This media article isn’t an authority. it’s a news reporter’s opinion, except for one small quote. It doesn’t even tell us the case name, much less what standard of EP the judge used, or whether he used the perfectionist argument to decide the state’s purpose is irrational.
What is the case name, and where can it be found?
The actual opinion, not someone else’s opinion of it.
One very interesting thing–
“One of only nine openly gay judges on the federal bench, McShane wrote…”
Out of approximately 2800 federal district court judges, on 714 courts, the gay proponents sure do seem to be getting lucky finding gay judges but of course gays cannot possibly be biased for themselves.
Cite the actual cases and let’s have a look.
Oh, yeah, you probably haven;t read them and can’t find the opinion, so your opinion is based on a news reporter’s opinion, with ever an ever increasing distancing from actual authority.
I have already largely shown the perfectionist argument for finding procreational purposes irrational, and none of you have made a showing of a law that does not fail in some regard.
I suppose theft laws are also irrational with a purpose of securing property rights, because some thieves are not caught, and some convicted of theft are innocent?
Show me under any standard of EP where perfection is required.
I’ll have a look, Meanwhile, please understand that failing to offer the real authority, especially when it’s “easy to find” makes it look like you’d prefer us to decide based on the article you did provide.
However, I dispute that a case is NOT easy to find if you do not know the case name.
In the future I’d appreciate you getting to the real cite first, rather than showing me some associate editor’s opinion of a case.
It took me one minute to find the opinion without knowing anything more than the name of the state and the judge. I will post according to my own wishes, not yours, and I will not run errands for you.
Then, perhaps, you will refrain from making silly comments that a law has an “express purpose” that is not actually expressed in the law.
Not true. You are simply evading. You posted an explicit statement:
I challenged your specific statement:
Where in any law is the “expressed goal” to have all "potentially procreative relationships secured by marriage so that the burden on the state of caring for out-of-wedlock is lessened or eliminated. "
It is a very simple question that does not need further elaboration. You may dance to your heart’s content, but you made the claim that there was an “expressed goal” and you have failed to provide a single example of a law actually expressing that goal.
I have no problem with you choosing to believe such a goal is implied by such laws. (It would be good to see a law that even implies it, of course, which we have not.) However, your claim was that the goal was expressed and you have flatly failed to support that contention.
If laws do not actually contain their goals, then, perhaps, you should refrain from claiming that such a goal has been expressed.
And I have never claimed that there was. However, you did.
As I have already noted, Blackstone has provided an assent to an opinion by Montesquieu that uses a claim that there is a natural law that is supported by civil law. However, even Montesquieu’s opinion, when not posted out of context, fails to claim that “The expressed goal is having all potentially procreative relationships secured by marriage so that the burden on the state of caring for out-of-wedlock is lessened or eliminated.” Montesquieu’s paraphrased “observation” is that marriage provides a civil enforcement of the idea that a father provide for his children. There is no reference to burdens on the state. There is no citation to Montesquieu’s actual words, so that we do not know how Blackstone might, himself, have selectively quoted him. There is certainly no law providing an “expressed goal.”
Actually, I find that some people hold Blackstone as “authoritative” in a number of areas where such authority is built on sand. His entire series of “coverture” arguments, for example, appear to be his own interpolation of law based on 18th century cultural traditions of Britain and not supported by actual Common Law prior to his period. In that regard, Blackstone is somewhat the Wikipedia of Law, providing a handy source to find information, much of it quite accurate, but all of it needing to be supported by actual facts–which he occasionally gets wrong.
As to your demand that I provide evidence of my assertion, I will simply note that the assertion was yours, alone. I have simply asked for documentation of your assertion which you have avoided for multiple posts.
You did, finally, point to a court decision that alluded to it, however, you will note that my question was regarding the period prior to 1990, seeking a law or an opinion that was not directly influenced by the current altercations.
You will cite or be disregarded, when you proffer a claim. It is you who asks me to do your errand running. Perhaps I was busy supporting my case, not yours. You are responsible for backing up your claims, or you can accept the appearance of having weak arguments, your choice.
Well, first of all, this “friendly tennis match” as the court called it was a summary judgment where the state did not want to defend, sharing the plaintiff’s and court’s sentiments. They did go through the motions of making some somewhat unclear (from the court’s opinion) arguments. Not to be discarded, Oregon is just as entitled as any other state to say what its view on marriage is. But, a case where the state is vigorously defending would be more compelling. Here Oregon’s view closely matches the plaintiff’s and ultimately the court’s view. But this cannot discount Oklahoma or Utah vigorously asserting otherwise, and we have to give that just as much weight as we do Oregon’s position on what their laws mean.
