A sad day for the good people of Mass. May
they wake from their apathy.

Let's hope for riots in southie.

Sorry should have said...

Let's pray for candlelight vigils in southie.

A sad day for bigots.

Since this ruling and the Defense of Marriage Act are diametrically opposed to each other, sooner or later this is going to go to the Supreme Court, which means that any potential judicial nominee's position on gay marriage will be right up there as an issue with abortion in the very near future.

While abortion has a large enough constituency to allow the Democrats to fillibuster Bush's nominees successfully, it's tough to see what they're going to do when this issue enters the spotlight (well, it's tough to see what any Democratic Senator not from the northeast or California is going to do, and even out there, given the state's growing Mexican-American and increasingly Catholic population, Boxer and Feinstein are going to have problems finessing the issue).

A gleeful day for those that want to Destroy
every last vestige of American morality. For
people like you every time a society tries to
draw a moral line in the sand it's called "bigotry". Four out of touch judges decide
they want to re-engineer society and it's "progress". Very predictable.

Do what my tame judges tell you to do, and don't even dare to criticize what I believe in, or you prove yourself a bigot.

That's what passes for enlightened discourse from the Left these days. What a bunch of lousy winners.

But remember Raoul, they may have the American judiciary wrapped up but conservatives have talk radio.

Jeff-

You can do better than that!

I have long felt gay people should be allowed to be married and that those who provide coverage (life, health insurance particularly) should be allowed to demand a certificate of marriage in order for people to share benefits.

After 9/11 there was quite a bit of stink about domestic partners not being given benefits. I was seeing another slippery slope in progress where undocumented claims would have to go through because the politically correct public and legislature demanded it. This would be very damaging to the health care benefit system in this country.

Gay people can already adopt because single people can. In Manhattan, it's not too difficult for a successful male couple to hire a surrogate to give them a child should they want one badly enough. Of course, lesbian couples need only go to a sperm bank.

It does seem that there are some priviledges that go along with being married and it seems wrong to deny those priviledges to tax-paying citizens.

Now, I understand that we're looking at opening the door now to practitioners of polygamy and incest as possible priviledge-denied tax-payers, but it may not come to that because of the obvious legal issues involved.

Who's to say the slippery slope wasn't on the other side? When you deny rights to one group because they're gay, what's to stop you from denying rights to another group because they're recovering alcoholics or something like that.

Not to say that I think everyone who is against same-sex marriage is a bigot. I know plenty of people in this world who are opposed and who are severly concerned about this kind of change. No one has yet presented the argument to change my mind though.

Not even here, where the discourse and reason are of the highest calibur.

NKR,

you wrote :

"...but it may not come to that because of the obvious legal issues involved"

This assumes that there are still such things
as obvious legal issues. Don't underestimate
how out of the realm of mainstream thought this
ruling is.

you also wrote...

"what's to stop you from denying rights to another group"

reasonable point except the weight of history
and precedent was on the side of the status quo
and the "right" is simply not recognized by
the majority of the populus or their representatives (this case the mass legislature).

Obviously many will try and link this to the broader civil rights movement but I think every
"right" really must be considered separately. It
would be feable logic to chalk it up to the simple
march of "progress".

Interestingly, Eugene Volokh is saying that the the anti-ERA folks back in the 1970s forecast events correctly, despite being widely scorned at the time as scare-mongerers:

http://volokh.com/2003_11_16_volokh_archive.html#106917664607446885

Tom:

Like it or not, civil marriage is a secular institution, with significant associated material benefits. Religious marriage is another kettle of fish, altogether.

The MASC decision dealt only with civil marriage, and the civil benefits that accrue from conforming to behavorial modes consistent with civil marriage in MA. None of them, BTW, deals with biological details.

That you wish to deny access to a civil, secular, institution based on conduct that has no impact on you, to a group of people God has determined can be no other way strikes me as sheer bigotry.

I haven't seen even one argument that arises to any level of reasoning beyond hysteria regarding the damage same-sex marriage will do to your marriage, or OJs, or mine.

Do you think that if the MASC decision became the law of the land tomorrow, that the publisher of Brides magazine would just pack it in?

30 years ago most religionists felt miscegenation to be against God's law, and favored laws against interracial marriage. Any of you care to defend that against charges of bigotry?

It's worth remembering that there was a referendum a few years ago making an amendment to the Massachusetts constitution to define marriage as it has been traditionally understood (2 people, 2 genders, 1 species...). The state constitution requires that such an initiative petition must be acted upon by the legislature (Article XLVIII). The legislature ignored its constitutional responsibility and adjourned without taking action. The state supreme judicial court -- the same one we heard from today -- found that they had no standing to make the legislature do its duty.

We can only hope they find the law of gravity unconstitutional and take a flying leap off the Hancock tower.

30 years ago most religionists felt miscegenation to be against God's law, and favored laws against interracial marriage. Any of you care to defend that against charges of bigotry?

I won't defend it, but I doubt "most" religious people believed their oppossition to interacial marriage was based on divine law.

"Religionists"?

That is to say, of those who opposed it, I think the numbers who thought religion mandated it were a minority, if a noisy one.

Jeff:

"I haven't seen even one argument that arises to any level of reasoning beyond hysteria regarding the damage same-sex marriage will do to your marriage, or OJs, or mine."

Sure you have, many times. They have been posted here often. But, like Harry, you ignore such arguments and then insist you have never heard them.

A)Marriage exists for the purpose of protecting children and those who care for them. To base marriage on love, self-fulfillment or the shared social security benefits of adults is an outrageous interference by government in private lives, as least in a free society;

B)Few in the (male) gay community are really that interested in marriage, which is much more about duty than rights. They are interested in abstract equality, sticking it to the majority and the destruction of the traditional family. As for benefits, why should the law provide for special benefits for any two (or more) adults on the mere basis that they choose to live together? You know, some singles are going to get smart soon and bring a constitutional challenge to the effect that they should be allowed to share benefits with their pals across town because otherwise they are being discriminated against on the basis of marital status. So let's everybody share all the benefits! Then nobody is discriminated against.

C)Children do better with a mother and a father. Got it? Sophisticated progressives pretend children are infinitely malleable and can adapt to whatever arrangements suit the adults. They will go to incredible heights of psychobabble to hide their selfishness. Children are not so malleable (and what kind of a society insists on putting that to the test?), although because such things are often not scientifically measurable, they are not accepted by people like you even though they are staring you in the face. But heck, who cares about kids when we have some new exciting equality rights to fight for;

D) Marriage with children is not easy, no matter how much star-struck lovers may think. Family is a blessing and joy, but the material, social and financial burden and duties are great and apparently beyond the capacities of more and more couples. If you want a society with healthy families and healthy children, you had better honour the arrangement, support it financially and find a way to express the collective gratitude for a job well done. If you are handing out the status and the benefits to any two adults in heat, don't expect married couples to stay the course except as a matter of convenience. They won't do it on romance alone. It doesn't usually last fifty years. And they won't do it just for the kids, as we have learned over the past forty years.

E) Have you heard ONE gay activist seriously express any worry, concern or even attention to the issue of children? Of course not, because they don't give a damn.

There, Jeff. My hysterical bigotry for today.

Jeff, if you deny the right of citizens of
a democratic Republic to have any moral component
to its laws then there is really no arguing
the point.

