instead of asking me to extend the argument to a logical absurdity (ie. multiple partners in marriage),
Why is that a logical absurdity? Plural marriages are practiced in this country to this day.
I would
appreciate hearing your honestly-considered view on gay marriage.
Fair enough.
My honestly considered views on gay marriage are that I am opposed to it.
I think gay partners have every right to cohabit without government sanctioned discrimination, though I also think people who believe homosexuality to be a sin have every right not to rent to them or have them in their organizations.
I think gay partners have need for contractual relationships to clarify the extent and terms of their relationship. I say this not just from theory but from practical experience, having as an attorney represented clients in breaking up lesbian relationships.
But I think marriage is a cultural and biological imperative which society has not only the right but the obligation to preserve in its traditional sense. I know the arguments that 80 year olds can marry even though they can't have children and all that, but I don't agree with the principle that you build rules around the exception instead of the rule.
I think the human race is, historically, generally very wise, with of course some exceptions but fewer than we think, and that the establishment of the one-man-one-woman marriage as the core definition of family in virtually every culture has a lot of wisdom as well as logic behind it. I think we are seeing today the social result of the decline of emphasis on non-nuclear families, and it generally isn't pretty for the children involved. We can all point to exceptions, but there are exceptions to everything affecting humans, and that doesn't change my thinking.
So I would reserve marriage for the traditional one-man-one-woman relationship.
So that's my honestly-considered view on gay marriage.
But if we are going to extend the definition, I can't see any logical basis for stopping anywhere short of letting any group of people who want to call themselves married be married. Can you? |
