Landmark gay marriage trial starts today in California

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No, I'll say it again: The reason that marriage has been confined to heterosexuals for all of history across all cultures can only be because men and women together make babies.

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I don't think your guesses about the purpose of marriage in other cultures is really relevant. Surely the primary point must be the nature of marriage in the culture considering the question.

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Whether some for particular reasons can't make babies is irrelevant.

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Yes, the potential to have children is NOT a relevant factor in modern culture.

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You are all trying to make something against marriage of heterosexuals out of mere incidentals, individual conditions that prevent fertility.

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Well that's what you said. You never pointed to some vague abstract principle with little relevance to modern views of marriage. You made fertility the point clear and simple (and I'll note that fertility IS a major point when production of children is the primary purpose of marriage - the fact that it isn't a legal requirement in modern societies is just one more reason to consider it unimportant to the current debate).

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But I'll say it again: the reason for marriage being for heterosexuals is obviously that they fit together in such a way that makes procreation possible

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THat's not how I'd put it. But the question remains, how is this relevant to the debate ? History and other cultures are all very well but how do they apply ? We need a very solid reason for perpetuating an injustice and the idea that we should blindly copy rules from the past without understanding if they are even relevant to the current situation is hardly thatl.

Well where is it? Genesis 2:24 doesn't say that polygamy is sinful. The polygamy of the patriarchs isn't condemned. Surely the actual message of Genesis is to condone polygamy, not condemn it.

A proposed ballot measure has been struck down in California.

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Perhaps you don't remember when this argument was supposedly all about the economic benefits of marriage, which should be well enough dealt with by a legal union that aimed to guarantee such benefits

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It is about the secular, legal benefits of marriage because that is all that the law can deal with. I guess that you misunderstood RAZD's comment which is a reference to racial segregation - and we know how "equal" that was. Just as we know that at least some of the opponents of gay marriage will use the difference to deny gays the benefits if they are given a separate status from marriage.

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Now we're told no, it's all about dignity, being treated like heterosexuals. It never was about just benefits. Or for that matter even about dignity

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No, it's being pointed out that your preferred approach is fraught with difficulties, which the Supreme Court has dealt with at a stroke. New legislation would be needed, including many adjustments to existing legislation, with the opposition taking every opportunity to delay it or wreck it or to deny the benefits you say that you are prepared to accept.If your only complaint is that you don't like gay unions being called marriages then you don't really have much of an objection. Your personal likes and dislikes are simply not that important, compared to the very real benefits. They should not even be that important to you, never mind anyone else.

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It's always been about destroying the institution of marriage and you can find gay activists saying that in so many words.

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It would be an incredibly stupid way of destroying marriage. There are even ways in which it strengthens marriage.

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Curiously you are nuts and a half to think anybody meant it would happen right away. Give it a generation

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Of course there is no sensible reason to think that it will happen at all.And it seems that one lesbian activist wants to change the legalities further to reflect polyamorous relationships. As do some straights. Hardly a sign that the struggle for gay marriage is about destroying it. The views of one person I've never heard of before just aren't that significant.

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Blacks find the comparison offensive and so do I.

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Only the bigots are offended.

I'd point out that claims to ownership of the concept are not only questionable, but irrelevant. In so far as marriage is a matter of law it is regulated by law, and in the U.S. - since the Bill of Rights at the very least - that is the province of a secular government that is supposed to not give special status to any religion. The legal arguments must take precedence over religious belief. Religious organisations can restrict the weddings that they offer as they will, which is the only power that they should have.Once you get to the situation where your legal rights can be denied simply because someone else has a religious objection to them, you do not have a free or fair society.

The earliest origins of marriage are surely lost in the past and equally surely bedevilled with ambiguities and uncertainties. What is the minimum that counts as a state? What is the minimum that counts as marriage?But we can say that the Christian church did not originate marriage (and neither did Judaism) and that the Christian church took it over from the civil authorities - in some places. Even if you could somehow show that marriage originated as a religious rite (an undoubtedly pagan rite, at that) it would really have very little relevance to the current situation nor would it give Christianity any claim to control marriage.

Yes, it is likely that early marriage was more like a contractual arrangement - without a written contract, of course. Whether that is the earliest form, we can't know. Written documents are just too recent.

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But there's something wrong with any idea that Christians think we "control" marriage

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Except that you "Christians" do think that your idea of marriage is the only correct one. Which is silly.

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The Christian objection to the SCOTUS ruling has nothing to do with the history of marriage as such, but to its redefinition from the ancient understanding that it unites a man and a woman, which corresponds to God's ordinance as described in the Bible

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Which assumes that "Christian" ideas of marriage should take precedence over the Constitution on what is, after all a civil matter.

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You all treat it as no big deal but a Bible believer is pushed into a corner by this ruling

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Only because they take a view that their religious beliefs should control marriage. If they accepted that it is just a civil matter where their religion has no involvement they would have no problem.

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It would have been nice if the SCOTUS had made an effort to protect Christians from this situation while extending marriage benefits to gays, but although it seems that should have been possible it also seems they didn't care to protect us.

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By which you mean that it would be "nice" if SCOTUS sabotaged their own ruling in the name of "Christian" tyranny. Yuck.Edited by PaulK, : Damn auto"correct". Can't handle apostrophes.Edited by PaulK, : some correction after a hasty misreading

They have not much in the way of evidence or even good arguments. Tradition and historical practices really can't override the Constitution, or justify the real injustices that even Faith admits to.I am not convinced that the idea of expanding special privileges for religion will go very far. Certainly there are obvious problems. The last case of a clerk refusing to marry an interracial couple was surprisingly recent. And what happens when Muslims start to take advantage? Or even Satanists?

Of course I was commenting on the strength of the opposing case. Not , sadly, on their chances of winning.