This case is readily distinguishable from my argument and cases like Citizens v. Bruning because my argument rests on a state with no recognition of civil union/domestic partnerships officially recognized by the state. Not moving the goalposts, all along I have been showing you authorities from states like Nebraska where there is no alternative marriage structure in place. The EP question necessarily is a whole lot different when we inquire whether the state can altogether deny any kind of domestic benefit by banning SSM than when it makes a lot of the same admissions it would have to counter to justify not simply allowing SSM couples into ordinary marriage by granting them civil unions. Ideas like estoppel come into play…even if the court did not name the doctrinal mechanics it used, it still talked in those terms. However, we are still confronted with the facts that many states do not offer an alternative marriage scheme under a different name. I agree it is rather silly to quibble when the state has already granted you incredibly similar status but withheld the name.*
Unless I mistake you, Marley, you’re supposed to be citing support for your claim that SSM is a fundamental right. Here you fail utterly, because this court clearly rejects strict scrutiny which it could not have done if there was a fundamental right involved. Try again, but I doubt you’ll find better. Admit it’s your opinion that’s how things ought to be. The court then quibbles with heightened scrutiny and gives us some dicta about what it could do, (worthless) and then settles on rational basis review, with the same old ordinary teeth it had all along—and no, I don’t think we’re talking dentures. (In other words, this court doesn’t talk about some quasi-fourth standard of review in a discussion of giving the law some bite. Better to say rational basis always had teeth, but merely nibbles, whereas heightened might take a healthy bite and strict might eat your whole dinner for you, if we might indulge the teeth metaphor a bit further.
While most of the court’s rational basis review centers on the distinguishable problem of having marriage and civil unions, (which I’d probably mostly agree with in such a friendly tennis match as this, too) but the court does indeed, as I predicted in my previous post, venture into the “marriage is non-procreative” territory and give us the good old quite tired and barely breathing perfectionist argument that does not survive rational basis scrutiny. None of you have argued against the authority I have shown that defeats the perfectionist argument. I have made an open challenge to any of you to produce a case under heightened scrutiny or strict scrutiny that accepts the perfectionist argument. No, the narrowness requirement is not a perfectionist requirement. Narrowness stops where privacy kicks in whereas the perfectionist argument asks us to ignore privacy and have to get Griswold hammered over our heads again as if we could not understand it the first time.
*However, this does not mean the argument I proffered above by means of Bob and Ted and Mary is untenable. They can both be termed as the state cannot have two separate marriage schemes, but that ignores the facts of how they came about. It is one thing to say the state cannot intend two separate marriage schemes by the name of it, with no justification other than intending to degrade SSM couples by withholding the terminology of marriage it grants to
another group for no good reason. Yes, here is a case where “Bare Animus Alone” comes into play which your side repeatedly mistakes for “Perhaps there is some animus so we’ll ignore the state’s reason for the law, preferring Animus.”
Another situation is easily cognizable, and that is a state goes ahead with offering marriage under that name and all the same statutes apply—until we run into Bob and Ted and Mary, and then someone, rightly so, will complain that Bob, a gay man, is being treated unfairly, and he would be to subject him to all the same laws designed for heterosexuals, as I previously illustrated. Laws that only apply to SSM in recognition of the fact of biological difference due to concern for the gay’s benefit are entirely different; in the first case an argument can be made that the second scheme is to be just like other marriage except one way—it demeans the homosexual by withholding the name, that argument is not available in the second set of circumstances.
I shall not. The purpose we have to accept is the purpose the state gives us in court. And that does NOT have to be contained in the law itself, as I have maintained all along.
You then quoted yourself.
I said the part in the second set of quotation marks. You said ‘Where in any law is the “expressed goal”’ Which clarifies YOU ARE asking me to show you a law where this is expressly contained in the statute, “potentially procreative relationships secured by marriage so that the burden on the state of caring for out-of-wedlock is lessened or eliminated,” despite my not having a claim any law does this. I say they largely do not do this; it is you countering my argument with a demand to show you laws that have this in them when I agree I’d like to see 'em. Found any yet? I’m not gonna go off looking to ahrd for what I think doesn’t exist,a nd you apparently agree, now that you have clarified.
