This is a case, not for the immorality of same-sex marriage, but for the immorality of Social Security. Nobody should be "entitled" to any payments in excess of the principal and interest (or any other appreciation) of their own contributions. Social Security is set up only to LOOK like such a system.

On the subject of "gay marriage" I think it's instructive to consider, instead of the reasons for or against such a legal institution, the reason why legal civil unions are "unacceptable" to the activists who are pressing this case. My understanding is that civil unions would give participants every single right that married couples have (including the aforementioned Social Security benefit) with the singular exception of the name "marriage." The goal is therefore not to secure the rights of gays but to undermine the basis of individual nuclear families. Remember, "It takes a village to raise a single child." The next time you hear "gay marriage" think "Village People with kids."

The reason that "marriage" is being trying to be re-defined is the same reason that a 6-month pregnant woman has a fetus in her uterus, and not a "baby" or "with child."
It's changing the terms of the debate, by changing the language.
It's newspeak for the 21st Century.

I still say let the church(s) have the term marriage. Then require everyone to have a civil union. My church wedding is meaningless in the eyes of the state without the civil license.

JK, the case against gay marriage is that it could include marriages of convience? You don't have to have same sex marriages to have that. Is there any way to authenticate hetrosexual marriages?

John, how does a same sex marriage undermine the basis of individual nuclear families? If a grandparent or an aunt lives in the household does that undermine the nuclear family? The village concept has been completely distorted by conservatives. You should instead look at it as it existed 200 years ago, where the poor, invalid and old were taken care of by the village they lived in, not by a distant government. In today's world the village concept no longer exists and one could argue this was a main reason for the advent of Social Security. As for raising kids, they are raised by a "village" whether you as a parent like it or not. That "village" includes a child's friends, school, and to some extent society at large who are all teaching values to our kids. In today's world of travel and information trying to completely shelter your kids so that they are raised entirely by your nuclear family is a fool's errand. In fact, social interaction is good for a child's development and recognition of the fact that your child will be "raised" with these social interactions included in the mix is just smart parenting. Next time you think all it takes is two hetrosexual parents to raise a child, think of two parents with their heads stuck firmly in the sand.

Silence, It happens all the time in heterosexual marriages. I am concerned that we will multiply the problem by more than two. A single person with a good income could auction of his/her Social Security on eBay. As marriage becomes more removed from the traditional, man-woman, I think these will escalate.

Johngalt is dead right. The problem is not marriage, the problem is Social Security. Nuke that (now there's a right-wing thought!) and we can follow your lead and return marriage to the churches. But while the monetary benefits of state sponsored union are so high, there will be incentive to cheat, and it will get worse.

I repeat, this has not changed my mind, I will still support it. But the increased fraud is a huge negative exigency.

Yes, the state must issue a civil license to give your church wedding meaning but it is called a MARRIAGE license, not a civil-union license. That argument is irrelevant to this debate.

Same-sex marriage undermines the basis of nuclear families because of biology. Without an outside contribution of some kind they cannot have children. Period.

You said the "village concept" has been completely distorted by conservatives, then proceeded to distort it yourself. The invalid and old were not taken care of by "the village" but by their families - nuclear families. As for the poor, 200 years ago they had to find a way to get by and it generally involved hard work or robbing banks. Now there's a third way: welfare.

JK, I hope that based on the issues discussed here you will reconsider your libertarian-based support for "gay-marriage" "same-sex marriage" or even "same-sex civil unions." I am doing so myself.

I just don't buy the fraud argument. A legally binding marriage seems like much too cumbersome an instrument to be auctioned off on e-bay, if not, they why has it not been done already by heterosexuals? How much would you have to get at auction to defray the cost of a divorce settlement? The person who just paid you for a marriage could turn around and sue you for divorce.

Ditto for the biology argument. Childless marriages are entirely legal. Care to tell any couple over child bearing age that they cannot get married becuase of biological reasons?

I did not distort the village concept. It was a very common practice in colonial America for a town or village, often through a church to help out the needy living among them. Not everyone had a nuclear family to take care of them, children were orphaned and the invalid sometimes left with no family. Just like today, many of the poor and homeless were mentally ill and they did have to be at least partially cared for by the village, hence the term "village idiot". The difference of course is familiarity, those who were cared for were expected to do whatever work they possibly could in return for this help. The welfare system of today has removed this tie and the money just comes from the government, not really from your neighbors, or so people seem to believe.

I have been married 20.5 years: no kids, none planned. Marriage has been the greatest thing in my life and I will not deny it to somebody who has a different sexual orientation than I do. I cannot withhold that; it was a benefit to me though it did not involve procreation.

Silence, I hope you are right. To take the other side for a second, Chesterton calls tradition "the Democracy of the dead" and we are messing with what may be the oldest and most universal institution. As the walls are torn down, it is not unreasonable to think that more people will game the system.

Why does the government have to define what marriage is or isn't? It used to be illegal for people to marry outside their race. Now it's so common, jk and I did it.

Let the States decide. Some will have gay marriages and some will not.

