When you do not allow certain couples to marry but other couples can marry, this is discrimination. Not pairs, but couples.

Your comment is full of contradictions.

You concede that marriage is a public status. But you deride peope for having a say in that public status.

You strike a phony pose: you say this is not about religious beliefs and then you say you expect people to change their religious beliefs.

The marriage law does not have a homosexual criterion for ineligibility nor a heterosexual criterion for eligiblity. Yet you want to read both into the marriage law; and you do so for the purpose of imposing your personal view of a lifestyle (your word) on a public status for all of society.

Your comment is thus hypocritical.

Also untruthful. Two men show up at the license office. They are both heterosexual. They are a heterosexual couple. But ineligible to marry.

By your misreading of the law, that would be a case of discrimination on the basis of heteroseuxal orientation.

Meanwhile a man and a woman show up for a license. They are eligible even though they are both homosexual persons.

These two sets of couples -- an opposite-sexed twosome and a same-sexed twosome -- demonstrate that your wistful reading of the law is wrong.

That homosexual couple has a legal and civil right denied to the heterosexual couple.

More: you said, "homosexual couples are merely asking for the same LEGAL and CIVIL rights afforded to any heterosexual couple."

The heterosexual brother and sister are denied the license. The heterosexual aunte and nephew, too. The heterosexual married man is denied the license to marry an unmarried heterosexual woman. The heterosexual 15 year old is denied the license to marry her heterosexual 16 year old boyfriend. The heterosexual foreigner can be lawfully denied a license to marry his heterosexual fiancee who is a citizen and resident. And so forth.

The law does not impose a sexual orientation test on individuals nor on couples.

The law, not this or that religion, is what has been discussed here. You and other SSMers keep wanting to flog a strawman argument because, as your comment reveals, it is your way of imposing your own faithful allegance to gaycentric identity politics.

Hypocritical, untruthful, and intellectually dishonest all round, is your comment.

---Eve

-------
In the darkness I found a rose,
And it was my salvation.

Torn from darkness lost that rose,
Which now is my damnation.

Jose, obviously is referring to the attack on a legal proposition, what's known as a civil matter, or a matter of state.
Remember that there is intended to be a division between matters of the church and matters of the state.

No one has ever said that a legally recognized (Civil Union) marriage needs to be a religiously recognized (Christian/Muslim/Baha/Hindu/Judaism/etc. Union) marriage.

Why it should bother anyone, what another person chooses to do with their life and lifestyle is incredulous, they're not asking to be religiously recognized, homosexual couples are merely asking for the same LEGAL and CIVIL rights afforded to any heterosexual couple.

And Raynd, before you ask, yes I go to church regularly. However I have a hard time believing the same of you. After all, one of the first moral lessons taught in a church. Is of course, judge not, lest you be judged.

Which is to say, if you, a good fearing Christian man take it upon yourself to judge the deeds, actions, and choices of others, that you are opening yourself to the storm, screaming, and shouting and damning and daring at God. JUDGE ME! However in the context of the quote, to be judged by God in this manner, is to be sentenced yourself to eternal damnation. Show some love and compassion for your fellow man, hope and pray for their happiness, however that may come to him or her.

Honestly, I believe the issue extends back several hundred years. When marriages were decided to be a legally/civilly recognized act in the first place, as obviously the only rational explanation is the use of the term "marriage" itself. A term which has been religiously rooted for many millenia. A civil union, should have then, and always had a different word with separate meaning specifically for the civil purposes of being a couple.
If you want to be married in the churches' eyes, then be married in the churches' eyes, that does not automatically enforce your marriage in the laws eyes. If you want to be married civilly be married civilly, but do not expect Rome to recognize your marriage if it was not performed in a church by an ordained minister.

Remember there is a difference between a Civil Marriage and Religious Marriage, make sure you're fighting for the right reasons, and against the right causes. To me, you seem a lost sheep, and I will pray for you, that your Shepherd might locate you and bring you back into his fold.

PS,

I'm married and have two children. I only hope they grow up to be more liberal than your view allows.

