Boy shuns Pledge of Allegiance for Gay Rights

That's obviously not true. You can, right now, have a fully secular wedding at your local county clerk's office. Marriage is a government institution, as much as it is a religious one.Marriage isn't only for religious people, you know. This is true as well, however. Equal treatment requires the law to disregard gender, race, creed, or nationality when entering into contracts. All that matters is that the signatories are consenting adults. That won't fly. Non-religious individuals still want to be able to be married as well. Those who are already married will take such a move as an invalidation of their marriage - it will validate all of their fears that "the gays" are trying to ruin marriage for everybody. Quite frankly, this will never ever happen.It's true that equal treatment requires that either everybody can get married or nobody can, but the latter is simply impossible to do.Simply allowing homosexual marriage is the easiestand least intrusive option society can take. The current existence of gay marriage (and I just found out a lesbian friend of mine is engaged, yay) will prove conclusively that the "sanctity" of marriage is not damaged in any way by simply allowing more people to join in matrimony.Trying to completely get the state out of the marriage business will add fuel to those fears. It's a legal solution, but a social disaster.

Whoa, hold your horses there. What?!"Christian society" is not being required to do anything. They're allowed to continue to have whatever opinion of homosexuality they've had in the past. They can consider them abomnations, or decent people, or jsut not care at all."Christian society" doesn;t have to start marrying gays in their churches - the governemtn has never been able to decide church doctrine. They don;t even have to recognize, from the perspective of the church, a gay marriage as valid before their chosen deity. Christians are not in any way being told to forsake anything or abandon any beliefs to cater to anyone else.This is about legal marriage, which has existed separately from religious marriage since we started using a certificate to make the practice recognized by the state. They use the same word, and mean much the same thing both secularly and religiously, but a Christian marriage is not a Jewish marriage is not a Muslim marriage is not a Hindu marriage is not an Atheist marriage is not a New Age marriage is not a Wiccan marriage is not a...you get the point. All of these groups, and may more, recognize their own traditions of marriage. Hell, even the term "Christian" is not a homogenous monolith of terminology - marriage traditions vary greatly between different denominations.Many Christians, after all, support gay marriage. In fact, given the statistical split and the religious demographics of the country, it must be the case that most supporters of ay marriage are themselves Christian.Does the legalization of divorce require Catholics to abandon their "roots and time-honored beliefs?" Does it damage the "sanctity" of marriage? Isn't marriage supposed to be "until death do us part?"Christians are just fucking fine with changing marriage as long as it conveneinces them. It's been changed constantly for centuries. But as soon as gay people want to be married and want to express the same level of commitment and love for each other while demanding absolutely nothign whatsoever from religious institutions, that's somehow going to destroy America and infect our kids with gayness and offend YHWH or Krishna or Allah or Jesus or whoever. And yet the word "marriage" does not have to be taken away from the secular. If I get married, I want to be married. I don't want a civil union and a partner - I want a fucking wife.I imagine that gay couples, by and large, feel the same way. And I agree compeltely - except that I don't think that separating church and state required abandoning "marriage" as a secular concept.The Christians don't have a monopoly on that word, and never have.Hindus get married. Jews get married. Muslims get married. Atheists get married. Agnostics get married. Deists get married. Wiccans get married. Jehovah's Witnesses get married. Mormons get married. Scientologists get married. Catholics get married.If the word is used so universally, and has so little to do with the trraditions of an individual religion, why would we ever want to change the definition so that only religious institutions get to use it? Should we make separate secular words for other shared practices? Should we change the name of Christmas to "Santa-day" for seculars and the state? Should we do away with Thanksgiving because of it's Puritan history and replace it with "Turkey Day?" How about Easter? That's another Christian tradition...Should we make it Bunny Day?The fact is that the word "marriage" has meaning for everyone. there is absolutely no rational justification for making "marriage" a religious-only institution while using secular civil unions when there is functionally nothing different at all.

