You get married to a woman you love. Your straight neighbors get married. Your other straight neighbors don’t get married but live together and have kids. Your gay neighbors adopt a kid together. Your other gay neighbors get married.

You insist that the last one will affect marriage, but how do ANY of those things affect what happens in your house between you and your wife?

Marriage between relatives is frowned upon because if they had kids there would be genetic issues. There’s also the issue of the parent being in a position of power, so it’s a situation where “consenting” can be warped.

The notion of marrying a goat doesn’t make any sense since the goat lacks the ability to make a commitment like that. Find me a goat that can say the vows and then we’ll talk.

The argument that if we allow gay marriage, we somehow have to allow any possibility of marriage falls apart because all those hypothetical “marriages” have actual reasons why they shouldn’t happen. That’s not the case with gay marriage, there doesn’t seem to be any real argument against it beyond that it’s something that bigots don’t like.

Since we obviously don’t share the same moral worldview, I would ask you this one simple question then.

What is there inside you and I that compels us to agree that a parent should not marry his son or daughter, even if that consenting child is of adult age? Would that “hurt” anyone if it were allowed? Would marrying a goat really “hurt” anyone? If not, why is it still wrong?

I look forward to your explanation.

That’s where we differ. You are insisting on a definition that supports your personal biases. People have long done that in order to try and make an argument where there isn’t one.

And your analogy isn’t any more valid than mine, in fact you haven’t said anything to dispute mine at all.

I’m merely saying that people should have the right to do what they want particularly when it doesn’t hurt anyone else.

You’re saying that people should have the right to do what YOU want.

Anonymous – I realize that calling people names isn’t going to further this debate (although I’m not sure what about it is “wrong”). I just don’t get why the name calling is the offensive part, as opposed to the trampling on people’s rights part.

Californian: You cite CBN…which I think is Pat Robertson’s tv network…Christianity is a great and fine religion, but in the hands of folks like Robertson it has been twisted in ways far to numerous to recount here…we have a separation of church and state in this country and with guys like Pat Robertson running around it is obvious as to the reasons why. If churches don’t want to acknowledge a certain type of marriage that is there choice, but in matters of public policy they should but out.

My analogy would be this. We are both American citizens with the right to vote in America for president of the United States. One of us falls in love with the culture of another country, say France, and this patriotic person decides they want to start voting in the French election. Let’s say hypothetically since the law only allows the traditional definition of a French citizen to vote for the French President, that American can’t vote in France and is only allowed to vote in America just like every other American. Should the French change their definition of a “French citizen” because an American learns to speak french and wears a funny hat?

Prop 8 isn’t outlawing your right to vote in America, it only affirms what the law already recognizes the defintion of a French or American citizen to be. At least until a few activist judges forgot what country they were in.

There’s no question that people generally seem to not take marriage as seriously as a lifetime commitment as they did 50 years ago. But since that started decades before gay marriage was even discussed, much less allowed, it’s ridiculous to blame that change on gay marriage.

Gay marriage isn’t a threat to marriage. It doesn’t undermine marriage. Straight people have overwhelmingly shown that they are tearing down marriage on their own, and they’d be doing so even if gay people didn’t even exist.

Your beef isn’t with gay marriage, it’s with anyone who doesn’t take marriage as seriously as you do, regardless of their sexual orientation. And what do you care if two unmarried people living together have a kid and raise the kid together? As long as the kid has two parents, what’s the difference if those parents are married or not?

I also take issue with the odd notion that a gay man has the same rights as you since he can marry a woman.

That would be like if all religions were outlawed except for Christianity – by your logic, Jews wouldn’t have their rights infringed on because while they couldn’t practice Judaism, they could practice Christianity like everyone else.

That’s not freedom by any stretch of the imagination, it’s just insisting that everyone else behave the same as you.

John: Sorry some of the stats in that article are old. Everything below the link was excerpted from it. I’ll have to do some more serious research to find recent data. I’ve also heard that domestic abuse is much higher in homosexual relationships from someone I know personally who is up on all the latest stats and research. He’s also done a lot of counseling, including in this area.

Be that as it may, this single issue doesn’t define you. You are a father, a son, a friend to many, and an extraordinary artist to all. Your work inspires me. You have so much to offer this world, and I am grateful for what you have given thus far. Thank you, for being you.

Funny, in the grand scheme of things, I’d think that name calling would be a relatively trivial thing compared to trying to impede the rights of others.

Or to put it more bluntly, it’s worse to act like a dick than to point out that someone is acting like a dick.

“So, many homosexuals insist on having it both ways. They want marriage, but without monogamy; or all the benefits of marriage, but without the permanent commitment. And that will surely have ripple effects in the heterosexual world.”

Homosexuals want those things? Really? From what I’ve seen the heterosexuals seem to be pretty good at wanting those things already on their own.

Knock yourself out. Pull out some anecdotes and statistics you can’t document. If you’re pulling in Pitrim Sorokin, a controversial Russian sociologist who retired in 1955, to bolster your case about why Californians in 2008 can’t handle two dudes getting married, there’s not a lot I can say to convince you. Except, maybe move to the 21st Century.

Also, I don’t think you know any gay people personally. You’re writing a long response to a gay screenwriter that you don’t actually know because you have no one in your life you can have this discussion with face-to-face. If you did know any gay people, I think you’d have a hard time telling them that you don’t think they deserve the same rights you do — oh wait, they do — as long as they lie. Lies are a good basis for society.

You are in fact arguing that Britney Spears’ 24-hour marriage in Vegas has more “legitimacy” than my eight-year relationship. Which is both idiotic and insulting.

