I must say, many of the irrational "Anti-gay" posts in this topic have been well mannered and atypically lacking in hysteria. The arguments presented are still illogical and bigotted, but they aren't crude or vulgar as I have seen in the past. This reminds me of how the rhetoric from the right changed immediately upon the passage of civil rights legislation. I beleive this indicates that the right wing recognizes that the tide is turning, and that they have once again failed to stop a liberal meme from becoming the mainstream. This should prove to some of the most rabid social ultra-conservatives that they can not win this battle. At some point, we will come to the conclusion that all marriages are contracts between consenting adult humans. Those are the only logical and unbiased criterion for marriage definintions. The people who want to restrict marriage would do better to eliminate all governmental recognition of the term, and concept of marriage. Then, it would be a matter of religious choice to discriminate against gays, mixed race couples, and polyandrists. As long as the government has a hat in the ring, the constitution trumps any religion based definition of marriage. And the constitution never mentions gays or multiple spouses at all, so you can't restrict them from anything you allow any other citizens from doing.

I must say, many of the irrational "Anti-gay" posts in this topic have been well mannered and atypically lacking in hysteria.

It lacks hysteria because it is a complete and reasoned secular argument against gay marriage.

The secular case against it is simply and powerfully made.

There IS one way in which "gay marriage" and "hetero marriage" can be accomodated under the same system which is to do away with ALL privileges of marriage except for those relating to children. Couples with children could be entitled to hefty tax deductions or direct payments.

This would put hetero couples with children and gay couples with adopted children in the same boat. Couples without children would have no legal recognition and no special rights whatever. "Marriages" of other kinds would be no more than contracts and government would protect them only to the extent that it protects other contracts.
existing marriages would, however, remain valid.

I do not recommend this route because the change would be very radical for any society, not only radical in terms of how we see it, but also radical in terms of its secondary effects. For instance an immigrant spouse would no longer be eligible for US citizenship unless there were children involved. Marriages of the elderly would have no special status.

Nonetheless, it does make logical sense.

Actually the solutoin you describe exists and is known as "civil unions", abolishing the legal term "marriage" altogether. The state would recognize a civil union in regards to inheritance, child custody, hospital visitation, medical decisions and property.

Then churches could define marriage any way they wanted, the state would not care one way or the other.

Other that straight word replacements in existing laws ("civil union" for "marriage"), it would not require anything radical in terms of change.

Of course the minority of Americans who believe Jesus has ordained them to impose their version of the Bible on the rest of the country would find it objectionable. But they hold sway over only 1/3 of America so the rest of us should not subject ourselves to their veto power as long as we are not demanding they change thier own definition of "marriage", which we are not.

I actually know someone in Massachusetts, let us call him A, who was proposed marriage by someone else, let us call him B. Now, as a matter of fact, neither A nor B is gay. But B was selling an expensive house and wanted the tax break that a married couple would have. In fact A said no, but suppose A had said yes, and there had been the tax benefit to B (with some payoff to A). Please tell me how the State could have challenged this. Could they send police in the bedroom and ask them to check that A and B were a couple? Not really. So B would get away with the tax break. But now suppose that A and B had some friends who knew perfectly well that A and B were not gay. Would they not have the same temptation?

As long as married people have some legal advantages, like tax breaks or the ability to sponsor their "spouse" for citizenship, or health coverage, cheating is going to take place, and most of this cheating will be undetectable, unless the State starts snooping in your bedroom to see if you are "really" gay. Also it is simply not fair that married or "married" people have advantages which single people do not. But until now we have had the pretense that it is OK for married people to have advantages because after all they are the ones who have the children and change all the diapers. There are of course couples who do not have children, but they have basically been free-riders and been few in number. The system can tolerate a few free-riders. But now that condition is collapsing. So what does it mean - for outsiders - that a couple is married? Only that they say so.

A Pandora's box has been opened by the Iowa Supreme Court, and those who think it is just "progressives" vs "right wing religious maniacs" better do some hard thinking.

You could drive a truck through the holes in rohitcuny's post, above. It doesn't take same-sex marriage to create economically driven marriages -- that's one of the prime reasons historically for marriage. In the above example, it wouldn't even work unless the tax breaks referred to are state ones -- federal tax code does not recognize same sex marriages even in the states where it is legal. Until the federal government equalizes its treatment of same sex versus different sex marriages, that won't change.

liberals have always envisioned some utopia that is usually sex soaked, gender nuetral, and marxist.

absurd of course, genders will never be comfortable sharing showers, locker rooms or the bed to satisfy some liberals idea of how society should function.

gay marriage and the homosexual act will never be accepted as moral and good for the vast majority of people no matter how many judges try to make it so.

too bad gays --- you will never be able to walk the streets and get the same shy smile from girls and guys as an old couple that has been married for 50 years can. tough.

Um, rohitcuny - how do gay couples who do have children fit into your theory? There are quite a few of those.

Indeed this is what I find so humorous about conservatives from any era. They have been steadily losing on every single issue since about 1792 or so, and now admit most of the views the conservatives from 50 or 100 years ago are abhorrent (at least publicly). Yet still the rail against progress as though it will be the downfall of civiliztion.

"This time it is different." "These traditions are too important to break." "Society will crumble."

Meanwhile each generation is generally better educated, more well behaved, and more moral than the last (I know the news would have you think otherwise, but honestly people have been complaining about the stupid-naughty-entertainment-o­bsessed younger generation since mid-republican Rome).

For a group of people who loves the past so much they sure have very little familiarity with it.

rohitcuny, are you actually under the impression that you've come up with some kind of valid argument? Yikes.

I've got news for you: gay people can already get married in any state in the country--they just can't marry someone of the same sex. They can simply marry someone of the opposite sex (who could be gay or straight), for exactly the same reason you describe above: money/tax reasons/rproperty. Any mixed-sex couple can marry for any reason they see fit, and certainly plenty marry for reasons other than love already.

b0nny,

The problem though is that you are adding to the pool of those eligible for a marriage of convenience. Not only gays but straight men who would marry straight men to get them into the U.S. for say a fee, insurance fraud, what have you.

So really your ability to follow a line of reasoning is not so sound, is it?

spiker, I am fully aware that, yes. I also don't care. The reasons why people decide to marry are absolutely none of my concern. If you have a problem with government giving incentives for marriage, well that's a separate issue.

If you care about people marrying for love, however (as the poster I responded to seems to), then you've also widened the pool for that considerably. Which is good for society. I simply can't believe there are that many straight men and women who would be willing to enter into a same sex marriage for money. But my point is, if you want to 'cheat the system', there is nothing to stop you now, either.

Are you saying no mechanisms are in place that try to inhibit marriages of convenience?

"Greencard" interviews for those marrying non-US citizens come to mind.

Whichever mechanisms are currently in place to inhibit marriages of convenience will apply to gay marriages as well. If the government wishes to enforce even stricter measures once gay marriage is legal, that's fine with me too.

Gay marriage makes it impossible to restrict/monitor marriages of convenience in any effective manner.

That has been the purpose of the discussion.

You really didn't get that?