Of course I left Mass five years
ago but those who are small children today
and those yet to be born in the state will grow up with a further debased view of marriage (not that rampant divorce hasn't already done enough).

I am not surprised that the miscegination issue
was brought up. Ultimately that fits nicely into
the "march of progress" view of history that will
be used as an umbrella for societal acceptance
of numerous formerly unconscionable things.

Marriage is an institution designed to bond a man and woman together so that they can raise the next generation of humanity. Once you strip all the mythology about love or God, that's it. That's its sociological function, and it's one based on biology - men and women procreate.

The Andrew Sullivans of the world can raise all sorts of issues about infertile couples or divorces or people being crappy parents among many others, but it does not obscure that marriage is based on sexual reproduction and the need to raise children.

Other items concerned with marriage - divorce, prohibiting consanguinity (cousin marriage), mixed race marriages - might be in the realm of being arbitrary (like deciding if we drive on the left vs the right hand side of the road), but that does not include gay marriage.

Unlike those other criteria, gay marriage goes directly against the definition of marriage and changes it into something completely different.

If marriage is not based on simple biology, what is it based on?

Just sex? Then why not allow polygymy or polyandry? Isn't limiting marriage partners to two just as "arbitrary" as stating they must be of different gender?

Just love and the desire to raise a family? Then why not allow roommates or siblings to "marry" so they can have tax benefits for their household?

But we would say "no." Being brother and sister may make them family, but it does not make them husband and wife. Same with roommates or friends, they might be close but they're not considered family.

The definition of marriage is the union of a man and a woman. To say otherwise is to engage in Orwellian newspeak.

As the headline says - wheeee! In 1973, the nation was not immediately aware of the gravity (and the reach) of Roe v. Wade. But now, things are different.

Setting the specific issue aside for a moment, the judicial branch has positioned itself for a major check & balance, but only if the 'majority' is not initimidated or falsely shamed or hectored into silence.

Also, tossing out the miscegenation argument is a fool's proposition: it is a racist straw man, and we all know that many white loudmouths were certainly not opposed to sneaking off across the tracks from time to time. Even a former President.

The heart of the matter is that the judiciary has now instructed the state (and, by extension, the church) what marriage is. How much longer will it be before the word 'parent' receives the same treatment (after all, it takes a village.....). And the word 'property', and the word 'inheritance', and so on. Are these bigoted questions, Jeff? I think not.

Yeah, but, heterosexuals and homosexuals must be treated as equals or uh.. it's not fair?

That's about it, the case for homsexual marriage, as far as I can tell. Absolute equality as some kind of abstract good is to be attained regardless of historical purpose of marriage and its importance in raising children and aside from the biological realities and complimentary natures of men and women. So what if it has never naturally arisen and been sustained by human society. We must have complete and total equality! (sorry for the hysteria)

In case I haven't made this clear, Jeff, I'm a firm believer in the government's power, and in particular the state governments' power, to be bigoted. The only exception I'd recognize is race.

David -

Re the slippery slope, it's worth noting that nearly every legal change cited as greasing the slope was originated by the judiciary, not lawmakers. Griswold v. Connecticut prohibited laws against contraception, thereby helping to remove the connection in law between marriage, sex, and procreation. Thus we have the same actors greasing the slope and then insisting we must slide all the way down it.

PJ -

again I would refer you to Volokh's reexamination of the anti-ERA slippery-slope arguments first promulgated by conservatives in the 70's (in my first post above). Scarily accurate.

Jeff Guinn wrote:

"30 years ago most religionists felt miscegenation to be against God's law, and favored laws against interracial marriage. Any of you care to defend that against charges of bigotry?" (emphasis added)

By lying to make a point, Mr. Guinn discredits his remarks. Considering that "religionists" were at the heart of the civil rights movement -- and the abolition movement a century before -- I cannot help but think that Mr. Guinn is completely disconnected from reality.

So many juicy targets, so little time.

First, the MASC had to decide the issue based on the laws at hand. If Massachusetts forgot to limit marriage to man-woman, it isn't the court's fault. And to conclude other than they did would be playing a little fast and loose with the law, wouldn't it? Ordinarily, most of you here find that a bad thing in judges. Until your ox gets gored, that is.

The reason I brought up miscegenation was the last time this issue arose, I learned, courtesy of OJ, that some 90% of religionists (adherents to some organized religion) opposed same-sex marriage, therefore it must be wrong. Well, 30 or so years ago that same number was true with respect to interracial marriage. If that reasoning applies now, it applies then. I was just pre-empting the argument.

Peter:

In the US, civil marriage brings along with it significant financial and legal bennies that have not the first thing to do with begetting and raising children. Yet you would insist that people who desire to marry, but can't, subsidize these benefits. Why?

And your argument on outrageous government interference is simply bizarre, or at least hypocritical. It is interference if applied to you, but OK if applied to those whose conduct you disapprove, even if that conduct has no effect upon you whatsoever.

And, oddly, you are against same-sex marriage because of the children, the single thing they are least likely to have. And if you use that reasoning, you better apply it equally: if normal couples can't/won't have children, then marriage should be barred to them also. Goose, gander.

J.H.

I don't deny that the citizens of Mass should have a moral component to their laws. As long as it is moral. All of you here desperately need to take on board that sexual orientation is no more a matter of choice than eye color. Can any of you imagine yourself homosexual? Under any circumstances? Well, me neither. These sexual and emotional drives these poor people have are every bit as strong as yours. Sadly, nature/God saw fit to firmly point them in the wrong direction. Why that is cause to deny them the comfort of marriage is way beyond me.

So the question you need to ask yourselves is: how moral is it to deprive a group of people the same sort of relationship you so deeply desire for yourselves because they suffer from a birth defect?

Their homosexuality is a matter utterly without moral component--they simply have no more choice in the matter than you do. If you have a problem with that, you need to take it up with God. He made them that way.

Chris:
Your reasoning isn't very clear. On the one hand, marriage is based on having children, yet you are against polygamy. Additionally, the issues you raise exist independently of same-sex marriage, and therefore don't illuminate the discussion at all.

Tom
Equality before the law. What a horrid concept.

David:
How very discerning of you.

PJ:
Do you find the state is better positioned to make your contraceptive choices than you are? That is a very collectivist position for a conservative to take.

If this sounds a bit rushed, it is. I have about enough time to bat this out as fast as my fingers can go. So here are a couple bottom line thoughts:

My miscegenation argument is more germaine than it might appear at first glance (well, I think so, anyway). People can't help their race, and very significant majorities were against interracial marriage at the time, and used religious arguments to buttress their position. Some Bible Belt states even enshrined laws prohibiting interracial marriages in their constitutions. Significant majorities were flagrantly wrong then. They just might be now.

IMHO, many of you here utterly fail to comprehend what life would be like in their shoes. You take as moral an orientation over which they have no control. And, based on that, you wish to deny them the same emotional comfort you yourselves so value, never mind being quite happy to have them subsidize--in the truest sense of the word--marriages civil benefits. Heck, if you are going to prevent them marrying, the least you could do is let them off the financial hook (inheritance taxes, social security survivor benefits come to mind)

If you all were to promote laws prohibiting serial marriage, or remarriage to philanderers, or marriage to schizophrenics, murderers, Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor, the sterile, then your arguments would have far more internal consistency. But you don't. And those categories bring far more disrepute to the institution of marriage--and damage more children--than same-sex marriages could ever hope to.

