gay marriage proponents think the usa will simply become more enlightened as time goes on and pass gay marriage laws.
the truth is we still dont know the fallout from gay marriage on children, as a generation has not yet passed.

preliminary studies, not commissioned by gay rights groups, indicate most children are damaged in these settings. people still care about kids in america, and as this comes to light, support for it will drop.

Btw, denying that is like arguing, as the original quote shows, “that a way to increase the economic prospects of minorities is to place an upper bound on how many members of these groups a company can employ”.

In other words, I also claim, using the same logic, that increasing the demand for minorities (ie more companies want to hire them) creates opportunities for a better standard of living.

And I guess, by your sexist definition above, that would also make me racist in your eyes.

It is arguments like this that show me why you and many others see gay marriage as a “civil right” and I don’t. Your logic is wacko.

First, let us assume that there were some examples of gay couples where one of the members was forced into the union. Lets also assume that there is an argument to be made that gay marriage is bad for children. Not all gay unions, mind you, but some, or even most. If that was the case, would that be evidence enough to convince you against gay marriage?

I don’t think it would. Because if you view something as a civil right, you have to go further than some instances of abuse. Civil rights are near absolute, and even if there is widespread abuse with it now, one would still support the right just on the basis that there could be some that wouldn’t abuse it.

In other words, the standards you hold polygamy to are far greater and more stringent than the standards you would hold gay marriage to.

Second, I’ve already directly addressed this claim and you have ignored it. Above I wrote,

It’s important to remember that context matters. In certain countries one can make the argument that marriage itself is harmful to women…but that is not the United States. In other words, you can’t make the argument that because polygamy is, say, harmful in a poor fundamentalist Muslim culture that it would be harmful in the culture of the United States. The two are not the same. For more on this click here.

This post also directly addresses that criticism, click here.

Third, I made the argument above - that you still have not addressed, btw - that polygamy increases the demand for woman, thereby possibly making their situations better.

In other words Adriana, me thinks you want gay marriage to be fundamentally different than polygamy, but in reality they are not. If you support gay marriage…you must, logically, consistently, support polygamy. These are, after all, civil rights we are talking about.

Why? This is how I explained it in my proposition post a couple weeks ago:

Normally I would be against this bill as I was against Bush’s 2004 claim to support a federal constitutional ban on gay marriage. I believe that gay marriage, while I ultimately am against it, is a debatable topic that should be left up to the people to decide. Making it a constitutional issue removes it from future public discourse and in the process, removes some of the constitutions time independent nature.

However, in this case the people have decided and voted into law a ban on gay marriage but the Supreme Court - by a split 4-3 decision - decided that they were far wiser and knew more about moral issues than the California citizens, and struck down the law. Leaving California citizens with no other choice but to make a constitutional amendment.

So I am voting Yes On Proposition 8 not so much in support of the constitutional ban itself, but more as a vote against judicial activism, especially the kind that usurps moral issues from the citizens and gives them to 7 unelected justices.

I stand behind that statement.

But lets get back to the topic at hand. This post and these comments are not about gay marriage, they are about polygamy.

So again, given that you support gay marriage, I ask you the same thing you asked me, namely:

“I don’t feel so threatened as a heterosexual to want to “ban” polygamous unions from a civil marriage. Maybe, and I’m just going to speculate that you have not lived up to your own liberal morals in your own life. I don’t see how a polygamous married union in your neighborhood or even in your social network is going to harm your family unit. Maybe your own marriage and familial relationships are so troubled that you have a problem with polygamous unions wanting what many other heterosexuals care to have.”

I think it is fair to say that you have not addressed the argument. In other words, as I said above, if you support gay marriage, by logical extension you must also support polygamy. And since you consider gay marriage a civil right…you must also consider polygamy a civil right.

This is the argument I am making and continue to make. DO you disagree with it? If so why?

Frankly, normally I wouldn’t. But there are two reasons why I do. First, it is liberals who insist on forcing their view of marriage on the rest of us. The public has spoken, over and over again, that they do not want gay marriage. But because liberals think they are the holy ones with perfect knowledge, they don’t stop there - they continue on, trying to push their view of the world on the rest of us, even when the population disagrees with them.

I have met some conservative gays who support gay marriage (these are people who believe in balanced budgets, the death penalty, school vouchers, etc.). The Governator, hardly a liberal, didn’t want to have this ban.

I don’t feel so threatened as a heterosexual to want to “ban” gays from a civil marriage. Maybe, and I’m just going to speculate that you have not lived up to your own conservative morals in your own life. I don’t see how a gay married couple in your neighborhood or even in your social network is going to harm your family unit. Maybe your own marriage and familial relationships are so troubled that you have a problem with gays wanting what many other heterosexuals care to have.

As for the part about this being an experiment of the wealthy classes. I know a few gay couples who certainly aren’t rich, but I will tell you that they have relationships that have lasted longer than those of many heterosexuals.

Mary Ann Glendon, Professor of Law At Harvard University, made the argument a few years back, she wrote:

Religious freedom, too, is at stake. As much as one may wish to live and let live, the experience in other countries reveals that once these arrangements become law, there will be no live-and-let-live policy for those who differ. Gay-marriage proponents use the language of openness, tolerance and diversity, yet one foreseeable effect of their success will be to usher in an era of intolerance and discrimination the likes of which we have rarely seen before. Every person and every religion that disagrees will be labeled as bigoted and openly discriminated against. The ax will fall most heavily on religious persons and groups that don’t go along. Religious institutions will be hit with lawsuits if they refuse to compromise their principles.

The full article, along with my commentary on it, can be found here.