I thought your comments were among the most reasoned I’ve encountered regarding marriage and the right of same-sex couples to participate in it. I hope you post your thoughts on other websites. I hope you don’t mind if I copy and paste some of your thoughts, as I wander the internet and discuss this topic. Thank you in advance

Those are glowing sentiments, but you haven't said what makes marriage, marriage.

We could walk through your descriptors and acknowledge that there are many nonmarital types of relationships that easily fit your comment's theme.

Yes, including polygamous marriages. Yes, including consensual andn cooperative arrangements between related people and between underaged people.

You said the State needs to further some stuff, but is that stuff legally compulsory? Does it also occur outside of marriage? If yes to either or both of those questions, then, you will run afoul of the pro-SSM rules which are strenuously invoked to attack the centrality of responsible procreation, for example.

Your comment is at odds with their rules, I think, but that's not a bad thing. SSM supporters need to follow your example and articulate what they think SSM is (I know you think marriage is SSM) rather than hack away at what they insist marriage is not.

* * *

The US Supreme Court's precedents have noted the deep roots that make marriage a fundamental right in our constitutional jurisprudence. As a branch of government, the judiciary did not elevate what the government neither creates nor owns. It recognized a foundational social institution of civil society. It recognized what makes it foundational.

I think you are mistaken about the Court's reasoning on the questions of child support and on prison regulations. More on that later, if it is a super decisive for your viewpoint.

* * *

Marriage can, and has, changed through millennia, however, its core has remained nonetheless. Just because there are variable features does not mean that its universal features are negated. Society responds to the core meaning of marriage but it could also throw that aside and embark on some novel innovation. But change for the sake of change is not reform; and gutting marriage of its core meaning is a radical step -- an extraordinary measure that calls for extraordinary reasons.

I don't think the content of your comment rises to that standard when it comes to marriage.

But maybe there is another more apt solution to what you think is the problem. However, the problem, as you might perceive it, needs to be given more clear shape so it can be objectively discussed in the public square. Emotionalism has its place but that does not make for good law.

* * *

Alternative statuses need their own justification. There does not appear to be good reason to merge nonmarriage with marriage -- under whatever name.

Alterntative statuses, as innovations outside of marriage, need to stand on their own two feet without piggybacking on marriage and without competing with marital status.

The independant claim for enactment becomes the benchmark for future decisions about modifying or repealing the experimental statuses.

Provision for designated beneficiaries has long-existed without being parcelled into a new special status. That's because such provisions serve protective needs and are not designed as an imitation of the preferentail status of marriage.

* * *

Which leads to:

What do you mean by the vague and ambiguous phrase, 'same-sex couple'? Please elaborate.

Then we might together discuss and assess what symbolism is warranted.

And, importantly, we might also have brought to the surface the principled basis for drawing a circle around it.

* * *

Rogers, marriage is constitutional. Society may justly discriminate between marriage and other stuff.

If you have a particular type of relationship or arrangement in mind, when you say, 'same-sex couple', it is best to be explicit and open about what makes it particular -- what makes it distinctive from other stuff.

It is that which can then provide the basis for discussing special interest from society. That interest may be aptly described as protective -- more than merely tolerative -- or, if merited, it may be preferential. But it depends on the substance of the thing you are talking about. And not on its imitation of something else it cannot actually be.

As a legal matter, marriage is a status arising out of a contract between individuals, it is considerably more than a simple agreement to enter into a personal relationship. State public policy, has always regarded marriage as a distinctive and special social institution, warranting public acknowledgment, regulation, support, and encouragement. The purposes of civil marriage are to enable two individuals who choose to integrate their lives, legally and emotionally, and to express their commitment publicly, to do so. Marriage
encourages stable family relationships, promotes economic interdependence and security, and
enhances the physical and emotional well-being of both the partners and their children. Courts and
commentators have long recognized that public policy toward marriage is based on the premise
that civil marriage benefits all of society. The State accords marriage a special place because marriage is “the most socially productive and individually fulfilling relationship that one can enjoy in the course of a lifetime."