In fairness, Taz, Hyro isn't advocating "separate but equal."He's saying "fine - the state won't recognize any marriages, and everybody, gay or straight, will have civil unions instead."That's pretty different, and it works as far as legality and equal treatment are concerned.Unfortunately, it's also one of the worst potential solutions one can come up with, because it allows religion to exclusivity over marriage, because it changes existing marriages such that atheists and so on are no longer "married," it feeds the fears that gay marriage will destroy marriage entirely (because that;s basically what it does), and so on.Hyro pictures himself as a moderate, seeking compromise. He thinks that, if the word "marriage" is such a big deal to Christians, let them have it and let the state get out of religious affairs.But his entire argumetn rests on the foudnation that "marriage" is a religious term. It;'s not. Hasn't been for a very long time. No single religion has ever even had a monopoly on it.The best solution for church, state, gays, and straights is to simply allow gays to get married. The churches can say "it doesn't count for our God." That's fine. The state can say "we don't legally recognize your marriage unless you come and get a state marriage certificate, but otherwise your traditions are your own" like we have always done.Nobody has to infringe on anyone else, contrary to Hyro's absurd suggestion that state recognition of a marriage somehow infringes on a religion's traditions and beliefs.

Only an idiot brings up marriage of sheep in a gay marriage debate.Marriage is a contract, and as such can only be entered into by consenting adults. The specifics of the contract require only two people (exclusivity of determination of assets and health issues going to the spouse, having multiple spouses makes that exclusivity impossible).Last I looked, sheep were not consenting adults. Neither can one marry one's dog, or a toaster, or a child for the same reason.If half-human, half-chimp genetic chimeras are granted legal status as consenting adults, then I don't see a problem with marrying one even if it makes me raise an eyebrow at the novelty of such a thing. Same with a future association with sapient aliens, artificial intelligences, and what have you. Marry a Klingon, or a Ninja Turtle for all I care so long as the people to be married are capable of giving informed consent.Homosexual couples are consenting adults. They are capable of informed consent. They are not sheep.I understand that you were trying to be funny and point out silly "complications," but there are people who actually believe that allowing gay marriage would "reduce" marriage to the point where one could marry whoever or whatever one wants, including sheep and toasters. That makes it no longer funny.

It's amusing how people associate "gay marriage" exclusively with man/man marriage.Lesbians are "gay" as well, and many lesbian couples want to be married.The specific terminology should be left up to the couple. Some gay couples may indeed have a "husband" and a "wife" regardless of biological gender, while others may simply have two husbands or two wives.The point was that the word and institution of marriage is important. COuple who want to be married don;t want a "civil union," they want a marriage. Even if the two are functionally identical, there's simply no rational reason to make a new term for an identical clone of an institution that already exists and which carries extreme cultural significance. No, you just mean to be retarded. Words are redefined all the time.Somewhat related to the current discussion, the word "fag" has changed significantly over time. It has ranged from a collection of firewood, to a disparaging term for an elderly person, to a cigarette, to a disparaging remark in reference to homosexuals, etc. It's still changing today, as the word "fag" is now often used as a generalized insult against anyone. Give it 20 years and it may have absolutely nothing to do with homosexuals at all any more.Marriage has changed a great deal over the years as well, and continues to change. You can't turn back the clock.And what "right" exactly are you talking about, anyway? This may shock and appall you, but gay couples right now have the "right" to call themselves "married." The state simply doesn't recognize it (well, most states).Lots of people in this thread (Hyro, I'm looking intently at you) like to throw around the word "rights" without having even the barest conception of what that word means or what rights people and institutions actually do and do not have...and what allowing gay marriage does or does not do to people who don't approve of it.So let's clear the air. In the US, we have some basic rights guaranteed by the constitution. We have the right to freedom of expression. We have the right to worship (or not) is accordance with our own consciences, without interference from the government. Those are the basic and relevant rights for this discussion.The constitution also requires that the law apply equally to everyone. If a law makes theft illegal, for example, it must apply equally to blacks, whites, hispanics, men, women, cancer patients, the elderly, the young, gays, straights, bisexuals, transexuals, the President and a homeless guy on the street.Freedom of expression gives you the right to call "marriage" anything you want. I can call all Catholic marriages "baby contracts" if I want to. I have that right. The Catholic Church can;t do anything about it. The state can;t do anything about it. I can refer to my cats as "married" if I want to. Nothing you or anyone else can do about it.Gay couples, right now, regardless of whether their unions are recognized by the state, can identify themselves as "married." They can be husbands, wives, husband and wife, spouses, or whatever.The problem is state recognition and the rights that go along with it. Currently, in most states any two consenting adults can be married...as long as they aren't of the same gender. This is functionally identical to the state of interracial marriage less than 50 years ago, before Loving v. Virginia. Everyone technically had "equal rights" to marry whoever they wanted...of the same race and opposite gender. The SUpreme Court found that this unnecessarily discriminated against interracial couples. Here's a quote from the decision:

