Although you seem hungry, I feel no desire to feed you.
Could we get the same result from 40,000 people using it for a year?
Read the fine print! Not only do we not get a toaster, but we are required to buy a new one, regardless of whether we already have one! And it has to a be a special gay pink one!
Thanks a lot Obamacare…
FYI, anyone else getting nostalgic by Melchior’s “ghost of SDMB past” arguments? Haven’t seen those old chestnuts in like two years or so, at least.
It would appear that Melchior’s anti-bicyclist (and runner) stance wasn’t getting enough traction so s/he decided to try an anti-SSM stance instead.
Hmm. Maybe it is assailable.
Dictionaries contain the “meaning of words,” right?
Are you unaware of how many cultures have permitted multiple spouses in the past? Or that there are cultures in the modern world with the same custom?
Legal incest has typically been reserved for royalty (Egypt, Hawaii) and since we don’t have royals here that’s not an issue.
I’m also totally OK to restricting marriage to those within the same species (at least until intelligent space aliens show up, at which point we can revisited the issue).
You see, I’m not afraid of change, or of two adults declaring their love for each other. Unlike some people.
Who the hell knows what marriage was 40,000 years ago, or if it even existed back then?
Again - you seem woefully ignorant that other societies have had and some still have different marriage structures than we do.
Here in WA it was forced on us by me and the other 1,659,914 people who voted for it 
Maine and Washington also voted in SSM. And of course, promptly forced all heterosexual people into same-sex marriages, right?
Now with chain-quoting! Because I realized too late this was already on page two!
Really? Hunter-gatherers had property and inheritance? Since when?
And marriage customs have as often been about preventing in-breeding within a lineage by forcing marriages outside a lineage/clan.
Yep, you can certainly claim that. In fact, there are still nations where it is perfectly legal for you to have more than one wife at a time. In areas where the custom is derived from Islam you’d be limited to four and you have to treat them equally, but if you want old-style as many as you’d like and treat them as you wish look to Africa. It was even legal in Utah well into the 19th Century.
And lets not leave the ladies out! Tibet and Nepal, along with neighboring areas of China and northern India have a long tradition of polyandry, which is multiple husbands for one woman. In North America both Aleuts and Inuits practiced polyandry, some groups more than others.
So, sure, you can claim it’s unfair all you want. I don’t think there’s the popular support for polygamy in the US to get the laws change but you don’t know until you try, right?
Here in MA too. My husband and I are opposite-sex married so we have to pay a fine on our state taxes. We get a 30% discount on the fine though because we’re also polygamously married to our cat, who is male, so at least two of us are same-sex married as decreed by law.
Ooh, sore subject. I mean, Joan is great, it’s just that I didn’t want to get married at all. But, the law’s the law. Although to be honest I’m kind of dreading the inevitable next step of us all being forced to marry dogs. This is a pretty small apartment.
You realize that polygamy was commonly practiced for most of the time interval you mention (especially among the rich) and is still practiced today in many civilized countries.
I don’t think we have laws about adultery any more. You mad about that also?
And narrow minded people being forced to confront the fact that not everyone is like them is hardly the reason for laws.
Personally I’m most worried about having to marry close family members. I mean, once they can force into SSM it’s just a slippery slope!
That will seem easy compared to the step after that, when you’re forced to marry a dog who is also your sister. Think of the genetic engineering that will be required. If you think GMO crops are a big controversy, just wait.
Well, wait. If even dogs have rights (as you make perfectly clear here), then I certainly have the right to marry any dog who consents to marry me. And certainly, people have at least as much rights as dogs. So we must all have the right to marry any person who consents to that marriage in return.
Do you believe that person/dog marriages should only be allowed for heterosexual person/dog couples, or do you accept SSM person/dog marriages too? (Think of the children!)
Melchior must be one hellacious skier, what with all the slippery slopes in his neighborhood.
Curse you Mitt Romney!
The mods should sticky this thread, since it contains just about every lame-o argument against SSM in one convenient place.
Well, you can, but being dead is really going to hurt his blue book value.
Thank you. One of the best links in a long time, and quite appropriate.
Bob