marriage was designed to promote a healthy stable environment to raise children. It was also good for the parents, but the point was the chidren.

So lots of breaks were given to married people, and bachelors took up the slack in many different ways to protect and help support families.

I always regarded homosexuals as de facto bachelors, since they cannot naturally produce children.

maybe we should only regard married couples with children as legally married in civil law? This way married heterosexual couples without children have to contribute as much as the rest of the bachelors, to make everything more fair?

And as for the bachelorettes? Or is it that men are only homosexuals?

And why should I, as an unmarried citizen, have to pick up the slack in many different ways to protect and support your family?

Or have I totally misunderstood your post?

marriage was designed to promote a healthy stable environment to raise children. It was also good for the parents, but the point was the chidren.

Since when? When in history was this design made?

Remember that marriage originally was almost exclusively an act of aristocracy and the wealthy.

And like the marriages of Henry V and Kathering Valois, Elizabeth I's courting of Spain's King, these were political and asset alliances first and foremost. Any offspring rarely saw their parents and were raised by wet-nurses and other minders. Hardly a "healthy stable environment to raise children".

Meanwhile among the poor and serfs, marriage was uncommon.

Since your claims about marriage's design and purpose are not supported historically, how you have regarded homosexuals isn't particularly informative or meaningful.

But at least you deserve the respect for recognizing that opposition to homosexual unions requires the invalidation of childless heterosexual unions as well.

"marriage was designed to promote a healthy stable environment to raise children. It was also good for the parents, but the point was the chidren."

>>Civil marriage vests those recognized with multiple priveleges, benefits, protections and obligations, very few of which address child raising. Further, the state has never sought to deny recognition as married to couples were one or both parties were infertile, nor strip recognition from couples who elected voluntarily not to bear children. Quite simply, marriage is not and never has been about reproduction.

"I always regarded homosexuals as de facto bachelors, since they cannot naturally produce children."

>>My wife and I cannot naturally produce children--am I a de facto homosexual, and my wife a de facto lesbian? Does the fact that we do in fact have two children inform that question?

"maybe we should only regard married couples with children as legally married in civil law?"

>>Why, when marriage is about far more than biological reproduction? It's principally about establishing ownership of property, establishing clear lines of inheritance, defining guardianship, next of kin, identifying who has the authority to serve as medical proxy, etc. There remains a need to do all of this whether or not one has children.

"This way married heterosexual couples without children have to contribute as much as the rest of the bachelors, to make everything more fair?"

>>If the goal is 'to make everything more fair', we need only recognize them as partners in civil matrimony and vesting them with the rights, protections, etc. we do heterosexual couplesso recognized (i.e., treat them in exactly the same manner we've always treated heterosexual couples seeking recognition as partners in matrimony.)

As a married heterosexual with no children, exactly what am I suposed to contribute to society in order to make it "fair"? I already pay property taxes to support schools, even though I have no children that will attend them. My income taxes fund S-CHIP to provide health care for other people's kids.

What exactly am I not already contributing that makes it so damn unfair?

"And why should I, as an unmarried citizen, have to pick up the slack in many different ways to protect and support your family?"

Everyone benefits from children as they are the next generation. Those children will be providing the wage taxes that pay for your Social Security and other benefits. However, only parents commit time and energy and money above and beyond that contributed by taxes.

Each child costs something like $20k/yr just in educational costs. Add in $3k in tax breaks and the costs of all the warning labels, and college tuition supports So its not hard to cocnclude that each child costs society $200-$300k before they START to contribute back.

So no, NOT everyone benefits. Benefits only start to accrue by the time they reach 30. Given that the average lifespan is 70, only about 1/2 the population benefits from children.