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Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.

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The parallels are obvious: marriage is a basic civil right. "Gender" is just as meaningless in legal terms as "race" is, being solely a physical difference that has nothing to do with any state interest. To put it bluntly, the state doesn't have a valid reason to say "you two can get married, but you two cannot" on the basis of their race. The same applies to gender - there is absolutely zero compelling interest for the state to say "a man and woman can get married, but a man can't marry a man." The decision of whom to marry rests solely in the hands of the individual and not in the hands of the state. Public opinion is trumped by the "basic civil rights of man." End of fucking story. The Church doesn't even come into the question, even though many Churches railed against interracial marriage every bit as vehemently as they oppose gay marriage today.Just to make it abundantly clear, I'll replace a few words in the decision:

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Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the gender classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious gender discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of the same gender resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.

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This did not, in any way, interfere with the rights of any Church. Even today, no Church is forced to perform marriage ceremonies for people of different religions, or for people forbidden by the customs of that Church, even though any couple can be married by the state.I say again - nothing about state recognition for any marriage does anything to violate any right held by any Church, period. Saying otherwise betrays either a complete lack of comprehension for what rights the Church does and does not have, or simple dishonesty.Allowing homosexual couples to marry as recognized by the state does not interfere with the teachings or practices of any religion...because it has nothing at all to do with religion. It's a state practice. Always has been. A gay couple would not be able to go down to the Westboro Baptist Church and force them to perform a marriage ceremony (though I would laugh for days if that were the case), but they would be able to be married by a Justice of the Peace and have their marriage recognized by the state.Hyro talks about getting the government out of religion by getting out of the marriage business, but marriage in the US is already separately a state and a religious matter, as chosen by the individuals getting married. You can get a state-recognized wedding, and then choose to be have (or not to have) a ceremony held by their chosen religious institution. The government is not in any way interfering with any "right" held by any Church whatsoever. Marrying gay couples would similarly not infringe upon any right held by any Church.In fact, I challenge you, Hyro, or anyone else:Immediately present precisely which legal right is being trampled by the government through state recognition of marriage (any marriage, gay or otherwise), or concede that no such right is infringed, and that argument was bullshit.Does anyone have a rational argument against allowing gays to marry? I see absolutely no rights infringed by such a proposition. I see absolutely no state interest in preventing people from marrying according to their consciences so long as everyone is able to give informed consent, regardless of race, gender, religion, or opinion of the color blue. I see no argument regarding the safety or well-being of children that cannot be refuted solidly by the fact that we allow murderers, rapists, child molesters, smokers, drug addicts, people who are sterile, old people, cancer patients, HIV patients, and clowns to get married. I see no rational argument about the "breakdown of society." I see no effective argument about "redefining a word" that has anything to do with rights or the law.If someone has a rational argument, then present on. Currently all we have is intentionally dumb arguments and the ever-present Mindless Middle attempting to compromise and protect rights that don't exist.