I find your lack of charity and your profound lack of empathy appalling. About the afterlife, none of us can say. But in the here and now, anything that makes people's lives more miserable than they have to be is, to me, anyway, immoral.

And directly contravenes their ability to pursue their own happiness.

I think this thread is getting so long it should be fought in a different medium than the comments section, but hey, it's what we have.

First, in response to Jeff's comment on polygamy. Yes, I'm against polygamy. Procreation only needs one man and woman, not several. As far as I can tell, having multiple wives is almost always solely a function of showing STATUS, not in creating a family. Polygamy offers little benefit to society, if any, compared to traditional marriage.

In the preceding paragraph, it appears to me that Jeff's main assertion is that marriage is basically a function of tax favortism and the financial advantages it bestows. If I am wrong in this I apologize, but that's what it appears to me.

In that case, it's all about the money. If heterosexuals get a tax advantage than so should homosexuals. And on that basis, it seems the issue is mainly one of equal rights.

However, I disagree. What we have is two different conceptions of marriage.

One is based on biology and the consequent sociology.

The second is based on consideration of tax advantages.

The first clearly does not allow for gay marriage.

The second, because the institution of marriage is arbitrary, does allow.

However, if the second is right, then how do we determine what marriage is? If heterosexual unions are an arbitrary definition, then how is any other definition not arbitrary? For example, if Jeff is in favor of homosexual unions, then is he in favor of polygamy and polyandry? If he is not, then how can he deny polygamous marriages based on criteria he uses for gay marriages? If marriage is simply a vehicle by the govt to bestow tax advantages on "favored" groups, why does the issue of sex have to enter at all? Why can't brothers and sisters "marry" to secure those advantages? Why can't friends, roommates, or anyone else?

Once you take away the biological basis of marriage, you don't have it.

The issues Jeff brought up against this also need to be considered. What about couples who can't or won't bear children? Why should non-married people subsidize married people?

For the first I would argue that the biological basis of marriage is a sufficient reason alone. Fact of reproduction (the presence of children) does not. Any social or governmental methods of policing such a law are to horrendous to contemplate. People don't immediately have babies after marriage because of financial issues, time constraints, or bad luck. How would a policy of "baby inspection" take account of that? It can't, so we don't have one.

This "baby police" response comes up a lot, especially in the writings of Andrew Sullivan. I consider this objection to be superficial - an attempt to conceal the biological basis of marriage. If biology does not form the basis of marriage, I'd like to see what advocates of gay marriage think is the basis. Is it only the govt created tax advantage?

And as for the issue of why married couples should be subsidized. It's because the institution of marriage is a social good. Marriage is the foundation of family and raises the next generation. The continution of the species/country/whathaveyou is a social good. Of paramount value is that insures men that the children of their mate is actually their own, and not someone else's. It establishes the father's role in the family and enforces him to raise his children.

We could debate the social utility of having the next generation, but I assume it's too self evident to press the point.

Single men and women and homosexuals cannot give society this benefit. The raising of children is an arduous and expensive process that singles and homosexuals don't have. However, they will enjoy those benefits when these children enter the work force, pay the taxes for their Social Security and Medicare, and enter the workforce to provide them with goods and services after they retire.

I admit that my definition will provoke questions concerning the impact of divorce, bad parenting, and many others. I think those debates are valid, but independent of this.

The question is whether marriage has a real - not arbitrary - basis, specifically a biological one. Or whether it is an arbitrary construct of government.

Despite David's experience clerking, the behavior of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to ignore law, evidence, human rights, equity, reason and sense in the Amirualt cases leads me to read their decision as satire.

Surely they cannot expect anyone to take them seriously?

I have zero interest in whether same-sex couples can or cannot marry. I have attended two gay marriages, performed by ministers. If they want to be married, nobody's stopping them anywhere now.

But I am opposed to legal marriage of same-sex couples, if that means they can legally bring children into the world without a father or a mother.

I care about children in ways I do not care about adults. Every child is entitled to a father and a mother -- not 2 mommies like Jessica, or any other parlay -- and when it doesn't happen that way, we think it a tragedy.

Any law that generates additional tragedies must be a bad law.

Of course, people do it all the time, but there ought to be a difference between what individuals do and what governments do.

As for the side issue of God's will and miscegenation laws, I grew up among them, and I am prepared to swear on a stack of Bibles that, yes, indeed, 100% of miscegenation theory was based on Christian interpretations of the Bible.

Harry:

You will forgive us, I hope, if we don't see your oath on a stack of Bibles as overly persuasive.

Which verses were those confused Christians misinterpreting? And what miscegenation laws existed before the 18th or even 19th century? Those Christians sure were slow on this one, eh?

Bravo on the kids, though.

Jeff --

I'm going to give you the benefit of taking your arguments as seriously as possible, given your basic decency. I hope you'll do me the same kindness.

To start off, you misunderstand the SJC's decision. It does not hold that "Massachusetts forgot to limit marriage to man-woman." Rather, Chief Justice Marshall rejects that argument and holds that the word "marriage" is not ambiguous but inherently means the union of one man and one woman. That is what the legislature meant and that is how it was understood. Implementation of that understanding, however, was held to run afoul of the state constitution.

I understand the miscegenation argument, but it's only powerful to those who favor same-sex marriage. The rest of us feel that it is perfectly obvious that a mixed race marriage is a marriage, while a same-sex marriage isn't. Among other things, the bar on miscegenation was meant to promote segregation. The bar on same-sex marriage is meant to promote marriage. Frankly, I'd like to see your source for claiming that 90% of the religious supported anti-miscegenation laws as a matter of religious doctrine.

Your point about the financial and legal benefits given to married couples is also misplaced. We give those benefits to married couples in order to promote marriage. Its not unfair not to give them to the unmarried, its the whole point. We also give benefits to home owners to promote home ownership. That's not, in any sensible meaning of the word, unfair to renters. We want them to own. We give tax breaks for investment in order to promote investment. That's not unfair to laborers. The theory behind all these benefits is that the nation as a whole -- including those not eligible for the benefits -- is better off if the favored behavior is wide-spread. That is, single people are better off living in a nation with a widespread marriage culture that they would be otherwise, even given that they would not be taxed for subsidies for which they are not eligible.

As for children, I think that ship has sailed. As the court found, we have before now ended the connection between marriage and childbearing.
Your argument about morality seems odd. You have argued before that one problem with religion is that the religious have no basis to prefer their religion over any other, since all are equally valid (or invalid). Now, however, I find that your idea of morality is absolute, though apparently I've got to go ask you every time I need moral guidance, as there is no independent moral source.

I don't understand Tom to be arguing against equality before the law. He's arguing that a prohibition on same-sex marriage does not implicate equal protection. This is a perfectly valid position, even if you disagree with it.
Thank you for your compliment on my discernment. Never say conservatives can't move with the times. Just give us 200 years of controversy and a civil war and we'll find a way to accommodate new ideas.

