But they can make a legitimate argument for imposing that definition as a state interest: procreation.
Since when has procreation been a prerequisite to marriage? Do they make people take fertility tests before they get married? Do they forbid elderly couples who are postmenopausal from getting married? Do they retract a couple's marriage if they are together for a certain amount of time and then fail to have children? Procreation is not a valid argument for a legitimate state interest in marriage because the state doesn't require that heterosexual couples actually procreate to get married.
First, we have to acknowledge why marriage exists in the first place. More than anything else, it exists to create a stable two-parent environemtn for the raising of children. This is fairly undeniable. Marriages in the past were often arranged and the participants never knew each other prior to getting married. Traditions surrounding "consumation" abound.
Actually this is false. In most of the world, marriage has occurred after a couple had been together and the mother was already expecting. Marriage didn't make much sense if the couple was infertile. Betrothals were a result of economic incentives, whereby families could exchange goods for having a daughter marry into another family and solidifying bonds between the two families. Furthermore, many early Christian sects were pretty convinced that the world was going to end soon, and they weren't really having sex at all as celibacy was seen as more noble than marriage. Many of the leaders at the time realized that they were going to die off and the religion would be in trouble, so marriage began to be sanctified by the church over celibacy.
As we've progressed, marriages took on the "love" aspect.
This is true. The romantic notion of love is a fairly recent addition to marriage. Love was often associated with a mistress rather than a wife. It was a concept largely born out of the Victorian era. Of course, it is irrelevant to the argument since marriage is ultimately a contract in the civil sense, and love is not a state requirement to get married.
Two things:
1. If the law was written as "Any person can marry someone of their own race", it would not prohibit interracial marriages. Wording is a key factor in law-making. Poorly worded laws never end up working as intended.
Fine, I'll be more specific. Marriage is defined as a union between two of the same race. There, more inclined to our modern day example. Good way to sidestep the argument that your reasoning can be equally applied to interracial marriage bans.
2. My reasoning would not justify interracial marriage bans, as there is no legitimate arguments regarding the intention of marraige that can exclude interracial marraiges. Unfortunately for SSM, there is a legitimate argument against Same-sex marriages relating to the procreational purposes of marriage, which is really the ultimate purpose of marriage.
Not exactly a "legitimate" reason given that elderly couples, infertile couples, and couples who choose not to have children, are all allowed to marry. I'm afraid for that argument to be rational, all those groups would have to be denied the right to marry.
The pro same-sex marriage side must acknowledge these arguments and not simply attempt to dismiss them as irrelevent in order to make their case.
The proponents of SSM have failed to do so, and have in many ways hurt their own case from this failure because they often tend to attack this ultimate purpose of marraige as irrelevent to teh point of marriage.
They are irrelevant. And you really haven't been listening if you haven't heard these arguments before.
Lets face it, most people oppose the concept of SSM. That's why these states keep voting the issue down (I mean California of all places lost that vote).
The fact that most people oppose same sex marriage is irrelevant. Constitutional rights are not up for a vote.
In order to change their minds, one must actually listen to their argumetns and create their rebuttals to address those arguments. The SSM proponents have only increased the opposition with their current approach.
Actually they don't provide any rational arguments. I have begged people on this forum who oppose same sex marriage to provide a rational argument. I'm still waiting to hear your rational argument.
Ultimately, they are going to push this too far without stating their case effectively (using gender discrimination as their basis for their arguments will ultimately fail because the only reason that the state even has an interest in marriage in the first place is beecause of how it relates to raising children). If they don't formulate their arguments to adress this issue in this way, they will probably lose when it goes to the supreme court because they won't be prepared to defend against this legitimate argument.
You want to hear an interesting fact?
8 to 10 million children in this country are being raised by gay parents or same sex couples. The American Pediatric Association has argued that same sex marriage would greatly benefit those children. I think you just made a superb argument
for the institution of same sex marriage in this country.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/118/1/349
http://www.enotalone.com/article/9874.html
Now do you want to explain to me why you feel that imposing a definition of marriage that does no include same sex couples, and thereby denying children raised by same sex couples the same benefits provided to children raised by married heterosexual couples is justified?
And just to head off your next arguments, the latest 30 years of research has shown that same sex couples can raise children just as well as heterosexual couples.
http://people.virginia.edu/~cjp/articles/ffp10b.pdf
Thank you Tucker for making such an excellent case for same sex marriage. Just so you know, this is the exact same argument I have been using on this forum for 2 years. These were also included in the 80 findings of fact that Judge Walker included in his ruling. Trust me, the case for same sex marriage is iron clad.