I evaded nothing, because I answered the question in either case, despite not being clarified until now.
No, you now grudgingly give me some of the clarification I asked for–because I asked whether you meant your argument to rest on the proposition that a law has to have its purpose contained in the statute.
I maintain again, this is not correct, what have to, instead, analyze what the state proffers at trial as the purpose or reason for a law.
Don’t get me wrong–sometimes the content of a statute can put the lie to a purpose the state asserts.
It is one thing if the legislature outlaws cheddar cheese because it wants to extend an advantage to green cheese from the moon. When we sue over it, however, and get to court, and the Attorney General argues the real purpose for outlawing Cheddar cheese is a belief in a new serious disease concerned with cheddar cheese for transmission or cause, we do not get to discard the disease purpose without analyzing it for rationality and argue the green cheese theory is irrational instead. As long as the AG can support his disease theory at a debatable level, then the law is fine, and does not have to be struck down on the grounds of irrational green cheese from the moon.
[quote=“tomndebb, post:125, topic:688820”]
It is a very simple question that does not need further elaboration. You may dance to your heart’s content, but you made the claim that there was an “expressed goal” and you have failed to provide a single example of a law actually expressing that goal.
[quote=“tomndebb, post:125, topic:688820”]
I never made the claim a law expresses its purpose in its text. I asked whether you thought this.
That’s the argument I made, actually–the law does not contain its purposes within it. The purpose we have to analyze is found instead in the state’s pleadings and arguments. The state will tell us the purpose. I agree completely.
One man + one woman implies it, because this combination, no more, no less, is the fundamental procreative pair. Ask yourself whether this isn’t the combination of people that is procreative where no other combination is, outside of age restriction. The fact it selects the only possible pair that could be procreative fits the argument. You’d be right if we were talking two men–if the law says that, then you’d be correct and the law cannot be implying procreation. You just say it means animosity toward gays instead is what is implied. But the same could be said for all kinds of laws–they confer benefits to all kinds of different groups, and do not include everyone, which could imply that those left out are hated. Bit it is not correct to ignore other implications.
this gets SOOOO incongruous considering your next statement:
Well, I happen to consider that you can get at the same thing with a wide variety of choices of words, and continue to claim that making a father be responsible for his kids through marriage is the same thing said a different way. The difference is the idea wasn’t under attack in Blackstone’s day and I have more carefully refined the idea in that quote of mine, which I never said should be looked for in the statute instead.
Well well maybe you’ve stumbled onto the idea that Blackstone originally came up with the idea of substantive due process of law.
But you’re not offering anything to prove he is wrong IN THIS CASE.
Yours is not the only demand I am dealing with here, and it would help if you’d avoid nonsense conditions as I complain of below.
Which Bruning somewhat addresses by noting the state’s HOST OF AUTHORITIES. Are you claiming the 8th circuit made that up, and there haven’t been a host of authorities? Are you presuming that out of a host, none are prior to 1990?
But I confess that’s kind of vague, and you would be right to demand a better, more specific showing.
Now, complaining a bit that I don’t know exactly what this qualification is, of “a law or an opinion that was not directly influenced by the current altercations” before 1990" means. The current time never influences the past, it is the other way around. Nothing before 1990 was influenced by, say, Goodridge in 2004. Or Windsor in 2013. I am going to ignore that qualification and answer anyway.
Like I said, you want me to answer quicker, don’t leave me puzzling out what you mean.
Well, we all know about Baker v. Nelson, before 1990, and the Minnesota Supreme Court most certainly found a high dgree of connection between marriage and procreation.
Anderson v. King 138 P.3d 963 (2006), while a 2006 decision, observes that Loving and Skinner, and in fact nearly all Supreme Court cases that discuss the fundamental right support my proposition, most or many of which are prior to 1990: (My Bold)
Nearly all United States Supreme Court decisions declaring marriage to be a fundamental right expressly link marriage to fundamental rights of procreation, childbirth, abortion, and child-rearing. In Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535, 541, 62 S.Ct. 1110, 86 L.Ed. 1655 (1942), involving invalidation of a nonconsensual sterilization statute, the Court said “[m]arriage and procreation are fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race.” In Loving, 388 U.S. at 12, 87 S.Ct. 1817, the Court said that “[m]arriage is one of the `basic civil rights of man,’ fundamental to our very existence and survival” (quoting Skinner, 316 U.S. at 541, 62 S.Ct. 1110).