States impose several limits on the right to marry. Traditional biblical bigamous and polygamous
marriages are prohibited. These relationships are thought to be less susceptible to the emotional integration and stability that the State seeks to further. There also are a limited number of restrictions based on consanguinity. Finally, marriage must be entered into voluntarily and both participants must be capable of making that choice. Many States ensure that capability, each person must be at least 18 years old, or, if 16 or 17, must obtain parental consent or a court order allowing the marriage.

The choice of a partner as a central element of marriage, essential both to the personal decision to marry and to the societal benefits that follow from marriage. The State assumes that the social benefits flowing from civil marriage depend on a cooperative integration of individual lives. Virtually all adults are able to marry the person of their choice, without regard to their race, national origin,
religion, age, income, education, health, fertility, or other characteristics. The U.S. Supreme Court also has recognized the critical importance of choice of marital partners, elevating it to a constitutionally protected right. The Court first held that a state may not restrict an individual’s choice to marry someone of a different race. Subsequently, the Court has held that a state may not prevent other classes of people from marrying, including parents delinquent in their child-support payments, because those restrictions too substantially burdened an individual’s right of choice in marriage. In these cases, the Court found that the right to marry a person of one’s of choice overrides other important state interests, including child-support enforcement and prison regulations.

Many are incorrect in asserting that there is single form or definition of “traditional” marriage. While only opposite-sex couples have been permitted to marry until the past decade, the legal meaning of marriage has evolved considerably since the beginning of the States, especially with respect to such basic elements as who may marry, the roles
of the spouses, the management and control of marital assets, and the duration of the marital entity.
These changes have been brought about both by shifts in the Legislature’s conception of the
elements needed to achieve the goals of marriage and by court decisions requiring equal treatment
of married spouses in their family status.

While domestic partnerships provide some
advantages to same-sex couples and their children, the two statuses are far from equal and cannot be equalized. By denying same-sex couples the opportunity to marry, States devalues their unions both symbolically and practically.

Substantial research indicates that the status of being married is a universal concept that conveys multiple messages to the community prompting the community to support the marriage. Married couples are treated differently from single individuals or those cohabiting. The legislative structure implies that a domestic partnership is a less permanent, less committed relationship than is a marriage. These differences send a message–to the couple as well as to their relatives, friends,
colleagues, and the general public–that domestic partnership is a less weighty, less substantial, and
less esteemed institution than marriage.

The fact that domestic partnerships are entitled to so many of the legal entitlements as marriage but denied the right to access the symbolic benefits of the status marriage highlights the devaluation of the relationships of same-sex couples, which in turn may undermine the benefits to relationships that the legal institution of marriage is meant to further. Their children may suffer from the perception that their parents are being singled out for a separate and lesser status. The exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage is all the more significant because, as a matter of family law policy, virtually everyone else is welcomed into the marital circle.

The historic tradition of limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples cannot be a constitutionally sound justification for maintaining the exclusion of same-sex couples. The exclusion of these couples is irrational in light of the changes in the legally established elements of marriage overtime. In contrast, the historic social meaning associated with marriage, namely the societal recognition of the mutual commitment and interdependence of two consenting adults, is a tradition that remains critical to our contemporary and ongoing veneration of marriage. This social meaning is of great importance to the partners and their children. Being excluded from this tradition limits the ability of same-sex couples and their children to participate fully in the cultural fabric of our society.

keep displaying your bigotry, clearly to your ignorance. but ask yourselves, however are you supposing you'll be even remotely affected by two people you don't know and will never meet ?

"If a gay man wants to marry a woman, that’s his choice, and if he’s honest about it with the lady, all the better for them both.

Life is full of hurdles, and if there’s someone out there willing to live with you through all of yours, consider yourself lucky.

Where then is the inequality?"

Substitute black of white for gay in teh above statements and, again, we will see how black people can absolutely be bigots, regardless of the undeniable stain of racism in America.

We've already seen that shrugmaticism throughout the discussion of Judge Walker's biased performance on the bench in this particular trial.

So we can expect the pattern to continue to hold. But maybe an SSMer will surprise and actually attempt, at least, to do better.

If you truly believe that marriage is SSM, then, tell us "what is the state’s interest in granting marriage licenses".