[mr.perfecto]

Quote by: Starboy So what. Black man + slavery = right. Black man + slavery = wrong. You argument is about tradition. Nobody is arguing that people who want to observe your concept of a marriage will no longer be allowed to. You do not have to squeeze everything into a binary universe. Tradition doesn't require that my tradition is right therefore your tradition is wrong. Tradition can allow for both traditions to be right. You are using an artificial constraint as if it were an argument. Man x Woman x Sexual Intercourse = Children = RIGHT! and Man x Woman x Sexual Intercourse x Marriage = Children = RIGHT! and Man + Man = family = RIGHT! and Women + Women = family = RIGHT!

The tradition in China is that the common people do not vote, the tradition in the US is that they do. The two traditions are mutually exclusive. Each tradition has benefits and costs/risks associated with it. The same with the rule of law, equal protection of the laws, private property, etc.
Now, you may just have to take this as an article of faith, but human nature does not change. You can measure how stable and peaceful a society are by the traditions and values it holds. A tradition of innocent until proven guilty and of lynch mobs administering "justice" can not eternally coexist, one will have to go. Perhaps violently.
My traditions vs. your traditions, which are the best? The ones with the best results. Who decides what traditions give the best result? God. Who decides which results have the best benefits as opposed to risks? The society in question does to a certain extent, however the freedom to pick which of a certain number of paths to take does not grant the freedom to decide the end result of taking that path or even to choose which paths are available.

Quote by: Starboy The earth will not careen off its axis if gays are allowed to get government marriage licenses. You seem to have this very narrow and formulaic view of how people must be. That is fine; you are free to live by it. But for some reason you are not content to be able to do this. You demand that everyone live by it whether they want to or not.

The earth won't careen off its axis if we recognize murder as an alternative anger management style. I miss the point entirely.
I don't demand that everyone live by my rules any more than you do. I demand that everyone who lives in my city or county or state or nation follows the rules of that particular place.

Quote by: Starboy I know you have said this. I never said you didn't. But so what? There are also hetero couples that get married and are sterilized and have no children and have no intention of having children. Yet they are married. There are even couples that were sterilized before they were married. Yet they have the marriage license. They have state recognition of their family. You may think that this is immoral. Good for you. But it is not illegal and by the morals of other people and other religions it is perfectly moral. You see you are still trying to squeeze everybody into your tradition. Yet no one is stopping you from practicing your own. How would you like it if the shoe were on the other foot? You see in a society that values freedom and equality you are free to practice your traditions as you see fit and others are allowed to do the same. Somehow this has escaped you.

This may surprise you, but when a man and women have sexual intercourse, the decision about when a baby is concieved is not entirely up to them. There are factors involved that neither party has full control over, and if they did have full control over the process there would be no reason for marriage to exist at all.

Quote by: Starboy When did I say this?

Your statements about the Y chromosome disappearing. You can't separate sex, natural child birth, and marriage without changing the purpose of marriage. You can't convince people the definition should be changed without attacking all three parts of marriage.

Quote by: Starboy Incest is discouraged because of social taboo. You see marriage has nothing to do with those taboos. They are taboo with or without marriage. They are based on people observing that human inbreeding is not good for the stock.

Marriage has as much to do with the taboo concerning deviant sexual practices as laws requiring title registration for vehicles do concerning theft.

Quote by: Starboy Expected by whom? Perhaps by you but not by most people. That was then, this is now. Most people are having sex before marriage these days. You may not like it but it appears to have nothing to do with marriage. You would have a point if the clerk down at city hall would not issue a license if there was premarital sex but they do not. You see it is not against the law. Maybe biblical law but this is not about biblical law.

I have a point anyway. The clerk asks the questions he is supposed to ask, no more no less.

Quote by: Starboy What are you talking about? If you don't have any children then there is no divorce law regarding children that applies. There are laws regarding children because there are people who get divorced that have children. But there are also plenty of people who get divorced that do not have children. I gotta tell you perfect, these are very stupid arguments.

Your point? There are plenty of people who get driver's licenses who never operate an automobile after they pass the test. Doesn't change anything. The rules of marriage and divorce are crafted around the purpose of marriage and not whether you use all the options available to you.

Quote by: Starboy All I see you doing is constraining marriage to what you think it ought to be not to what it actually is. There are millions of people getting married and divorced in this country. They have many different reasons for doing both and a great many of them do not conform to your idea of what a marriage ought to be. If they can get married then gays should be able to get married. That is what it means to have equal treatment under the law. Unless you propose to change the marriage laws to conform to your restricted view of what a marriage must be you do not have an argument. All you have is a "straw man" because what you constrict a marriage to be is not the only kind of marriage that is currently being allowed.

So, I'm saying "leave marriage alone" (which is not changing it) and your calling for the very definition of what marriage is to be changed, but I need to change the marriage laws to conform to my views? How does that work?

Quote by: Starboy I must say mr.perfect, you are becoming perfectly tedious. Starboy

I do apologize, it certainly isn't for lack of trying to be otherwise.