There’s some. There are many more and literally hosts when you add in the secondaries. How exhaustive does it need to be for your satisfaction?
I’m worried that SCOTUS may, as has happened in the past, not rule firmly on one side of the question or the other, but find some, possibly tenuous, middle ground that doesn’t settle the question, but postpones it for another 50 years.
The first example that comes to mind is Bakke. They didn’t rule that affirmative action was right or wrong, or that using race as a factor for school admission was good or bad. They invented a compromise that satisfied nobody.
There is also the tendency of the court to want to avoid contentious social issues until they can get a unanimous opinion. Several of the most contentious cases have been 9-0–Brown v Board, Roe v Wade, Loving v Virginia. Chief Justice Warren spoke of this a good bit.
But sometimes it is true regardless that simply saying what the law is satisfies nobody.
And Windsor itself which truly can satisfy no-one on the question of a federal right to marriage might be the case you speak of. I agree with the result but the reasoning just isn’t clear. I’ve never seen a dissenter use a term like Argle-Bargle before to describe the reasoning of the majority.
And of course it was a plurality it appears; there were six opinions in this case. The upshot is that pluralities like that usually don’t get cited much for precedent because no-one can be sure exactly what they can say the definitive pronouncement is–just agreements on result for different reasons.
And yet our discussion began when you stated, flat out:
I have made no assertions regarding the purpose of any law. I have asked you to demonstrate where the “The expressed goal is having all potentially procreative relationships secured by marriage so that the burden on the state of caring for out-of-wedlock is lessened or eliminated.” You have dodged around the issue, claiming that law just doesn’t do that, despite your explicit statement that it did.
I will let the following doubletalk speak for itself to other readers.
You’ve never once talked about how clearly I have said the state advances the purpose at trial, that it is NOT found expressly within the statutes. If you’re really having trouble with understanding me think about that for a while.
Anything I said that may have mislead you, I so clarify now. [SIZE=“7”][SIZE=“4”]We have to analyze the purpose the state advances. [/SIZE][/SIZE] If that’s what you’ve been saying, I agree.
And you keep obstinately refusing to understand that I am saying that EXPRESSED GOAL is one the state makes at trial, and I never said it was contained in the statute itself.
Are you ever going to acknowledge that?
How many times will you try to raise this and ignore the fact I’ve said it’s the state that EXPRESSES THAT PURPOSE at trial?
Whatever mistake you have made, I INSIST that I am NOT claiming that the purpose must be in the statute, and the quote you are so obsessed with doesn’t even say that either.
I have quite supported my claim that the state gets to make the claim of what the purpose is. I specifically quoted the Bruning court that the plaintiffs cannot substitute their preferred purpose for the one the state advances.
Since you’re having such trouble with it, here’s that quote again:
“This demonstrates, Appellees argue, that § 29’s only purpose is to disadvantage gay people. But the argument disregards the expressed intent of traditional marriage laws – to encourage heterosexual couples to bear and raise children in committed marriage relationships.”
And here’s that law:
§ 29, Nebraska Constitution: “Only marriage between a man and a woman shall be valid or recognized in Nebraska. The uniting of two persons of the same sex in a civil union, domestic partnership, or other similar same-sex relationship shall not be valid or recognized in Nebraska.”
Note it doesn’t contain the purpose.
That’s because we take the purpose of the law from the state:
The State argues that the many laws defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman and extending a variety of benefits to married couples are rationally related to the government interest in “steering procreation into marriage.”
You have never actually said that in your various posts, either.
And even if the goal only becomes expressed once a trial starts, (thus giving every prosecutor the opportunity to change the goal at his whim), you have still failed to demonstrate any trial in which “the expressed goal is having all potentially procreative relationships secured by marriage so that the burden on the state of caring for out-of-wedlock is lessened or eliminated.” You have pointed to a trial in which a vaguely similar statement was expressed, but it really does not match the claim for which I asked for substantiation.
Then you really should not have posted the actual text that I have quoted on several occasions that makes no mention of your “expresses at trial” interpretation.
This statement,
is simply not the same as
I was not interested in the other various arguments regarding the purpose of marriage in the eyes of the law. I simply wondered where you came up with the one that you posted. It now seems that you are just imposing your own interpretation on the law. (And then trying to support it by declaring an interpretation as “the expressed goal” while simultaneously declaring that there are no “expressed goals.”)