The Church already does not have the legal authority to grant a marriage license recognized by the state. Your point is moot - even with a religious ceremony, a state-issued marriage certificate is still required separately in order for the marriage to be recognized by the state.Religious marriage is for religion, and is wholly separate from state marriage. I could get ordained online and start performing wedding ceremonies for gay couples right now. The marriages simply wouldn't be recognized by the government. /facepalm The state already claims no right to do so. You're arguing from your imagination, Hyro. The state makes no claims regarding any deity's recognition of a marriage. The state is only concerned with the legalities of a state-recognized marriage license, full stop. Your arguments present a complete strawman of reality, Hyro. No church has any legal authority to issue a marriage license. That authority rests solely within the state. The Church can only marry people in accordance with the traditions of their own religion, a ceremony that may grant the approval of their chosen deity but has nothing whatsoever to do with state recognition unless coupled with a state-issued marriage license.Perhaps it would help if you started considering reality instead of marriage and law as it exists in your imagination?

It's almost funny - he has to know by now that there is no right held by religious institutions that can be violated by the state recognizing or filing to recognize a marriage for state purposes.Instead he's falling back into "discrimination" and "rights" so that he can continue his Mindless Middle compromise nonsense by dodging the fact that the only relevant discrimination is that done by the state when they fail to recognize gay marriages, and that simply allowing them to marry resolves the issue without infringing upon any real rights held by anyone, churches included.

And how, precisely, does state recognition of a marriage have anything whatsoever to do with forcing a religion to do anything at all?And they are already separate, except within the confines of your own imagination. A state marriage license != a religious marriage. A religious ceremony of any sort, marriage or otherwise, carries no state recognition, and vice versa.Religion isn't being asked or forced to do anything at all except stop interfering with the affairs of the state in what the state can or cannot recognize as a marriage. No, I think you don;t understand reality.

Once again, you fail.DOMA was, until very recently, impossible to challenge on Constitutional grounds only because there were no married homosexual couples to file suit.We now have married homosexual couples, and DOMA has been challenged...and a 9th circuit Federal judge has awarded damages to a Federal employee whose same-gender spouse was denied benefits because of DOMA, on 14th Amendment grounds.DOMA is subservient to the 14th Amendment, and it violates it by providing for unequal protection. It's quite simply a Federal version of the state laws struck down in Loving v. Virginia, except applied to homosexuals instead of interracial couples.The reason it hasn't been overturned already is quite simply that nobody has had standing to take it to court - only a married gay couple would have such standing, and until just a few years ago none of those existed. Further, you need a married gay couple who is being denied equal protection by the Feds. It's being challenged now...though there is already talk among Democrats of overturning it through Congress, without needing to involve the Supreme Court in the first place.To quote the article:

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Several other challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act are making their way through the federal courts but will take years to reach the Supreme Court for a judgment on the law's constitutionality.

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And I duly note that yet again you have failed to enumerate a specific right held by any Church that is violated by allowing gays to marry.I'm waiting for that concession.

