with marriage, much less for merging nonmarriage with marriage.

Marriage has universal features even though it also has variable features. The existence of the latter does not negate the constancy of the former. Rather, it reinforces the core meaning of marriage as a foundational social institution.

There is no tradition, honored or otherwise, in abolishing the core of marriage as per the SSM-merger.

Meanwhile, there is one human race and its nature is two-sexed. The nature of human community is both-sexed and the nature of human procreation is opposite-sexed. From this marriage arises as foundational to civilizations far and wide.

Revising the definition of marriage is a time-honored tradition. What marriage means to society changes over time. Just as society has revised marriage from a lifetime commitment to a “so long as I’m happy” commitment, it is now revising marriage to include single-sex and dual-sex couples.

Each individual is endowed with a conscience unique to that individual. This possession is a gift, not a choice. It is immutable.

What one does with that gift may fall under the realm of choice, sure, but that comes to acting on one's conscience.

Now, whether or not you think the conscience is God-given or is somehow a fluke explained by the theory of evolution or some other cause, it is an axiom of America's founding that it is self-evident. Indeed, this is the basis for majority rule -- for votes whether they be votes in an election, in a legislature, in a referendum, in a panel of judges, or in a jury (criminal, civil, or Grand Jury).

Freedom of conscience is not like race. There is one human race.

Freedom of conscience is not like a racialist distinction. While skin color and ancestory are not changeable by the individual, racialist group identities certainly are mutable. They are social constructs.

Same-sex sexual attraction is not one and the same as gay identity. The attraction may be -- or may not be -- inborn, but no socio-political identity is inborn.

Gay identity is a social construct. Individually, it is formed from a choice based on subjective criteria. Freedom of consience applies, but there is choice is behavior and in identifying with this or that identity group.

One might stretch an analogy by claiming that a church is an identity group, but that would still rely on the individual choosing to exercise his freedom of conscience, which is still understood to be a given rather than something constructed.

* * *

You laughed and derided my point about the one human race. You dismissed the directly related point about the two-sexed nature of humankind.

Yet you stand corrected.

And still you would equate the defense of the core of marriage with the evils of racism and slavery.

The SSM-merger does not fit with limited government. It does not fit on the trajectory that you proposed with the three items from history that you listed.

You introduced the list to make a claim that your cause is a just cause.

It is not.

My meaning is that you have not justified the merger of nonmarriage with marriage.

SSM is a subset of nonmarriage. It is substantively a different thing than marriage. Its core is gaycentric identity politics. That is what distinguishes it from the rest of the nonmarriage category of living arrangements and types of relationships.

There are two things under discussion. Marraige is one thing. SSM is another thing.

Whatever your personal choices and actions, marriage appears not to be of interest to you. SSM may be of interest to you.

And so you imagine that the core of marriage must be abolished from the law and the culture for the sake of establishing the supremacy of gaycentric identity politics.

That makes your cause closely analogous with that of racialist supremacy which has been repudiated. You have offered zilch that would refute that repudiation.

* * *

The marriage laws discriminate between marriage and non-marriage.

Your view that the man-woman criterion is unjust discrimination based on sex has been rejected even by pro-SSM court opinions. Your complaint assumes that society may not discriminate between marriage and nonmarriage. We can discuss that further, if you wish, but sex discrimination is simply a dead-end for SSM argumentation.

* * *

You made a remark about "the Church" and I asked if the exclusion you demanded was of a particular church of of religion.

I see that you hedged but that you did mean all religion.

If you did not mean exclusion, then, please reconcile with your remark: “And the Church has no place in politics.”

We could return to the three historical items you listed earlier. Each of these relied very much on the place of religion in politics.

You, as an Athiest, may wish it otherwise, but the Government is not empowered to grant nor to deny the place of religion in politics.

Your remark points toward totalitarianism and away from the principles of good governance (as per republican democracy) and away from limited government (as per even your own brief descrption of it).

It is about marriage. Take that to heart because I mean what I say and I say what I mean.

The proposal to merge SSM with marriage may be something you'd like society to starting doing -- for YOUR sake or for the sake of gay identity politics -- but it does NOT follow that this is in keeping with limited government (even if we adhered to your description of limited government).

In fact, such a merger contradicts the very notions that you have posed as being in favor of.

I appreciate your candor in answering the questions I posed. The thing is, though, to your own admission, that "religion is a choice", even your atheism is therefore a choice. That being the case, then, how is your atheistic belief not part and parcel of your view on SSM? Or, can you compartmentalize your "faith practice" from your life such that your left hand doesn't know what your right hand is doing? And if this is true, then, is not your atheistic belief not "forcing religion" and "boxing" in the government into choosing sides?

–Walter Fauntroy-Former DC Delegate to Congress Founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus Coordinator for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s march on DC