Well said Mitch.

Since when is J Lo the gold standard for straight marriage?

Andrew should try this example. Next week my grandparents will celebrate their 65th wedding anniversary. Their 3 children, 6 grandchildren, and 11 great-grandchildren will celebrate with them.

I found Andrew's essay a few months ago in Time magazine on gay marriage compelling. He talked about growing up in a family where (as is the case in most families) the most important day of one's life is one's wedding day. And that when he realized as a teenager that he was gay, he knew he would be left out of this important rite of passage.

My take on the issue (and the reason I'm for gay marriage) is this: why do we people make such a big deal about the ways in which we are different from one another? Men, women, black, white, gay, straight. We're human, and as a quote I love says, we have much more in common than we have differences. But like kids at opposing high schools -- St. Thomas Academy is better! No, Cretin-Derham is better! -- who have so many similarities but care more the differences (maybe to make themselves feel more important?), we continually categorize and separate ourselves from one another.

Here's the quote, by Maya Angelou:

"In my work, in everything I do, I mean to say that we human beings are more alike than we are unalike, and to use that statement to break down the walls we set between ourselves because we are different. I suggest that we should herald our differences, because the differences make us interesting, and also enrich and make us stronger. But the differences are miniscule compared to the similarities. That's what I mean to say."

I've found Sullivan PLENTY compelling in the past on gay marriage - at one point, I found myself in support of it, sort of. I still favor civil unions, because the one place where Sullivan's argument falls apart is over what marriage actually *is*.

I personally favor getting government out of the marriage business, and having it treat all such things as contracts (in this case, a contract that could be drawn up in a church, a synogogue, mosque, courthouse or JotP). People could choose whatever means to initiate the contract they wanted, including churches that found theological reasons to allow gays to marry.

Not that anyone's asked me.

I know I am going to sound like a dinosaur but the problem that I have with gay marriage is the word "marriage". I was raised that the word "marriage" described the union of a man and a woman. (I was also raised that the word "gay" meant "happy" or "bright and lively", but that is another discussion.)

I am all for civil unions. I am all for spousal insurance benefits, Social Security survivor benefits, etc.

But when I have proposed the idea with gay friends (one couple was "married" in San Francisco while that was going on) they are adamantly against civil unions and insist on being "married".

Besides, why shouldn't gay couples get to experience the joy of divorce, alimony, and division of community property, like straight couples?

“I personally favor getting government out of the marriage business, and having it treat all such things as contracts (in this case, a contract that could be drawn up in a church, a synogogue, mosque, courthouse or JotP). People could choose whatever means to initiate the contract they wanted, including churches that found theological reasons to allow gays to marry.”

I’m a bit confused here since people are already able to do just this sort of thing without it being a “civil marriage.” You can draft a will and leave your property to pretty much whomever you want. You can appoint pretty much any competent adult to make medical decisions for you if you are incapacitated. You can buy a home with whomever you want. You can find any religious group who is willing (or start your own) to orchestrate a “religious marriage” and the only difference is that it will not qualify as a “civil marriage” unless it meets the statutory guidelines. Even then, you can do pretty much all of the same things couples in a “civil marriage” can do, except that you would have to draft a separate contract for them.

So what then is the benefit to getting rid of “civil marriage” as Mitch seems to favor?

The majority of the pro and con regarding gay marriage seems to neglect one crucial detail. Abandoning a social construct that was developed over thousands of years is dangerous. We are arrogant to presume to know somehow that redefining marriage will have no effect. I disagree. I think over time marriage will become entirely meaningless, and the very first pillar of our civilization, the family, will have been destroyed.

Pogo wrote:

“The majority of the pro and con regarding gay marriage seems to neglect one crucial detail. Abandoning a social construct that was developed over thousands of years is dangerous.”

I tend to agree, there was an article in the Atlantic Monthly about the Russian attempt to abolish marriage (click on my name for the link) in the early days of the former Soviet Union and it was an unmitigated disaster. While I’m certainly as libertarian as Mitch (more so in some areas, not as much in others), I do not see any benefit in abolishing the institution as civil marriage. That is not to say that it could not survive without governmental sanction (and that’s what we’re really talking about) and the conveniences from a standardized civil marriage contract, but keeping it as is harms no one, it provides positive externalities (e.g. supporting a nuclear family structure for child rearing), there seems to be benefit to abolishing it, and there will probably be some societal harm if we did so.

Mitch,
It is very sad to see the way Andrew has lost his mind with this issue. He's shrill and doesn't even know it. Recently he took issue with National Review's characterization of "gay marriage" as a hard-left position, yet has no problem himself describing opponents as religious right theocons akin to the Taliban. He can't fathom that rational, tolerant people, who don't flinch when cousin Jerry shows up to Christmas dinner with his "friend" Bob, could oppose gay marriage on practical grounds. His best argument for gay marriage is pointing out the worst examples of actual marriage. Thus, his basic argument reads to me as, "See, marriage has already been obliterated beyond recognition, so what's the difference if we end its meaning altogether?" Sad, especially for a usually sharp and provocative writer.

I think this should be required reading for fense-sitters:
http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2004-02-15-1.html