Bullshit. Marriages between men and women of different races has occurred throughout human history. It is moral normal healthy and natural results in normal children. None of this is true with queer marriage.
And throughout human history how many times have the parameters of marriage evolved. In all the world's cultures, people were once lawless individuals. Then one day someone figured out that we could not evolve as a society without law and authority.
In all the world's cultures, monarchy, dictatorship and tribalism was once the trademark of government. Then someone conceived of the republic. Later people conceived of democracy, without which none of us would be free to express our opinions as we do here everyday, and they decided it was worth fighting for.
For the longest time in recent history white culture dominated and all other races were enslaved, killed or otherwise treated as second class citizens. Then someone was smart enough to realize that regardless of how much melanin we have in our skin we all deserve to enjoy the same rights and they fought for that cause.
Probably since the beginning of time women have had little to no rights in our society. Until very recently they could not vote, could not own property, could not advance in the workforce. Even today we struggle with that equality.
To assume that because something has existed a certain way for decades, or even centuries, it is right and unquestionable is indeed an egregious mistake. If we did not question our social institutions, examine alternatives, discard them and examine still more alternatives, and then finally adopt a new one I believe that we would have all perished from this rock a long, long time ago.
Anyway, There is nothing in the marriage licence, or in the marriage vows, referring to reproduction.
(but nice segway into including normal children into the conversation) We do not prevent infertile couples from marrying. We do not force couples to divorce one the woman reaches menopause.
Marriage is not only about children. It just isn't. If you people want to make this ridiculous claim as Dixie posted earlier in this thread, you damn well better back it up by breaking up all of the heterosexual marriages currently in existence without children. I'd like to see the public reaction to that.
Plus,
Interesting- Interesting recent
opinion in the NYTby conservative writer David Brooks:
http://http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/22/opinion/22BROO.html
QUOTE
Today marriage is in crisis. Nearly half of all marriages end in divorce. Worse, in some circles, marriage is not even expected. Men and women shack up for a while, produce children and then float off to shack up with someone else.
Marriage is in crisis because marriage, which relies on a culture of fidelity, is now asked to survive in a culture of contingency. Today, individual choice is held up as the highest value: choice of lifestyles, choice of identities, choice of cellphone rate plans. Freedom is a wonderful thing, but the culture of contingency means that the marriage bond, which is supposed to be a sacred vow till death do us part, is now more likely to be seen as an
easily canceled contract.
QUOTE
Still, even in this time of crisis, every human being in the United States has the chance to move from the path of contingency to the path of marital fidelity — except homosexuals. Gays and lesbians are banned from marriage and forbidden to enter into this powerful and ennobling institution. A gay or lesbian couple may love each other as deeply as any two people, but when you meet a member of such a couple at a party, he or she then introduces you to a "partner," a word that reeks of contingency.
You would think that faced with this marriage crisis, we conservatives would do everything in our power to move as many people as possible from the path of contingency to the path of fidelity. But instead, many argue that gays must be banished from matrimony because gay marriage would weaken all marriage. A marriage is between a man and a woman, they say. It is women who domesticate men and make marriage work.
QUOTE
Some conservatives may have latched onto biological determinism (men are savages who need women to tame them) as a convenient way to oppose gay marriage. But in fact we are not animals whose lives are bounded by our flesh and by our gender. We're moral creatures with souls, endowed with the ability to make covenants, such as the one Ruth made with Naomi: "Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried."
The conservative course is not to banish gay people from making such commitments. It is to expect that they make such commitments. We shouldn't just allow gay marriage. We should insist on gay marriage. We should regard it as scandalous that two people could claim to love each other and not want to sanctify their love with marriage and fidelity.