Do you always fail so completely at reading comprehension? Do you really have so little understanding of how marriage works right now?Pastor Joe thinks I am a violation of God's law. He'd think me marrying my Atheist girlfriend is a violation of God's law.But I can marry her in a state ceremony.Where, precisely, does Pastor Joe have to do anything against his conscience? Which law does Pastor Joe have to break, since he isn;t even remotely involved int eh process?Gay marriage is identical. Marriage as recognized by the state is an entirely secular affair, so as to apply equally to people of all religions and no religion. It has nothing to do with Pastor Joe.And the separation of Church and State already protects Pastor Joe. He doesn't have to hold a religious ceremony if he doesn't want to.The County Clerk simply has to allow the couple to sign a marriage license, and then they can have a nice secular wedding.As a Justice of the Peace, do you really think Pastor Joe is forced to marry me and my Atheist girlfriend in his church? Are Mormons forced to perform ceremonies for Muslims?What bizarre world do you live in, Hyro? Religious institutions already do not now have the authority to marry people civilly.Religious institutions already do not now have the authority to marry people civilly.Religious institutions already do not now have the authority to marry people civilly.Religious institutions already do not now have the authority to marry people civilly.How many times do I need to say it, Hyro? Your proposed separation of teh church and state already exists. State and religious marriage are already two different things. A state marriage license has nothing to do with any church. No church has anything to do with a state marriage license. No church is forced to perform ceremonies for people of different religions or to otherwise break their own internal customs and beliefs. No Catholic Priest will perform a marriage ceremony for me and my girlfriend. Why would you expect him to be forced to perform a ceremony for Jill and Jane or Jon and James? ...no. I thought we were in agreement that state marriage and religious marriage should be different.The problem is that you fail to recognize that they already are different and separate, even though the same word is used out of cultural significance. They already are. Try reading a little more of what I've said instead of just repeating yourself. The world does not work the way you seem to think it works. State marriage is already completely separate from religious marriage, as it should be. Your fantasies about the state and religion meddling with each other exist only in your mind, except where religious institutions are trying to tell the state who the state should recognize as married.

Which is moot, because churches are already not required to perform ceremonies for people of other religions. The separation of church and state protects religions from government interference - you can;t force a Catholic Priest to marry a pair of Atheists, so the argument that they'd be forced to marry a gay couple is simply absurd.No provision is even necessary, but I certainly wouldn't object to leaving such a statement in to assuage the deluded, like our dear Hyro here.

I'm sorry, this was just too crazy to ignore: Children and adoptions are not a "market" in any way, iano. Even now, there are far, FAR more children up for adoption than there are families willing or able to adopt them. "Supply" in your bizarre terminology has already vastly outpaced demand...and yet the "market" continues to "produce" at the same rate, completely ignoring "demand."You're simply trying to rationalize your argument post hoc. And failing. Spectacularly.Let's point out a few facts, shall we?1) Children are in no way a requirement or even necessarily an implication of marriage.2) It is legal for sterile couples to be married.3) It is legal for single parents to retain custody of their children.4) It is legal for smokers, murderers, wife beaters, child abusers, thieves, rapists, the mentally ill, the terminally ill, and drug abusers to get married, regardless of any current or future children.Given the above, what on earth makes you think you have any standing whatsoever for disallowing homosexual marriage on the basis of children's "rights," particularly "rights" that only exist as imagined by you, in iano-fantasy-land?In what sane world are heterosexual couples that dont want/can't have children allowed to marry, but homosexual couples are not on the basis of children neither will/can have?In what sane world are heterosexual couples that provide the absolute least ideal circumstances for children allowed to have kids, but a loving homosexual couple can't even adopt a kid who doesn;t have any parents at all?Are you insane, stupid, or just [i]that[/]i ethically bankrupt? Because there really isn't any room for another answer given the positions you (and others) are taking, iano.