Mr. August:

You’re a brilliant, gifted man. I am a fan. And I genuinely appreciate you as a person. But respectfully, I believe this issue for you is ultimately not about liberty, but legitimacy. An attempt at acceptance by society as a whole to recognize your relationship. Unfortunately, there is the nagging issue of morality that society still contends with.

I say I don’t believe this is about liberty because you, as a man, are perfectly free to marry 1 unmarried woman, just the same as me. As two male citizens, we enjoy exactly the same rights. Now, if I were able to marry 1 unmarried woman, and you were not, say because of your ethnicity, then there would be a problem. Thus there isn’t an inequality of the law, but of desire.

Now, as an exercise make a list of all the criteria that convinces you this relationship entitles it to be recognized by the law. Criteria like “we love each other”, “no one’s being hurt”, “consenting adults”, etc… My question of course is this.

What standard can we all agree on that says, two men/women could marry, but 5 women/1 man, brothers/sisters, or parents/adult children cannot? If you take all of the possible human coupling possibilities, what source of morality do we use to determine what is acceptable?

Why do we believe some human couplings are right and others are wrong? What is there inside us that looks at the facts of what we can do, reflects on the situation, and compels us to that which we ought to do?

Whether we wish it were so or not, there are conditions in which we can share the experience of sex with other human beings. I believe this is because it not only affects both people involved and any children, but also society as a whole.

It sounds as though you are in a monogomous relationship, which is to be applauded in itself. However, evidence suggests this is the exception rather than the rule.

Here are excerpts from an article that may provide food for thought.

http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/news/040510a.aspx

In the Netherlands, where gay marriage is already legal, the average “committed” gay relationship is lasting just 1.5 years.

So, many homosexuals insist on having it both ways. They want marriage, but without monogamy; or all the benefits of marriage, but without the permanent commitment. And that will surely have ripple effects in the heterosexual world.

You can already see it in France and other European countries that recently created civil unions to give gays something that better fits their lifestyle, something like “marriage lite,” easy to get into and out of.

But it is heterosexuals, by the tens of thousands, who are signing up for these civil unions, preferring to get the benefits of marriage without the marital vows.

And in Scandinavia, the first place where gay marriage was formally legalized, it appears it is actually helping to kill off the traditional form of marriage: a man and a woman committing for life and making babies.

Secular social scientist Stanely Kurtz said, “What we see in Scandinavia is marriage, quite literally, is dying.” He points out gay couples can’t make babies. So their Scandinavian marriages are erasing the idea that making babies and being married are all wrapped up together and inseparable.

“The result,” says Kurtz, “is that 60 percent of first-born children in Denmark are born out of wedlock, and there are some parts of Scandinavia, believe it or not, where as many as 80 percent of first-born children are born out of wedlock. And these are the most liberal districts where the acceptance of gay marriage is the highest.”

Already, many Scandinavians weren’t marrying until after their first child. Now, since gay marriage there is furthering the idea children and marriage are separate subjects, more couples are waiting to wed until after their second child.

Soon, they may just skip wedlock altogether.

Kurtz remarked, “In Scandinavia, same-sex marriage is part of a collection of factors, which first break marriage apart from the idea of parenthood and second, lead to the elimination eventually of marriage itself.”

Social historian Allan Carlson, author of “The American Way,” said, “Homosexuality, by definition, cannot create children, so it’s a trivialization of the institution.”

The U.S. is ripe to have the same thing to happen here. Already the marriage rate is down almost half from a high in the 1950s.

Five-and-a-half million American couples are deciding to just shack up rather than wed. And American women are having more than 1.3 million babies out of wedlock in the average year.

Wilson said, “When 30 to 70 percent of all children born in the United States this year will grow up with a single parent, you realize this is not a trivial matter.”

Wilson said, “No human society has ever made homosexual marriage its norm.”

But once that begins, it could snowball into legalization of just about any relationship someone wants to claim is marriage, like bigamy and polygamy. Because, if it is no longer fair to restrict marriage to one man, one woman, then how can you set any limits on it whatsoever?

For instance, Kurtz warns that advocates of polyandry, which is group marriage, have begun to use the same arguments that gay marriage advocates use.

Kurtz said, “They have all sorts of arrangements, you know, two women and three men, any kind of a combination, a kind of group marriage. And polyamorists (individuals who support multi-partner relationships and families) have already had a law case arguing that their marriages should be recognized.”

Carlson says history shows the pairing up of men and women to form families is the very cornerstone of civilization, and it is fatal for a society to weaken that bedrock of marriage by encouraging alternatives.

“It’s a way of committing societal suicide,” said Carlson, “because it winds up taking the one institution that is vital to the community’s future, and reducing it to simply another relationship.”

Wilson said, “Every human society has depended crucially on the bonding of males and females.”

In the 1930s, British anthropologist J.D. Unwin studied 86 cultures that stretched across 5,000 years. He found, without exception, when they restricted sex to marriage, they thrived.

Strong families headed by faithful spouses made for bold, prosperous societies. But not one culture survived more than three generations after turning sexually permissive.

Noted Harvard sociologist Pitirim Sorokin found no culture surviving once it ceased to support marriage and monogamy. None.

Historians say it is not surprising that societies fall at such times. As citizens fail to re-populate, as they concentrate on their own pleasures, their society weakens. The aged are left with few to defend them.

Carlson said, “When all these things happen, societies begin to shrivel and die. And it’s happened many, many times. This is how civilizations disappear.”

I think things like this video interview help to chip away at prejudice. It’s easy to deny rights to “them” but much harder when “they” are not a nameless, faceless group but are made manifest in “this one right here” and you see, as we do on this video, their beautiful hearts.