More seriously, I think that Andrew Sullivan's "conservative" argument for gay marriage -- that it will assimilate homosexuals into a conservative social fabric -- is a powerful argument. If I were the kind of person tempted to play games with the fabric of civilization, I would jump right in with him (well, with his argument). In other words, it is a conservative argument that could only appeal to liberals.

But it, and Judge Greaney's argument, and my distaste for causing pain to the very nice lesbian mothers of my children's' playmates and schoolmates, would lead me to accept, with good grace, a vote by the citizens of Massachusetts allowing same-sex marriage. Those factors would lead me to accept, as legitimate, a vote by the legislature allowing same-sex marriage. On the other hand, I would oppose a judicial fiat like this even if I whole-heartedly supported the policy being imposed upon the people. This is at the very least bad government and is more properly labeled tyranny.

Finally, Jeff, you suggest that we're lousy human beings for not supporting the SJC. There's no argument that can be made to counter that suggestion (AM TOO A GOOD PERSON, AM TOO EMPATHETIC) so I won't even try. But you might want to consider that we're your fellow citizens and, frankly, of those who disagree with you on this, we're the best of the lot.

Jeff:

I note you don't even begin to address the issue of the welfare of children. I guess you are one of those modern types who considers that secondary to the sexual pleasures and tax savings of adults.

Jeff - I don't favor laws restricting contraception, but I don't favor judges being the ones who decide what the laws regarding contraception will be. And I recognize that my libertarian tendencies on this issue may be mistaken; there could be unobvious negative effects to the use of contraception, as the Catholic Church has argued; in which case the regulationists might have a case.

David:

Eloquently put with an admirable tone. But, if you are right that the ship has sailed on the issue of children--and I think you are--aren't we fooling ourselves with talk about how vibrant and resilient American or even North American culture is? Doesn't that leave our whole future beholden to immigrants?

Two hikers are attacked by a bear. One starts to run. The other says, "why run, you can't outrun a bear." The first hiker says, "I don't need to outrun the bear, I just need to outrun you."

The classic conservative platform: "We're the best of a bad lot."

Peter, I didn't bring up the American miscegenation laws.

Of course, some Christians were colorblind. Catholicism, apart from in Ireland, was notable in this respect.

But we are talking about American marriage laws. Justification? "God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve."

If there was ever any other objection in the South to interracial marriages, I never heard it.

Serendipity.

Harry:

Of course you have an historical point, but the South African church was strongly pro-apartheid for years. From which we conclude...? It seems to be your consistent position that Chrisitanity was the source of the racism, rather than that certain Christian churches and communities bought into local racism or anti-semitism and supported them. Big difference. Also, when Christians do admit their mistakes and try to reform, you swarm them with cries of horror that they are trying to change those old absolute truths. And yes, Harry, Christians were prominent in fighting slavery, Jim Crow and Hitler. You know that very well.

But to return to the thread of this post, comparing civil rights with gay marriage is absurd. No gay is denied incidents of citizenship or is barred from housing and job markets. Blacks and whites do not generally pair off to form sexual unions and set up households. There is nothing in biology or theology to justify racism, but plenty in both to suggest marriage should be encouraged and has a purpose beyond self-gratification. The civil rights analogy is a huge fallacy that conservatives waited far too long to challenge head on. Once again, we're just too damn nice for our own good.

David:

As usual, a very thoughtful reply.

I see your point on the definition of marriage, and don't deny it. However, it is also a defendable point of view to determine marriage as a relationship with attendant financial, physical, etc rules that don't have anything to do with the gender of the participants.

Regarding miscegenation, you take as proven that which is far from demonstrated. That is, how does prohibiting same sex marriage promote traditional marriage? Or, taken conversely, how does allowing same-sex marriage inhibit traditional marriage? I have heard it said many times, but never substantiated in any way.

I understand providing benefits to promote marriage. In all the other examples you cite, people supporting the subsidy have the option of enjoying the subsidy. Renters can buy houses. SUV drivers can by hybrid cars, etc. But in this case, one group of people is subsidizing an activity they are prohibited from joining. I don't know if that is absolutely unique, but it certainly doesn't sound fair.

I didn't mean to sound absolute about morality on this, but rather hoped to encourage considering whether assertions about the immorality of homosexuality made sense within a religious context. As long as one concludes with certainty that homosexuality is in fact a choice, then it makes sense. But should it not be so--in essence, concluding they may very well be as inherently and strongly oriented as you are--then, within the religious context, that new information might cast the situation in a new light. So far, I haven't (except for simple denial of innate orientation from OJ) heard anyone take this conundrum on. If homosexuality is innate, then it is part of God's plan. Would God purposefully put people on the planet in order to suffer be ostracized by everyone else? Or is the ostracism itself mistaken?

Peter:
I ran out of time; I didn't mean to ignore the issue of children. I do think the issue, while important, is peripheral to this particular argument. Same-sex couples can already have children. Allowing marriage won't change that any.

PJ:
It seems to me courts are one of the barriers to tyranny of the majority. Those contraception laws were a sectarian imposition. Let the regulationists regulate themselves.

So. I'm still waiting for someone to explain how same-sex marriage will have any effect on the traditional kind. Will it make your marriages less secure? Will it make women any less inclined to marry? Precisely in what way(s) will same sex marriage damage the fabric of civilization?

The only cogent argument I have heard is David's from a couple months back: divorce courts will get busier. But that is really an argument for prohibiting serial marriage period, not same-sex marriage in particular.

Jeff -- Are you seriously asking a Jew "Would God purposefully put people on the planet in order to suffer be ostracized by everyone else?"

Jeff - The laws against contraception were not sectarian impositions. They did not force anyone to worship or to support a particular sect. Some people thought a law against contraceptives would be just and good; there were enough of them to pass the law. Belief in religion may have been correlated with belief in laws against contraception, but there was and is no necessary relation between the two.

Suppose that non-Christians believed people should be able to kill anyone they dislike, and Christians felt no one should be killed without just cause and due process of law. This pattern of support would not make laws against murder sectarian impositions, nor tyranny of the majority against the liberty to kill.

As for the effects of homosexual marriage on heterosexual marriage, it's easy to imagine some negative effects that might occur. First, homosexual relationships are of notoriously short duration, and there's no reason to believe homosexual marriages will be any different; this will surely create pressures for easy divorce and weak alimony/child support, and since all marriages must be "equal", this will impact the law governing heterosexual marriage. Second, as Eugene Volokh's comment, Rick Santorum's speech, and Scalia's opinion in Lawrence v. Texas all note, the logic of the gay marriage ruling would also compel recognition of polygamy; and the temptation to polygamy would be thoroughly destructive of the Judeo-Christian concept of marriage. Undoubtedly there are many other effects which we can't foresee.

David:

I know you like the guy, but the prose sounds to me like somebody who has become seriously unhinged.

Jeff,

The basis of your argument seems to be that noone chooses to be homosexual. I would just say that, if you listen to Howard Stern or any other smut radio jocks, you'll hear of plenty of people who have chosen to play for the other team. So if some people can choose to be homosexual, and it is less moral than choosing to be heterosexual, shouldn't our laws favor the moral position?

Jeff:

"I didn't mean to sound absolute about morality on this, but rather hoped to encourage considering whether assertions about the immorality of homosexuality made sense within a religious context."

