Like, bathhouses? 
Why would you make such an absurd claim?
Gay couples can have children. Children from previous relationships, IVF, and adoption are all ways in which gay couples may have children and many of them already do.
Claiming that gay couples cannot raise children has no basis in fact.
An important distinction. “Purpose” is ontological, but any argument from “definition” is simply another form of argument from tradition.
To make the *other *poor dumb bastard die for *his *spouse!
Unfortunately for your position, that is not what the argument is about. It’s about eliminating unfair, discriminatory restrictions against participating in all the various *legal *rights and responsibilities that go along with the *legal *institution.
My marriage is still defined the same way it’s always been. So are all the other straight marriages out there. What definition do you think is changed?
How so? In what way are existing marriages going to become less stable? That only makes sense if you’re referring to gays no longer feeling as much pressure to enter or stay in loveless shams of marriages in order to gain acceptance by those who hate who they are.
What? Both gay and straight people get married to express their love, and both gay and straight couples can have children or can decide not to have children.
-
You’re still essentially arguing from tradition.
-
The bolded part is bullshit. It’s about legal privileges. Gays certainly are concerned with “approval” of SSM – society’s approval, not government’s.
-
Wait, how does the italicized part follow from the bolded part anyway?! How does this “make the institution less stable”?
“Because the government has to draw the line somewhere.”
Yes, this was said by an otherwise intelligent and rational human being.
That is very odd.
All the gay couples we socialize with have kids. That is mostly how we met - through our children (all of whom are in college or the service now). Many of them have been together as long as my Wife and I, although it has only been in the past few years that they were able to get married.
For the record, the sex of your spouse seems to make little to no difference on how middle-aged, middle-class couples act at picnics or movie nights.
Well, of course, that’s pretty much what government does. But that argument offers no grounds to decide where that line should be drawn – at men, or at dogs, etc.?
Well, yes - the government does have to draw the line - in this case, where the 14th Amendment *says *to draw it.
The purpose and definition of marriage are inseperable. The reason marriage is defined as it is, is so that it can achieve its purpose. Any change in the definition of marriage affects its purpose.
Why do certain relationships get benefits that others do not. I do not get governmental benefits for the relationship with my brother. That is because of the nature of the relationship which goes back to purpose. The purpose of marriage is to provide a stable basis for raising children. Joint tax filings, etc help that purpose.
Besides there are places that have passed domestic partnership laws and yet people still want marriage to be changed in those places.
This makes no sense whatsoever. The definition of marriage says nothing about its purpose, assuming that it even has “a” purpose. And both the definition and purpose(s) can change independently of each other.
Even if this were true, which is flatly is not, gay and straight couples can both raise children. Gay couples can adopt or conceive with an outside partner.
It will increase the burden on social security and medicare.
It is the first step on a slippery slope towards polygamy.
You will no longer simply see foreign women showing up at city hall trying to marry homeless men; you will also see foreign men lining up at city hall to marry homeless men.
You will depopulate the trendier parts of large cities as gay couples move to the suburbs to raise their kids. Culture and the arts will wither on the vine.
Just spitballing
Only 16% of gay couples raise children and that percentage is decreasing.
Onthe other hand only 13% of married women never have kids and half that is due to infertility.
I don’t think you are showing the right films at your movie nights.
I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that gay couples can’t get married in most states and can’t adopt in some. Nah, it’s probably a coincidence…
You have already stated a purpose, “to provide a stable environment to raise children,”* while allowing for a definition that encompasses childless marriages.
But you have offered no grounds from which to infer that, let alone why, a childless/aged couple falls within that “definition” and a same-sex couple does not.
- The actual purpose of marriage, BTW, is license-to-fuck. Which doesn’t matter like it used to.
If you want to argue that you should, that there should be some kind of sibling benefit, then I’ll be happy to argue that it should not be granted to people with brothers who are straight while denied to people with brothers who are gay.
That’s the kind of distinction you’re arguing for in marriage - legal recognition for some, no legal recognition for others, and on the basis of sexual orientiation.
Why are you doing so?
Then create priviliges which only apply to married couples who have children, regardless of the orientation of the parents.
You acknowledge that gay couples can have children, right? It may require adoption or artificial insemination or surrogacy, but once done, they are as much “parents” (for legal purposes, certainly) as any hetero couple nine months after sexual intercourse.
So?
All human behavior and all human institutions have a purpose. When an institution or law is created it does not happen randomly but to accomplish a purpose.
Speeding laws were created to achieve a purpose, slowing cars to create a safer environment to drive in. If we changed speeding laws so that everyone could go 100 mph on residential streets than they would not be achieving their purpose.
Marriage laws do not exist to supply certain groups with income tax breaks. Marriage existed before the income tax, and exists in socieities without governments. Therefore it is obvious that the purpose of marriage is not to achieve tax breaks or governmental benefits.
Think of Marcus Aurelius " This thing, what is it in itself, in its own constitution? What is its substance and material? And what its causal nature [or form]? And what is it doing in the world? And how long does it subsist?"