I’d like to see some examples of where homosexuality exists in animals like it does in homo sapiens. There is homosexual-like behavior. Like in dogs. One male will mount another, or a female will mount another female. A female will even mount a male. But this isn’t a sign of homosexuality like we see it. Instead, this is a behavior of dominance and is used to create a pecking order within the pack. We don’t see co-habitation equivalents, etc.

I personally agree that the institution of marriage should be confined to heterosexual couples. And for me it does have a religious basis. But it can also be argued in a biological way as well.

Another thing to think about, is once we take away the heterosexual exclusiveness of marriage, do we now need to allow other forms of marriage in order to stay in line with our “Civil Union” definition of marriage? Should we actively encourage polygamy? Parent-Child marriages? Even Human-Animal marraiges? In all cases we can justify “Well, a relationship does exist, and they do love each other, so why not.”

Jason, you have a very good point about homosexual-seeming dominance displays among primates. i’ll concede you that point.

personally, i am fully aware of the glass house in which i and my eye-plank reside, so i commend all of those who have waited until marriage to have emotionally and bible-fulfilling non-sodomite (ie non-vaginal) hetro intercourse with nothing standing between them and procreation but rhythm and a prayer.

and i mean that sincerely, knowing at least one couple who were virgins on their wedding night and have successfully used natural family planning for several years before recently conceiving.

(ok, mostly sincerely)

should i throw into the mix that it was only recently that religion and society didn’t think that inter-racial marriage was an acceptable norm? no? ok…

I don’t think the government is implying that having more children means you are a good American because of the tax rebate. If that was the case, then we could infer that all tax breaks imply being a good American. For example, You’re not a good American if:

you don’t go to college and in turn can’t use education tax breaks
you don’t buy a house and in turn don’t take advantage of itemizing your loan interest
you don’t contribute to a retirement plan pre-tax, and thus minimizing your taxable income
you don’t have investment losses and thus don’t take advantage of writing off those losses
etc…

I read that someone mentioned the whole “survival of the species” rubbish. Wonder if anyone has noticed that the rampant procreation in the world today is making it less likely that the planet can sustain any species, well probably mammals anyway. So not breeding to a certain degree is good for the survival of the species.

Also. Wasn’t marriage created as a contract of ownership over someone else?

A contract of ownership for purposes of breeding. To be specific.

One could (if one were male) in the Bad Old Days, send your broodwoman (er, sorry, wife) unceremoniously back for a refund if she failed to provide you with offspring. Or male offspring. Whatever. Exchange her for a younger, fertile model (because God knows, the problem was never in YOUR manly testes!).

I’m tired of the arguments. I’m tired of ignorant people dragging out useful bits of hearsay from history and their preferred bits of the bible to defend their nasty little prejudices. While conveniently ignoring all the less useful parts.

And I certainly don’t think we need to be doing too much more breeding, no.

Let us just, please, stop being silly about this, let there be a legal way of formalising partnerships of WHATEVER kind. And the religious nutbars and the conservatives can go off in a corner and fight about what sort of partnerships they will choose to recognise, and stop boring the rest of us.

here’s the argument in comic form. 🙂