And your idea of how to do that is to label all your opponents hypocritical bigots? Besides, as you are a pugnacious unbeliever, isn't it a little rich for you to be trying to lead the faithful in a religious debate. C'mon, you think the whole thing is a dangerous crock, but you now want to facilitate theology seminars? That's like Orrin promoting a debate at Berkely on new approaches to socialism for the 21st century.

If you were simply arguing for acceptance and tolerance or against oppression, you would be on more solid ground. But you are drawing a straight line between innateness (which you take as proven and beyond debate--Jeff, you should be more wary of your religion's absolute truths) and a positive obligation on society to celebrate and treat with absolute legal equality. That one follows the other is not a self-evident truth, so please stop skipping the hard parts of your argument and replacing them with shrieking insults. Obviously you see marriage as a basic human right, open to all and to be defined as indivuals want it to be with children an incidental option of no concern to anyone. That is far from how it was viewed traditionally. But if that is your view, say so. Let us hear you on what marriage is or should be, and also what the state's interest in the institution is or should be. Stop prattling on about putative gay pain and trying to pretend we are in Selma and are just expanding the rules a bit to open our hearts and include a few outcasts.

Your impatient brushing off of children as "peripheral" leaves me breathless and quite depressed. PJ's point about support laws is excellent. If those laws must apply equally to all--gays, working career women, traditional mothers, etc--then the longterm effect will be a watering down. Why should anyone have an entitlement to support based upon cohabitation alone and nothing else? The absurdity will eventually work itself into judicial impatience and exposure for those who are really deserving.

As to other effects on children, I doubt they would mean anything to someone like you who believes we are all hard-wired to be good irrespective of the society we grow up in and who only accepts statistical, scientific proof in human affairs. Seeing as you asked, it has to do with giving children priority, expecting adults to sublimate and sacrifice to ensure they are protected and secure, preserving innocence and postponing their exposure to adult sexuality as long as possible. It goes far beyond the debate on gays, which is why David is probably right that the ship has sailed--without lifeboats.

But, if you convince me that children really are peripheral, or that mainstrean thinking is that the snotty little pests can just damn well adjust to our new enlightened sexual freedoms, then I will concede the debate--marriage has nothing to do with kids and there is no reason to deny gays. Just remember how you voted the next time you read about the effects of 50% broken marriages and millions of kids growing up without parents.

PJ:

The laws against contraception were in fact sectarian impositions--they occurred in predominantly Catholic states, and imposed the Catholic position upon everyone. If that isn't sectarian imposition, then what is? (Never mind being an excellent argument for privacy rights).

Your arguments against homosexuality ring hollow, or at least ring just as loudly against both sex marriage. Most heterosexual relationships pre-marriage are of short duration. Why is there any reason to believe both-sex marriages will be any different? Well, other than that they are. About half the time, anyway. And how is it that allowing different-sex marriage doesn't allow polygamy, a different-sex relationship, but same-sex marriage does? Never mind the temptation to polygamy is only as dangerous as the number of women wiling to participate in it is large.

David:
Your question embodies one of the finest arguments I can think of against organized religion.

Greg:
I don't listen to the smut jocks, so I can only go on what I have read and observed.

Peter:

I was raised Episcopalian, sang in the choir and was an altar boy. As such, I am at least as qualified to raise religious questions as OJ is to criticize Evolution. So, no I don't think it is a little rich.

I do take sexual orientation as innate--that is my personal position. I am entitled to have one aren't I? You are skipping the hard parts of my question: If homosexuality is innate, is it immoral? If it is innate, then is it part of God's plan?

I encourage you to re-read what I wrote. I very clearly did not state children are peripheral; rather, that they don't figure in this particular debate. Same-sex couples can already have children. At the moment, those children may not have parents where the dependent spouse has property rights and is entitled to child support.

PJs point about support laws is far from excellent. Unless you believe that a small portion of three percent of the population can drive them, or that the dependent spouses of same-sex marriages have strikingly different ideas of support and property rights.

Once again, the clock strikes...

You are a great deconstructionalist, Jeff. Nothing relates to anything.

I'm sure you sang beautifully in the choir and gained a keen theological bent as a result. But OJ does not think evolution is a crock. You think religion is. Your retort to David shows a basic misunderstanding of what it even is. "Sorry, Lord, I don't like Your rules and I am too busy to argue with You, so You don't exist."

Jeff:

"If homosexuality is innate, is it immoral? If it is innate, then is it part of God's plan?"

I assume so. But wrong question, as it confuses nature with behaviour and then jumps to legal consequences in the abstract. If some men were born stupid, was that God's plan and should we therefore admit all to university and abolish scholarships? Many men, perhaps most, are born with promiscuous tendencies, so should we stop censuring adultery and encourage them on? What about the heteros who can't find partners? Don't you feel their pain and shouldn't we do something legal to help them---government brothels and gigolos, maybe? I mean, Jeff, if they were born this way we musn't discriminate, right?

Your problem is that once you pronounce a certain characteristic to be "innate", you admit to no objection to simply living out the instinct with loud collective applause. Thus do modern progressives start with soaring rhetoric about freedom and choice and end by simply following the pleasurable nerve-endings. I see more clearly now why evolutionists are so adamant that humans are very closely related to other species.

Jeff -- You seem to believe that if it weren't for the things that divide us, we would all love each other. I believe that if it weren't for the things that divide us, we'd invent new things to divide us.

One of the great accomplishments of the US is that we draw a line around a large and heterogenous group of people and say "us". Not only that, but we let individual members of "them" move across the line and become "us". All of our crises seem to come when one part of us feels that another part of us has unfairly accumulated too much power and is ignoring the legitimate wishes of the powerless. This decision, and many others, in which the deeply felt wishes of a majority of our fellow citizens are ignored by the Courts, threatens to become such a crisis. This ain't a low stakes game.

I very highly doubt that the majority of Americans have "strong" feelings about same-sex marriage, or unions.

When a few court decisions can roil the poll numbers the way that this year's bumper crop of "gay" cases have, it indicates a large undecided, or even apathetic, segment.

Jeff is completely correct.
Despite the wails of despair, nobody has yet produced any strong argument about HOW allowing a few fringe members of society to share the goodies will undercut either our government, our society, or our personal relationships.

Just how many nominally straight men and women are expected to suddenly decide to be gay, if they can now be on their partner's health plan, or inherit their partner's stamp collection ?

pj:

Polygamy would destroy the Judeo-Christian concept of marriage ? How ?
Especially considering that polygamy is part of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

In the Nineteenth century, Mormons practiced polygamy, and you'd be hard pressed to argue that Mormon society was a hotbed of depraved pleasure-seeking.
Not to mention all the other societies that do or did practice polygamy, without falling into ruin.

Great, polygamy here we come. Anybody else got a pet sexual minority that wants to get married? We're taking applications.

Mr. Herdegen: Maybe to you, a male, they have not fallen into ruin, but as a female I'd prefer our society to not so closely resemble the ones in Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc. You'd be hard pressed to convince that women gain under that system.

Michael -- Name a polygamous society that hasn't fallen into ruin.

Peter -- Please, please, please don't use the word "pet" anywhere near this discussion.