People will always find ways to cheat the system. A cousin married a dude for money so he could have a green card. I was offered big money to marry a son of my family friend so he could become a citizen (nope jk was born in Denver).

We have to believe that most people won't cheat the system. To end the story of my almost marriage for citizenship. My mom was pissed. She told him that if he wants to become a citizen, earn it.

Right on Riza. There will always be those that cheat the system regardless of what the system is. Look at the recent corporate scandals involving corporate partnerships. Heck you could limit marriage to blond left handers taller than 5'10", that would really cut down on the fraud. I like the state by state idea, except how do you handle people who move from one state to another?

Ancient societies withstood polygamy, and marriage has withstood divorce, inter-faith and inter-racial marriages, marriages of convienence, arranged marriages, marriages for money, and marriages for citizenship. It will withstand same sex marriages just fine.

Ten, ten, ten, ten, let's sing the song of ten. How many is ten? Is this a record number of comments to one of our blogs? I really enjoy these topics that EVERYONE disagrees with me on. It challenges me to state clearer and better justifications for my positions, or else change my positions.

Friends, I think you are distracted from the point. Marriage does not REQUIRE procreation, but procreation requires opposite-sex partners and this is the arrangement that marriage defines. Same-sex partners can have all the legal rights and responsibilities of a marriage and it can be called a civil union, or domestic partnership, or whatever anyone wants to call it as long as it's not marriage.

Marriage is the word used to name a legal union between a man and a woman. It was defined thus for biological and societal reasons. Whether exercised or not, heterosexual unions entail the potential of procreation. Without both halves of the biological equation it is not a marriage. As Abe Lincoln said, even if you call a dog's tail a leg it's still a tail.

Even "same-sex" marriage is a misnomer. It's like, "non-marriage" marriage. The crusade for gay, or same-sex marriage is an assault on the traditional social value of the nuclear family to be sure, but it is also an assault on the idea that words have meaning.

For my part, I've now regained my conviction that same-sex civil unions are moral. The evil intent of those who intend to destroy nuclear families and a vocabulary with meaning grounded in reality must not be allowed to destroy the individual liberties of those they claim to champion.

Even if governmental bodies in places like Vermont, Boston, Hawaii or San Francisco enact laws that say two men or two women are "married," their relationship can never be equal to a marriage, man/woman style. (One may just as well legislate universal happiness.) Note that no value judgement is present here...just an objective one. Separate. Unequal.

P.S. Let's defer the gay parents debate for a while, shall we?

Johngalt -- My lovely bride points out that the traditional wedding vows are long on permanence and short on procreation:

In sickness and in health,
In abundance and want,
Love, honor, cherish (with an option on "obey")
All the days of your life.

Powerful words. They apply to me (we have been richer, poorer, sick and healthy) and I do not see that they do not apply to any two who wanted to love, honor and cherish...

Of course permanence is good but I don't see what that has to do with the definition of "marriage." Those traditional vows also say, "I now pronounce you man (or husband) and wife," not wife and wife or man and man.

Again, marriage does not require procreation but procreation requires opposite-sex partners, and this is the arrangement that marriage defines.

I still don't see the argument that attempting to join the institution of marriage is an assult on that institution, but going beyond that, to defend the meaning of the word marriage itself seems ridiculous. A living language changes over time and words adapt to new meanings all the time. Heck, 100 years ago a "gay marriage" would have literally been a happy marriage.

OK we're going for the record on comments on this one. BTW what happened to all the comments?

All contracts, and marriage is a contract, among consenting adults should be equal under the law. This is regardless of who is participating and how many of them. Along with, "gay marriage," we should be standing up for polygamous marriage and group marriage and anything else people wish to do provided it does not hurt others.

I note that those who are supporting the same-sex unions do not seem to be doing this. This inconsistency in their policy makes their motives suspect. All animals are created equal but some are more equal than others?

John says, "Same-sex partners can have all the legal rights and responsibilities of a marriage and it can be called a civil union..." This is not sufficient for them. Perhaps equality under the law is not really what the activists are after?

John is not defending the WORD marriage, although the purpose of language is to communicate and editing the definitions of words often interferes with that purpose.

John is defending the, "concept," of marriage by whatever word you choose to employ. In fact each language obviously has a different word. He is correct that biologically speaking there is a significant difference between a heterosexual couple and a homosexual one. The possibility of procreation whether exercised or not is a significant part of the concept of marriage.

At issue here is the destruction of, "Concepts," whether intentionally or unintentionally. If you, "muddy the waters," such that words no longer have definitive meanings or such that a word becomes unimaginably inclusive (isn't inclusiveness a fine PC goal) the result is the inability to distinguish between ideas and make judgements. An islamist terrorist is not wrong or evil, just, "misunderstood." An, "education," is not so little Johnny can read and spell correctly because his (incorrect) spelling is, "just as good," as long as he has self-esteem.

and...A, "marriage," is no longer the root of the nuclear family (whether it actually procreates or not) that has effectively encouraged the growth of civilization for centuries. Now it is just two (or more) people who like each other's company. If I lived with my roommate for 10 years are we married?