My mom, divorced 3 times, thinks gay marriage will "ruin" marriage.

Rights never exist where there is no need for them.

You realize that bit of foot-stomping works the other way too, don’t you?

When do you claim the first gay couple in history formed? :smiley: Couples who have loved each other and wanted to live their lives together have been around even since before the founding of the US. Even gay ones. “Really, you could look it up!”, to quote a wise man. :smiley:

Now, maybe, just maybe, you could actually provide some historical support for your continued assertion that marriage is about babies. Instead of simply repeating your handwaving like a ceiling fan, that is.

Of course they do. I have the right to free speech even when no one is trying to censor me, or if I’m not saying anything.

OK, now kindly explain how that applies to gay couples getting married.

See above, I have addressed this multiple times.

If you can determine that this couple does not deserve the benefits of marriage because they can never have children, no children are possible to a certainty of 100%, and you can establish that without prying into their privacy, I would agree these people do not need the benefits of marriage.

But I would disagree in the case of an already established marriage and one becomes infertile. They may save money to assist their adult children too, I think that is a reasonable interest of society.

You won’t find that anywhere in it. You will find the words “all persons”, with no restrictions, though.

Exactly, as in the cases of inheritance, medical decisionmaking, even taxation, IOW all the protections of the law which have not been equally provided.

Bzzt, wrong. See above.

It is so tiresome to be asked the same thing over and over and answer it over and over.

Gays do not need the right to marriage because they cannot have children.

Its explained in more detail above.

It need not be a virtue. It is just a defining element of the participants in the club. For the purposes of the analogy, it is not good or bad, it is virtue-agnostic.

Nope. For individuals, I don’t think straightness or homosexuality is a virtue in and of itself. You are either attracted to the opposite sex or the same sex. End of story. I do believe, however, that it is a virtue in the raising of children. Men and women are different. They bring different things to the table. So, in the ideal situation, a child is being raised not just by two loving adults, but to loving adults comprised of one man and one woman.

Either the board is screwed up right now or my connection. It’s taking forever for each page to load. I’ll be back later when hopefully things will be smoother. Unless, of course, you and all the other heterosexual couple haters :stuck_out_tongue: have seen the light by then.

In this context, it is now incumbent upon you to demonstrate that gays are the same as straights by proving they can have children on their own.

The gods themselves contend in vain.

Then there is no dilution. And that latest attempt by you at constructing an argument fails like the rest.

It seems to have worked just fine for that post, didn’t it? That was, however, a new variation on “I got nothing but can’t admit it”, for which you are to be congratulated.

We have a need for free speech right now to prevent govenrment cencorship of ideas. It is being tested in various ways ALL THE TIME.

You continue to apply all arguments to you as an individual when all my arguments are about society as a whole.

And again, that’s still a silly argument no matter how many times you repeat it, since marriage consists of a multitude of rights and privileges which have zero to do with children, and because straight couples who can’t or won’t have children can marry. Marriage is not about having children no matter how much the idea offends you.

And homosexuals can adopt, find a donor or use more technological methods to have children.

I forgot this, sorry. Even though it may not say it, the context of the times when an amendment was enacted is always appropriate if you really want to understand what it means. However, if you want to put it to another purpose than what it was intended, abandoning the context is usually a good idea. Usually the Suprteme Court considers the context, both literary and historical, of any particular clause in the Constitution, because intent is relevant to what the constitution means.

Except that this has been proven not to be the case - there is no perceptible difference the welfare and happiness of children raised by two people of the same gender, as compared to people of two different genders. So this is not a valid reason to oppose SSM.

For six thousand years many people have read or heard “And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth,” and gone forth and married for this reason stated. (I present this culturally, not theologically.)

You can say it has never been that way, but once again I want some evidence of what marriage was about in ancient times.

“Go forth and get your jollies with one another” is what you are looking for, I think, based on y

For six thousand years many people have read or heard “And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth,” and gone forth and married for this reason stated. (I present this culturally, not theologically.)

You can say it has never been that way, but once again I want some evidence of what marriage was about in ancient times.

“Go forth and get your jollies with one another” is what you are looking for, I think, based on your past statements that marriage is all about self-gratification.

Six thousand years, huh? Where’d you come up with that number?

It was about men treating women as cattle, as property. And quite often about having multiple wives. What a bunch of ignorant barbarians with a vastly different and morally inferior culture did thousands of years ago is irrelevant.

EDIT: And yeah. Six thousand years?

evidence please, of a relevant peer reviewed study that proves your point.