Jeff:

Further back in the bowels of this Byzantine debate, you responded to a question from Mr. Cohen with the following:

"I understand providing benefits to promote marriage. In all the other examples you cite, people supporting the subsidy have the option of enjoying the subsidy. Renters can buy houses. SUV drivers can by hybrid cars, etc. But in this case, one group of people is subsidizing an activity they are prohibited from joining. I don't know if that is absolutely unique, but it certainly doesn't sound fair."

It is a plain fact that homosexuals are not prohibited from marriage. They are as free as the rest of us to take a legal wife or husband -- of the opposite sex. Your elision here is revealing because it illustrates how dependent your argument is on the assumed rigid genetic basis of homosexuality: indeed, you compare it elsewhere to a "birth defect."

But this assumption, even if true (which is still in some doubt), leaves your position open to the defects of its logic: namely, that thousands of people are influenced by genetic impulses of a far more sinister sort, yet no one (yet) envisions overturning law, convention, tradition and opinion to content them.

I don't know what country you guys live in.

Peter says homosexuals are not excluded from housing markets. They are where I live, and there is a lobby, primarily Christian, to make it a matter of principle.

As for decoupling contraception laws from Christian religion, that's special pleading.

By the way, Robert Ehrlich, who wrote a fine book called "Eight Crazy Ideas in Science," is out with a new one called "9 Preposterous Propositions."

The first three are is homosexuality innate, is intelligent design a scientific theory and are people getting dumber, all topics that appear frequently here.

Ehrlich's shtick is to evaluate hypotheses that appear more or less fringelike to see whether the evidence is sounder than it might appear without investigation. He then assigns a rating, from 0 to 4 flakes, about his judgment of how sound the evidence is.

Harry:

Got any more info on that housing situation? Seriously, I'd be interested.

Civil marriage is a contract with the attendant rules and obligations. None of those rules and obligations are the least bit dependent upon the presence of children, or the genders of the participants.

So excluding same-sex couples from civil marriage would very likely be unique in American history: a group is excluded from participating in a form of legal contract without regard to their ability to conform to the terms of the contract.

Well, maybe not completely unique. Women don't have to look very far back to see the same thing.

Peter:

If the question of same-sex marriage has no bearing on whether same-sex couples may have children, then the former is not related to the latter. Therefore, bringing it into the debate is raising a question, that no matter how serious it is, simply isn't germain to the debate. (For whatever it is worth, I agree with Harry, and probably everyone else here, that same-sex couples should not have children. But I must admit that is a prejudice unsupported by any evidence of harm to children of same-sex couples. I assume there must be some, but I don't know there is any.)

Your following hypotheticals are all based on the ability of people to meet or exceed the standards of the particular situation--whether scholastic, or adhering to marriage requirements. But with regard to same-sex marriage, you are putting that off limits to a group of people regardless of how well they can adhere to its functional requirements. Using merit based hypotheticals to justify group exclusion is not a coherent argument.

My argument for tolerating this particular innate behavior is based primarily on one thing: it costs you nothing to do so.

David:

So far I have yet to see any persuasive argument (I'm not sure I have even seen an attempt) as to how same-sex marriage in any way threatens other marriages. This looks to me very much like a low stakes game blown completely out of proportion.

Paul:
To suggest gays entering into heterosexual marriage is matter of choice is no more sensible than suggesting you could choose to enter a homosexual one. Can you envision that? Didn't think so.

Harry:
What was Robert Ehrlich's assessment of the "homosexuality is innate" theory? (If negative, I suggest you read "Nature via Nurture" by Matt Ridley for a contrasting conclusion).
to conform to the terms of the contract.

Well, maybe not completely unique. Women don't have to look very far back to see the same thing.

Peter:

Jeff:

OK, time for us to come clean. You want arguments about how it can affect other marriages? Here's mine:

I'm afraid that a gay married couple will move in next door, sneak into our bedroom at night and do lewd things in front of us. This will so upset my wife that she will become very confused as to who she is and her consequent unhappiness will cause her to leave me and the kids. She will admit freely, of course, that it was all because of the gay neighbours.

That is what you mean, isn't it? You accept only that kind of direct, scientifically-observable causal connection. You don't recognize any other kind of argument, so you deny anyone is making any, even though the fifty-odd posts above are full of them. It is the same thinking that leads you to refuse to acknowledge that easy divorce laws undercut marriage--you just assume they release a lot of pent-up misery even though there is no historical record of that. Freedom and choice are always your answer, but you don't admit how you are philosophically stacking the deck.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau would be proud of you. Man is good, noble and dependable provided he isn't corrupted by that faith-based monarchical thinking. You know, Rousseau wasn't too troubled by the effects of his arguments on children either. In fact, he was so busy proclaiming our collective nobility that he had no time for his own five children and so he put them all in an orphanage.

Harry --

In the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, discrimination against homosexuals in housing, employment, etc., is illegal under the same statute that makes discrimination on the basis of race, sex, disability, etc., illegal. This statute was passed by the legislature and is not at all controversial, thereby giving the lie to the argument that the Courts must act because the legislature can't.

Jeff --

I, too, am deeply concerned that, once all social stigma has been removed, either my wife or I will see what fun homosexuality is and will run off to join the circus. I am, of course, comforted by the fact that, if we can make it through the next few years, we'll be able to invite a couple of other people to join our marriage, so that we can open up a second and third ring in our own house.

Also, the Commonwealth has now abandoned any pretence of following the commandments that G-d gave Noah and we've had a lot of rain here recently. I wouldn't ordinarily be that concerned, but I don't know how long a cubit is and there's no ready supply of Gopher wood in the neighborhood.

Nevertheless, I think I can scrape together some rational argument, too.

You say that civil marriage is just another contract, albeit one with some nice benefits. I say that marriage has been a part -- and as far as I can see, a foundation stone -- of human society for as long as we have any knowledge of human society. As I look around, I see a strong correlation between strong, successful societies and a strong culture of marriage. I also see that marriage is common to widely dispersed populations isolated from each other. Either it has descended in all places from the original ur-tribe, or it has developed independently in many different places and times. Either way, we have to assume that marriage serves some important function inate to human beings or their society.

What role does it serve, and how malleable is it?

I don't see is that marriage is necessarily driven by or even connected to romantic love. As nice as it is, love doesn't seem to have been thought to be an important part of marriage except in the west for the last 100 to 150 years.

In the Roman Empire, the citizen's family was the fundamental unit of society. The pater familias embodied the rights of the citizen, but had almost unlimited power within the family. This is largely true in the British Empire, as well. Giving the franchise to men is one way of giving each family one vote. Just as the vote was restricted to the rich, riches were transmitted through the family, through primogeniture and entail, so that they did not truly belong to any one man or even any one generation.

We might then conclude that marriage is a political institution, through which the powerful control both their society and their descendents. This would not be entirely wrong. But we also know that the least powerful, the serf, the slave and the laborer, also married, even though they had no wealth or power to conserve and even where the dominant society took no notice of their arrangements. That is, far from marrying to preserve wealth or power, or even to obtain the benefits at law, the Southern slave, for example, married not only despite the lack of these benefits, but in the face of his master's disdain for his decision. It might seem that marriage in this circumstance would only bring pain, but marry the slaves did.

In doing so, they saved their culture.