Because it's post hoc reasoning. Apologetics. iano doesn't like gay marriage, so he's looking for ways to justify his disapproval. He immediately jumped, as admittedly many do, to "think of the children."It's woefully common to have these sorts of views regarding gay marriage - even in people who otherwise support gay rights, and consider themselves to not be bigots of any sort. It exists because people rarely analyze why they hold a specific opinion, or whether their reasoning is consistent across other, similar matters.In this case, nobody really disputes parental or reproductive rights - those few who today advocate forced sterilization or seriously propose some sort of parent license are in the extreme fringe minority. Nobody thinks much about whether a given couple should be allowed to have kids...unless the couple is gay.Similarly, nobody thinks twice about allowing or disallowing marriages between couples who cannot have or have no intention to have children...unless the couple is gay.In these cases, people hold mutually exclusive views, and often don't even realize it, because let's face it, human beings aren't as smart and logical as we like to believe without real effort.The opposition to gays adopting, or gays marrying when reasoned with children's issues, is nothing more than an inconsistent application of an argument to rationalize an already-existing and irrational dislike of homosexuality without actually admitting to oneself that homosexuality simply makes one uncomfortable.Now, there's nothing wrong with natural discomfort around what is different from what you're used to. When one is the only member of a given race/religion/political leaning/nationality/whatever in the room, discomfort is common as well. We have hardwired instincts to distrust that which is not familiar, and to dislike that which is too different from what we perceive as "normal."The important thing is that rational people, when confronted with the fact that their arguments and opinions are inconsistently applied for no rational reason, will recognize that our hardwired instincts are, as they often are, wrong in a given circumstance, and alter their opinions based on a rational analysis of the actual facts. I may feel uncomfortable in a room full of Republicans, but I would never seriously propose that Republicans shouldn't be able to get married, for example. For gay rights (and other civil rights issues, even) to continue to progress, I think it;s important that those of us on our side of the debate recognize that most of those we would identify as "bigots" don't consider themselves to be such, and don't internally harbor the sort of malice that the word suggests. They are simply rationalizing irrational feelings and gut instincts based on their cultural familiarities. It doesn't make their opinions any less harmful when expressed at the polls, but screaming "bigot!" hasn't helped us much, at least not here. In fact, it seems to just make the opposition dig in to their opinion, get angry, and wholly distract us all from the issue as we all debate whether the label "bigot" is justified.On the other side, it's important that we all look at the reasons for our opinions. None of them truly exist in a vacuum - even "gut feelings" have a reason behind them. It can be a religious conviction that homosexuality is abhorrent before God, or it can be a simple discomfort from something that you're totally unfamiliar with and unable to empathize with. Either way, it's easy to construct rational arguments that should, in a rational person willing to think rather than feel and who wants everyone's personal rights to be equally respected even when we disagree with each other, change their opinions on what should actually be allowed in the law.Quite frankly, I don't care if a pair of gay men kissing makes some people squeemish. I'm dead certain that a lot of the things I do in my daily life or my opinions and beliefs make some people uncomfortable. What is important is that we win the argument that even those things that make you uncomfortable need to be protected under the law unless a real, objective reason can be given for the state to have an interest in disallowing it.Just like the only speech that actually requires the First Amendment's protection is speech that many or most consider distasteful, the only marriages (and opinions, and beliefs, and religions, and sexual orientations, and national origins, etc) that really needprotecting are the ones that many or most consider distasteful.iano, surely you can see that children will not suffer any more than they currently do should gay marriage be allowed nation-wide. Surely you can see that your argument requires that we disallow marriage for a large number of heterosexual couples in order to remain consistent. Surely you can see that we cannot let the law reflect only the opinions and beliefs of the majority at the expense of the minority (barring a real, objective reason for the state to have an interest in doing so) and still call ourselves a free society.Why should we, using the law, prevent people from choosing for themselves who they wish to marry? What business is it of ours? Did you have to ask my permission to get married? Should you have to? Should your intention or ability to have/adopt/raise children give me the right to disallow your freedom to choose your own spouse?I don't believe that I have any right to tell you who you can or cannot marry, so long as the person is a consenting adult who is also able to make the same free choice. I don't think you should ever have to ask anyone's permission to choose who to commit to at that level. I don't think that whether you can/cannot/want to /do not want to have children gives me the right to tell you you cannot marry the person you love. I disagree with you on many things, but I would wholeheartedly defend your ability to hold those opinions and live your life according to the dictates of your own conscience, and not mine or anyone else's, so long as you aren't infringing upon anyone else's ability to do the same. I think you should be able to mutually choose your own spouse based on who you love and want to commit to.If you feel the same way about me, why would you feel differently about a gay couple? If they honestly and truly love each other just as much as any given heterosexual married couple, shouldn't they be afforded the same ability under the law to make that commitment to each other? Shouldn't they be allowed to follow the dictates of their conscience? If we call ourselves a fee society, and respect freedom, don;t we have an obligation to allow people to make choices that are different from those we personally would make, so long as we cannot quantify an objective harm that would be caused by such a choice?Edited by Rahvin, : No reason given.