Only in posts 117, “You are already aware that many states have proffered this rationale, are you not? Well, it is the state that gets to decide the purpose of a law.” and “The purpose of a law is determined by the state’s say-so. Whatever the state proffers, and it need not be backed up by anything at all, we have to accept for analysis,” and “Please note these courts simply accept the state’s proffered rationale. They engage in none of your nonsense of demanding the purpose must be contained in the law.”
And post 128:" The purpose we have to accept is the purpose the state gives us in court. And that does NOT have to be contained in the law itself, as I have maintained all along." and "analyze what the state proffers at trial as the purpose or reason for a law. "
And post 133: “Anything I said that may have mislead you, I so clarify now. We have to analyze the purpose the state advances. If that’s what you’ve been saying, I agree.”
I even BOLDED and USED LARGER TYPE in case you’re having trouble reading in 133.
And post 135: “That’s because we take the purpose of the law from the state:”
I first said the phrase in question in post 85 in response to Miller but it was assumed everyone knows who gets to make the claim of the law’s purpose. It never occurred to me people who feel qualified would not know this, until you asked an absurd question for me to prove it is within the law. I asked for you to clarify, but you first muddied the waters. Meanwhile, I explained to you from the start of this controversy with you that the state is the one that speaks the law’s purpose.
In post 88 you attacked this demanding the purpose be found IN THE LAW:
But your mistake here is I never said WHO or WHAT does the expressing–but forgive me for assuming you were familiar with American trial procedures. You cannot find a single pot of mine that says the “express purpose IN THE LAW” but you unreasonably attached this to my claim, never once considering that the epress purpose could be expressed by something other than the law itself–such as the state at trial.
Which I sought to clarify, thinking you surely do not mean to say the purpose must be in the statute, and first opportunity, my next response to you, post 90, I explain that the purpose is not to be found in the stute itself. I didn’t yet realize the nature of your misunderstanding how this works, because you attacked with an erroneous demand, rather than asking a question about what you do not understand, and apparently still do not understand since your next post still doubts it:
Like it or not, that is our system. Perhaps you should listen to the oral arguments. And knock of this crap that the purpose has to be given in the exact same phrase. We’re talking about an amalgam of cases where this purpose is phrased differently. We need not stick to the exact same phrase. The court opinions and oral arguments many times talk about the out of wedlock welfare problem. What you really do not like is I have stated it better, and more concisely, in a way removing wiggle room.
It makes no mention of the purpose being found “IN THE LAW” either, which only you maintain must be the case.
The next quote is to apprise you AGAIN that you cannot go switching the purpose out, and the state gets to say the purpose, and certainly not on grounds the purpose isn’t written in the statute, Not to say it is somehow a rephrase–
I never said it was.
I said this is also expressed as a rephrase:
They aren’t “other arguments” they are all the same argument, some said poorly, others said better, and they all get at the same thing–we want people to pair if they might procreate, becuse then they are most likely to be responsible for the kid.
It is quite obvious you think this must be expressed within the statute itself, and I have demanded you prove it. Cite. Or drop the nonsense.
Prove who or what gets to make the expression of a law’s purpose. We’re concerned with trial and appeal here, remember.
Ah! More of your “I said it was A. Look right here where I am saying B.”
So, after multiple posts, we simply have a statement about which I asked a simple question and the answer appears to be that “the expressed goal is having all potentially procreative relationships secured by marriage so that the burden on the state of caring for out-of-wedlock is lessened or eliminated” is simply an interpretation that you would like to impose on the discussion that has no actual support in any law, trial, or judicial review.
Fine.
You still have not explained your question. While you challenge started out “IN THE LAW” it appears that the goalposts are moved and now I must also show you a court or trial where my exact phrase is being used? In other words, ME putting the problem in my own words is some kind of fallacy, yet any other Doper who chooses another position is fine putting things into their own words?
And are we to assume you are so unaware of the world you DO NOT already know, or believe the government does not know, that out-of-wedlock kids have a bearing on the welfare rolls.
But you see, THIS is not a TRIAL. THIS is the Straight Dope, a MESSAGE BOARD. IN THIS THREAD we happen to be discussing, in part, whether there can be a rational interest the government has in heterosexuals that it does not have in homosexuals. I am advancing such a purpose.
If you obstinately cannot see how words can be rephrased, then you really have no business being in a debate.