Thus, we can see marriage as a means, rather than an end. It is a means of transmission from the past to the future, with each individual marriage in time acting only as a node in the network. What is transmitted? Apparently, whatever the society values: wealth and power, certainly, but also values, religions and culture. The Jews pass on their covenant; the Christians their salvation; the atheists their existential angst; all the things that they value in themselves.

And Americans pass on their exceptionalism.

Now, you can take everything I have said so far, and use it to make the case for gay marriage. This would be, in essence, Andrew Sullivan's argument. That by gay marriage we can bring homosexuals into the intertemperal cultural network that is marriage. This is why I find his argument so attractive, even if I ultimately disagree.

I disagree for two reasons. First, and this has nothing to do with marriage, I object to having this change made by the Court's. This is no way to run a democracy.

The second reason is about marriage. For the reasons set out above, I think that much of human society is based upon marriage. The traits that, over the last two hundred years, have made Americans special have in large measure been transmitted over time through our marriages. For the same reason we shouldn't try trimming a keystone from under the arch, we should be reluctant to experiment with marriage.

But, you say, is it really a difference merely to change the sex of one of the members of a marriage? My whole point is that I don't know, but I'm unwilling to take the risk. I do know, though, that people who are willing to engage in homosexual acts, and particularly people who are willing to have it publicly known that they do so, are different from the usual run of people.

They are different not because of the acts (any one of which heterosexuals may also dabble in), but because they are willing to stand outside the community. If the purpose of marriage is to transmit the shared values of the community, then to admit them into marriage is akin to knowingly allowing a computer infected with a virus onto a network, with all the privileges of any other node. (Yeah, I know the metaphor is breaking down, but you see what I mean.)

All of this is theorectical and, on the other side, as you have noted, we're being mean to the homosexuals. I would like to believe that we have not lost our willingness to be mean in defense of the culture, but we probably have. This is, in any event, exactly the difference between legislative and judicial law-making. The legislature deals, largely, with the theorectical interests of large masses of people and can consider the effects upon society seperate from the effects upon the individual.

Judges, on the other hand, deal only with the individual. In social justice cases, such as the matter of Hilary Goodridge, who wants only to marry the love of her life, versus the Department of Public Health of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as it is the administrator of the marriage laws, judges are faced, on the one hand, with the quite real pain of a sympathetic person as against the theorectical interests of a bureaucracy that, as often as not, is itself sympathetic to the individual. The Commonwealth's reasons for limiting marriage to a man and a woman are as nothing in this context. Indeed, the SJC dismissed them as not even being rational, which means, I suppose, that my attempt to give you a rational answer was doomed from the start.

Jeff, Ehrlich's take on genetic homosexuality was "soft," that is, not that all homosexuality is totally explained by inheritance, but that some might be to a considerable extent.

He does not make conclusions about the hypothesis itself but only about whether the evidence seems to have some solidity. On inheritance of homosexuality, he assigned the proposition 0 flakes -- not at all outside the realm of possibility.

Peter and David, yes, we have similar laws out here. They don't get enforced much, if at all, and there is a strong lobby to create exemptions.

David, Peter:

I re-read the posts, and was unable to find even the slightest indication of how same-sex couples deciding to conform to the precepts of civil marriage has the tiniest effect upon different-sex couples intent and willingness to do the same. Certainly, no one has demonstrated how same-sex marriages could do any more violence to the concept of marriage than heterosexual couples have managed nicely on their own.

It seems humans have a deep desire to attain the emotional satisfaction available only through marriage. Homosexuals are humans too.

Further, the groups by far the most exercised about prohibiting same-sex marriage are religious. That is fine; their sects should treat religious marriage according to their beliefs. But civil marriage is not religious, it is secular. Imposing a ban having nothing to do with the desire of a couple to maintain the obligations of marriage imposes sectarian beliefs upon those who don't share those beliefs, and violates equality before the law.

Just as it would be wrong for civil authorities to force the Catholic Church to marry the divorced, it would also be wrong for the Catholic Church to prohibit civil marriage to them.

Jeff-

OK. Got it. You were "unable to find even the slightest indication of how same-sex couples deciding to conform to the precepts of civil marriage has the tiniest effect upon different-sex couples intent and willingness to do the same."

So, the end of democratic self-government, concerns about harm to children and the possible unravelling of civilization are not germane, but "the slightest indication of . . . the tiniest effect" would be. Here we go:

Marriage provides financial benefits to married couples. Those benefits will increase the cost of employing homosexuals. Let's assume that there are 5,000,000 homosexual employees in the United States. Assume that one-tenth will get married to a non-working, dependent homosexual. If they are making an average of $25,000 annually, the total compensation of the married working homosexuals is approximately $12.5 billion. If the value of marriage related benefits equals 10% of their compensation, that is an increase in the cost of homosexual employment of $1.25 billion. Across the economy, that increased cost will be shared between employers and customers based upon the employers elasticity of demand, which we will assume, economy wide, is .5. Homosexual marriage will therefore increase the cost of goods by $512,500,000 and reduce the return on investment by an equal amount.

At the margin, this will increase the economic pressure on all other marriages. As a result of this increased pressure, five marriages will end: Mr. and Mrs. Abner Jones of Topeka, Kansas; Mr. and Mrs. Lyle Heatley of Santa Barbara, California; Mr. and Mrs. John Montagna of Brooklyn, New York; and Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Della Torre of Mason City, Iowa will divorce. Mr. Michael Unsderfer of New York, New York, will commit suicide, leaving his wife Lucy a widow.

Bob Heatley, of Santa Barbara, will lose touch with his father and convert to Islam. While studying in a madrassa in Syria, he will volunteer for a suicide mission. Homosexual marriage kills.

Jeff:

"Certainly, no one has demonstrated how same-sex marriages could do any more violence to the concept of marriage than heterosexual couples have managed nicely on their own."

Oh now, wait a minute. I'm confused. I thought marriage was the promised land. Andrew Sullivan assures me that legal gay marriage will drag gays out of the promiscuous, seedy bars and turn them all into responsible, boring, rose bush-trimming middle-class citizens. All we need to do is widen the entry to paradise and we're home free--no more discrimination, alienation, bigotry etc. And everybody will live happily ever after.

But, you now say there is trouble in River City? You mean, love doesn't conquer all? Or lust? Or sexual freedom? Surely marriage is as solid as a rock after all the enlightened "choice-based" reforms of the last two generations? I'm too polite to mention those peripheral kiddies.

So why would my gay brothers want to sign on to such a damaged institution?

David:

Awe is the only word.

David:

Brilliant response. Really. No sarcasm.

But a few quibbles. You have managed to measure the effect of a change in the economy of less than 2 parts in 10,000. I doubt econometrics has quite reached that level of sophistication. Second, cost isn't shared between employers and customers, it is borne by customers alone (a point which strengthens your argument, BTW). Third, your argument is just as effective for the purpose of reducing the rate of heterosexual marriage, particularly of childless couples who, after all, can't possibly need the help. Fourth, you neglect that a great many of these people are already employed by companies that provide benefits to domestic partners, meaning the incremental effect is far, far less than you cite. Fifth, this is also an argument against having children. Sixth, you really should do this sort of thing for a living; you are quite good at it.

So while I appreciate your wit, as a matter of equality before the law, your argument is beside the point.

