If two people want to find someone to marry them so they can go play house…I don’t care. But there are multiple reasons for the state to only recognize opposite-sex marriages.
Wow, so your position is that a religious ceremony binding a same-sex couple is perfectly fine with you, but it should not have the same LEGAL effect as a heterosexual marriage! That’s the first time I’ve seen that argument. Let’s examine it, shall we?
Such as,
1. Marriage--as defined as being between men and women exclusively--is the basis for any culture. This has been true regardless of the culture itself including factors such as time, geography, religion, race, etc. And children are best served in a family consisting of their biological mother and father.
Not quite true. Marriage, as an “institution” has only existed in relatively recent times as part of the outgrowth of organized religion. For the greatest part of human existence there was no such thing. The dominant male could do whatever he wanted, including have sex with every female member of the tribal group, or “dominate” any younger or weaker male if he felt like it. Even in historical times there are oodles of examples of same sex bonding recognized by law or culture. What is true in your statement is that one important social aspect of organized religion was the power to sanctify a bond between a man and a woman so as to lend stability to a family unit.
2. Fatherless homes are the number one predictor of antisocial behavior in teens.
3. Maternal deprivation is shown to increase a child’s incidence of alcoholism and impulsiveness (while I’ve posted a few links I think we all intuitively know that a child needs both a mother and a father for proper development).
So having two fathers or two mothers might double antisocial behavior in teens or serve to increase alcoholism in children? Hardly a factual presumption.
I think you misrepresent the problems with having a single parent household as being uncorrectable in a two-parent household of same-sex parents. Having few examples of same-sex situations to prove your point, you again project your personal bias and assume facts not in evidence.
4. A change in the definition of marriage only hurts the institution of marriage and thus society as a whole. Consider that marriage used to be a permanent institution and divorce was a rather rate occurrence until “no-fault divorce” became law and divorce became easier to obtain. Today nearly half of all marriages end in divorce and the impact on children in devastating.
It is your assumption this will “hurt the institution of marriage,” but this presumes facts not in evidence. Simply because YOU don’t like the idea is no basis for that presumption either. In fact, YOUR heterosexual marriage is not affected at all unless YOU allow it to be. Opining about divorce, aside from being a red herring issue here, only affects those who choose to get a divorce not those who remain “happily married.”
5. As a result of high divorce rates many couples choose to live together without the benefit, responsibilities and obligations of marriage. This, too, has a dangerous affect on marriage as those who live together first and then marry are more likely to get divorced, once again, harming any children involved.
6. The state provides divorce courts, child services, women services, etc. all relating to the break-up of families. It is a multi-billion dollar expense that tax-payers must absorb. As such the state would be better off limiting divorces to the best of their ability (limiting marriage to it traditional sense: one man + one woman for life).
Again with the “divorce” issue? We are talking about same-sex marriage and thus you are again presuming facts not in evidence. Why should you care about same-sex couples getting a divorce affecting children? Whether or not a same-sex couple makes some arrangement about having a child (adoption, artificial insemination, w/e) at worst it would be little different from heterosexual couples who contemplate children and divorce. All of your “divorce points” apply to marriage in general, thus none of them have special merit in relation to same sex marriage.
7. As marriage comes to mean less and less, people are relying less and less on the institution. One of the newer trends in relationships involves the “hook up”, where an individual finds a sexual outlet in another person for a time. There is only a minimal, in any, relationship outside a sexual relationship. Children born out of such arrangements will suffer.
You final point is a blatant appeal to emotion based upon false premises, red herrings, presumptions of facts not in evidence, and simple personal bias. Try again, this "don't make it legal" argument simply won’t fly.