Hi iano,First, I'd like to direct you to message 145, where I address some of these issues in a more calm manner. And yet, iano, this is absurd. Right now gay couples have chilren. One of the parents (and by that I mean one of the individuals who loves, cares for, and provides for the child in every way identical to a biological parent or any other adoptive parent) is simply not allowed to adopt the child he/she is raising as his/her own.That means, despite having an identical place in the child's life to a biological or any other adoptive parent, the gay parent is not provided the same rights, such as being able to visit their own child in teh hospital.Also, your reasoning is inconsistently applied. Heterosexual couple are allowed right now to adopt. When I was married, I would have been able to adopt my stepdaughters. If the state has an interest in legally preventing or discouraging such things as signle parents marring someone other than the biological parent of the child, you'll have to outlaw a huge amount of the marriages that exist between heterosexuals today.This is the problem, iano. "Protect the children" doesn't work as an argument for gay marriage for the reasons I outlined previously. You're targeting homosexual marriages exclusively for problems that exist within heterosexual marriages as well.Further, the "rights" you claim children to have regarding their biological parents exist only within your own mind. Children have no such legal right. It doesn't exist. It's perfectly legal to have a child and give it up for adoption, no strings attached. Hell, here in CA, you can even drop off a newborn completely anonymously at a hospital, fire station, or police department. It's also perfectly legal for any heterosexual married couple to adopt a child, or to have one spouse adopt the biological child of the other. Sperm donation allows married couples and even individuals to have "their own" children even though they aren't all necessarily biologically related.Your argument of children's rights builds from a false premise. You are projecting what you may well personally believe ought to be the case onto what actually is the case, which is fallacious.The rights of children should be (and in fact are) handled by laws separate from those that control who may or may not be married. The state has determined that it has an interest in protecting children who can be shown to be living in sufficiently poor conditions, including households of abuse, insufficient sanitation or food to support a child, etc. When the state determines that its interest overrides the parental right to raise their children, the children are removed from the household for their protection. If you would really like to see children have the right to be with their biological parents, this is where you should be arguing, so that your reasoning applies to everyone and does not only single out gay couples.So let's get back to the real topic then: gay marriage. Your side discussion of children's rights exists solely to justify your opposition to allowing gays to marry, which is the actual topic of this thread. This is your second basic premise that comes up as false. This does not describe marriage. Marriage is not now nor has ever been legally a framework intended for the raising of children. It carries some rights that apply to children that may (or may not) result from such a union, but marriage in no way means that a newly married couple has any intention of reproducing.Sterile couples can get married. Elderly couples can get married. Couples who have no intention of having children can get married. Child molesters and rapists can get married. Clearly, marriage is not in any way about children.You are, in fact, simply describing sex. That's all. Nothing more or less - the mechanism by which people get together and produce children is sex, not marriage. This is proven indisputably by the fact that it's perfectly legal to have a child and even raise it to adulthood outside of wedlock. Both heterosexual and homosexual couples do this even today. Marriage is a different animal altogether. Marriage is a legal contract between consenting adults (in some states limited by gender, in others not) that confers special rights, privileges, and obligations to the signatories. Culturally, marriage is a deep commitment of love and respect, an outward sign of a couple's desire to spend the rest of their lives together. The state has held time and again that marriage is facilitated by the state, but the right of choice of whom to marry is wholly left up to the individuals and does not in any way rest with the state. See Loving v. Virginia. Children don't have anything to do with whether the state allows a couple to marry or not.So then, we can see that your argument is compltely false. Children do not have the rights that you believe they should have, and society would need to make drastic changes in order to give them those rights.Your definition of marriage as a framework for raising children is also false legally, because children have nothing to do with whether a couple is allowed to marry.But let me refer again to my statements in message 145:

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I don't believe that I have any right to tell you who you can or cannot marry, so long as the person is a consenting adult who is also able to make the same free choice. I don't think you should ever have to ask anyone's permission to choose who to commit to at that level. I don't think that whether you can/cannot/want to /do not want to have children gives me the right to tell you you cannot marry the person you love. I disagree with you on many things, but I would wholeheartedly defend your ability to hold those opinions and live your life according to the dictates of your own conscience, and not mine or anyone else's, so long as you aren't infringing upon anyone else's ability to do the same. I think you should be able to mutually choose your own spouse based on who you love and want to commit to.