Peter:

Gee, that's funny, I don't recall anyone characterizing marriage as the promised land. But when arguments against same sex marriage include the unspecified damage to the institution, it is only fair to wonder whether that argument ignores heterosexual marriage in arriving at that specious conclusion.

Never mind you caricature Mr. Sullivan's arguments. Despite your disagreement with his conclusions, I think you must admit he argues his side extremely well, and deserves a better response than that.

But you seem to have side stepped at least one of my points: civil marriage is not sacred marriage. None of the legal, functional, requirements of civil marriage are vitiated by the gender of the participants. Barring same gender couples from marriage would prevent participation in a civil institution, but not because of their inability to meet functional requirements.

A phenomena women and blacks were very familiar with 30 years ago.

As David pointed out, the desire for marriage is profound. Yet you wish to deprive some people of the opportunity to partake of an institution you value so greatly for yourself, for your happiness. None of the arguments here, not even David's, are even remotely close to being sufficient to deprive them of their pursuit of happiness.

Which is why, by the way, your gay brothers want to sign on to such a damaged institution.

Jeff --

The burden of the increase in homosexual compensation will be shared between the employer and the customer based upon the elasticity of demand.

Visualize a standard supply curve, S. The vertical, or y, axis is price. The horizontal, or x, axis is cost. The supply curve slopes upward, so that, all other things equal, a greater price paid results in a greater quantity provided.

Assume that the supplier now must pay the benefits of marriage for its homosexual employees and that this increases the cost per unit by $1.00 across the entire supply curve. This will result in a new supply curve, S', which will parallel the first supply curve S, but will be above it. The gap between the two curves will be equal to $1 on the y axis.

Now, visualize different demand curves superimposed on the graph. The slope of the demand curve equals the elasticity of demand -- that is, how much effect a rise in price will have on the quantity sold.

A demand "curve" parallel to the y axis shows perfectly inelastic demand. No matter what price is charged, the same quantity will be sold. By definition (as it is parallel to the y axis) the difference in price from moving from S to S' will be $1.

Now, superimpose downward sloping demand curves, so that quantity bought decreases as the price rises. Where the demand curve is parallel to the x axis, there is perfect elasticity of demand. As a result, the demand curve will intersect S and S' at the same price. The supplier will not be able to recoup any of its increased cost. There are, of course, any number of intermediate cases where the slope of the demand curve is between 1 and 0 (vertical and horizontal, perfectly elastic and perfectly inelastic) for which the supplier will be able to recoup an ever smaller portion of its increased cost.

In other words, although all the money to pay the increased cost of manufacturer caused by homosexual partner benefits comes ultimately from the customer, in fact the supplier will not be able to raise its price by an amount equal to its increased cost, except in the (very unlikely) case in which it has perfect inelasticity of demand.

P.S. I think you and Peter are being overly kind, but I'll take what I can get. Thanks. I also thank you both, and everyone else here, and especially Orrin, for allowing us to have these discussions at such a high level of mutual respect. This is exceedingly rare anywhere, and particularly on the Internet.

Jeff:

Your argument distinguishing civil and religious marriage is your strongest point (strong being a decidedly relative term here :-)), but as you seem to feel we are consistently ducking questions, I note that you decline to address what interest the state has in regulating an institution that you insist has no prima facie connection to children or indeed any other concept of dependency.

Also, Jeff, are you in favour of legally recognized polygamy?

Finally, what David said. Quite an amazing site and a rare group of posters. Thanks to all.

Buttercup:

As long as the females control whom they marry, there's no loss of power involved in allowing polygamy.

In fact, it would probably RAISE the net happiness of American females. If one juxtaposes the statistics for females who marry, past the age of 35, with those for 35+ year olds who WANT to be married, one can see that there's a big, unmet demand for marriagable men.
Now, many of these women may not be perfect spouse material, but, as a second or third wife, they may do fine.
Thus, we find slightly damaged goods finding a happy home, and all benefit.

Peter:

I'm not sure I said there is no prima facie, connection, only that there is no de jure connection. However, since I am really nothing more than a glorified heavy equipment operator with good eyesight, I may have mangled the Latin. What I meant is there is no connection in law to children; however, since there are some property rights for the dependent spouse, then there is some connection to dependency.

I'm not in favor of legalized polygamy, but that is a far more complex question than it appears, and the complexities have nothing at all to do with same sex marriage. For a short list, it does have to do with the ratio of marriagable men to women, which in turn is a function of raw numbers and material means. It also has to do with where women think their best interests lie.

In our society, given that virtually all men have the material means to support a family, very few women would materially benefit from such an arrangement. So legalization wouldn't matter. However, presuming many women chose this arrangement, then the resulting monopolization of many women by a few men would result in serious social unrest. The latter argues against strongly argues against legalization; the former argues that the current prohibition would be almost exclusively obeyed despite its hypothetical absence.

Imagine an alternate universe, though, where war or some male specific disease caused the male population to drop by, say, 75%, while leaving the female population unchanged. (This is somewhat akin to the demographic situation Michael talks about, where the number of women desiring marriage greatly exceeds the number of available men). In such an event, I suspect the view of even the most fundamental opponents to polygamy would change in the face of a prospective demographic catastrophe.

But the most important point is Michael's. Are there any examples of polygamous societies where women control who they marry?

I strongly suspect, but don't know, there aren't. If my suspicion is true, then laws against polygamy prohibit what wouldn't happen anyway, and the argument against same-sex marriage as somehow promoting polygamy gets rather gutted.

David:
I have taken plenty of economics in college, and have read a lot since. I should have known better, my typing got ahead of my brain.

Michael:

"Now, many of these women may not be perfect spouse material, but, as a second or third wife, they may do fine.
Thus, we find slightly damaged goods finding a happy home, and all benefit."

You are joking, of course? Michael?

Yeah, this'll be great. Given the shortage of marriagable black men, this will give black woman a chance to marry into white middle class families. The original husband and wife can go to work at their middle-class jobs and the new wife can stay at home, clean, cook and take care of the kids. And it'll be completely different from slavery because she'll be sleeping with the husband, too, and having her own kids, um, um, who can't be sold south. Yeah, that's it, who can't be sold south.

Truthfully, are there any two career parents out there who haven't looked at each other at least once and said, "You know what we need? A wife." This is what middle class Americans have in mind when they consider polygamy.

Well, I'm not sure that is all they have in mind, at least not the men. Has any modern woman ever come out even slightly sympathetic to polygamy? I mean one whose voice is reasonably free and who is not an ideologically driven, marriage-hating womyn.

I cannot believe I am discussing this issue.

What, you think they're looking to double the sex they have? If they can't find that extra 20 minutes a month now, I don't see how having an extra wife is going to free it up.

Of course it wouldn't, but most men are essentially self-pitying fools when it comes to such things. If they were able to see clearly, we wouldn't have a thriving porn industry.

And we'd have many fewer divorces.

Peter B:

No, of course I'm not joking.

We can raise the age of consent to thirty, for multiple marriage, if you like.

Perhaps Canadian society is different from American in this regard, but there are literally MILLIONS of American women who would gladly settle for being a second or third wife to a sane, stable man with a job, once they're in their thirties.

Yes, I don't know how we traditionalists can cope with with groundswell of angry demands for polygamy we are witnessing among American women.