But as it is, you cannot advance why my proposed purpose for the law is irrational. Therefore you embark on an unreasonable quest the has a false premise that the purpose of a law can only expressed within the statute itself, even though i have demanded
1 you show many any other law that contains its purpose within the law, and you have failed and refused AND
2 a citation that a purpose must be found within the law itself
And now I demanding you prove your claim that the same exact phrase has to be used everywhere for a purpose to be observed.
It appears your rules. which you entirely made up, are
a) It has to be in the law itself
b) cannot be rephrased
c) you do need to make a showing that a or b is true.
I am demanding that you CITE to prove the above, because YOU cannot make up the rules by which our courts operate.
It is very clear that your opinion on this is result oriented and you do not care whether the logic that is used along the way is irrational–anything that leads to your goal is sound, whereas, anything that doesn’t is unsound.
As it is, you cannot explain why the government should not have an interest in procreative couples who might make babies and then not care for them properly, leaving the state to pick up the slack.
Oh no! it is phrased differently once again, which makes me wrong, right!
What a wonderful help you are, helping fight ignorance! I shall hence go forth and proclaim your wisdom, that one cannot say something poorly, have the flaws shown, and then rephrase.
No rephrasing allowed! if someone says something once, you have to quote from here on out, you may not put something into your own words.
I wonder how many times you have rephrased yourself when someone apparently was having trouble with the original phrase.
The purpose as expressed in Bruning (By the court) is “Steering procreation into marriage.”
But some fool will come along and say, “why animals procreate, are you saying animals should marry?”
So we refine that phrase to “Steering HUMAN procreation into marriage.” So then someone says, but not all procreation leads to welfare, and the government doesn’t have an interest in responsible procreation,"
So we rephrase, after seeing the statement was not sufficient for you to understand,
“steering all irresponsible human procreation into marriage”
and then somebody says they don’t see how that effects the government, so we rephrase again,
“steering all irresponsible human procreation into marriage so there is less of a welfare burden,”
And then someone else points out that people have sex without intending to procreate,
So we refine further “steer all potential human procreation that is irresponsible into marriage so that the welfare burden on the state is lessened”
Which is the exact same thing as saying either
“we want people to pair if they might procreate, because then they are most likely to be responsible for the kid.”
OR
“an interest in procreative couples who might make babies and then not care for them”
OR
“the expressed goal is having all potentially procreative relationships secured by marriage so that the burden on the state of caring for out-of-wedlock is lessened or eliminated.”
They all mean the same thing, and every aspect of this IS being expressed in the courts, whether in pleadings or oral argument. I do not have transcripts for oral arguments, and I am not going to buy one to satisfy you.
But you’ve turned your brain off on the subject, and extend your UNLIMITED support by any means for SSM to include any and all means of getting there, which I resist.
Your only rule of debate here is apparently that if it doesn’t lead to SSM, then it is illogical.
if President Obama suspended the constitution and disbanded congress in a military coup, (not implying this is going to happen, not my opinion of Obama) and declared gay marriage throughout the land, would you still support it?
How about if a terrorist threatened to nuke New York if the nation did not immediately recognize gay marriage, would you still support it?
Or how about a mere federal law that all states must allow gay marriage, usurping the power of the states, would you support that?
If you answered “NO” to any of these, then your support of gay marriage is limited, just like me. You will not support it in any and all circumstances–neither will I.
I suppose you will never say, “well I guess you are right, not all roads to SSM make sense.”
A court-forced EP argument is obnoxious to American values too, and you resist learning how because of your support for gay marriage.
WHY? because it forces a choice in whether marriage, the ONLY KIND, is primarily a procreational institution or not. No way around it. One kind of marriage alone either is or isn’t. If it is found to be non-procreational, then that in turn will lead to all kinds of troubles, like a wife suing her husband for child support even though he is doing his duties, because the procreational shelter of marriage is what stops this currently. And it cannot shelter what it has nothing to do with.
I only ask two very reasonable things from the gay lobby, and that is:
Do not strip marriage of its procreational aspects and
Give us time to have some long-term random sampled study.
Neither is unreasonable, neither is illogical, and both are founded not in hate but intellectual interest in the subject.
For the life of me I do not understand how “reasonable” people could object, without basing their objection on something unreasonable, like the false premise a never before declared right is being violated.
Wishing SSM were a fundamental right and hoping it will be is not an argument that your rights are being violated.
You cannot assert a right before it is established, you can ask for it and persuade, but “you have to give me this right because I have the right” is a fallacious, circular illogical argument.