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If you feel the same way about me, why would you feel differently about a gay couple? If they honestly and truly love each other just as much as any given heterosexual married couple, shouldn't they be afforded the same ability under the law to make that commitment to each other? Shouldn't they be allowed to follow the dictates of their conscience? If we call ourselves a fee society, and respect freedom, don;t we have an obligation to allow people to make choices that are different from those we personally would make, so long as we cannot quantify an objective harm that would be caused by such a choice?

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We consider ourselves to be a free society. Freedom means that people must be allowed to make different choices and hold different values under the law. This is why we protect speech, keep the government out of religious affairs, and mandate that everyone be treated equally under the law. I am allowed to marry the person of my choice, meaning I can marry a Muslim, a Christian, an Asian, a Caucasian, an African-American, a Hispanic, a Catholic, a Scientologist, a chemical engineer, a Satanist, a death metal singer, a classical violinist, a PETA member, or absolutely anyone else regardless of whether you or any other member of society approves of my marriage. I don't need to ask permission from anyone except my chosen spouse.I think everyone deserves the right of self-determination. Our society is built on that as its basic foundation. We are free to be whoever and whatever our conscience dictates, and we are limited only when our choices would have too much of a negative influence on others. The approval of my neighbors is a social nicety, not a legal mandate.And the only time that self-determination needs protection is when large segments of the populace disapprove of a given choice. This happened with interracial marriage not long ago. Some people choose to marry people of a different race, and just 50 years ago (and still in many places) a large percentage of society disapproved. This was the test - are we a free society? Can we actually make choices that are different from those our neighbors would make, and still be allowed to live in peace according to the dictates of our conscience?At first the answer was "no." Miscegenation laws were omnipresent - it was impossible for any non-white to marry a white person, regardless of any level of love, commitment, or anything else.Thankfully, the Supreme Court unanimously decided that the Constitution does protect that right. Just because many people don't approve of a choice you make does not give them the right to treat you differently under the law.According to Loving v. Virginia, the right to choose one's partner in marriage rests solely with the individual, and cannot be abridged by the state.The reason, as I said, is simple - we are a free society. Freedom, at its core, is simply the ability to make choices that are different from the choices others make. Disallowing gay marriage takes away the freedom to choose who we can marry, and instead forces us to limit those choices to what our neighbors find acceptable. Even a totalitarian state can feel "free" if our personal values match closely enough the rules that are dictated to us...but it's not free when you couldn't make a different choice if you wanted to.I would never tell you who you can or cannot marry. That choice is (and should be) entirely up to you and your partner. Just like your decision of what religion to follow, how many children to have, and all of the other freedoms that you have. Shouldn't homosexuals have the same freedom of choice, even if some of their choices may be ones that you or I would disapprove of?

Indeed. Yet McDonalds is not the State.Private organizations are able to discriminate. For instance, the Boy Scouts are able to discriminate legally against homosexuals and non-Christians, as well as on the basis of gender. The KKK is not forced to allow minorities to join.The State has to follow different rules. More strict rules. Because the State carries the force of law, while private organizations do not. The only caveat is that private organizations receiving public funds are subject to the stricter laws, not under penalty of law, but simply because the State is not permitted to fund organizations that discriminate according to the protected classes of religion, race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, or the perception of any the same.A Catholic Church does not need to perform a wedding ceremony for a Jewish couple, or an Atheist couple, or a Mormon couple. But the State does need to issue the marriage certificate for all of those couples. The private religious institution is legally able to discriminate on religious grounds, but the State is not permitted to do so.