Doc, for how much I’m in your camp on this, the definition of marriage is not fixed. But, that is the problem. Since it is fluid, it can change and as society adopts other definitions it undermines the ability to recognize and protect waht real marriage was meant to protect.

I’ve argued with many people (xrlq not among them) which try to wedge that if anyone things marriage means just “two people” (or what I call neutered marriage) then it means that for everyone. Given their stance I can understand the need to hunt that down on the individual level. But I don’t think that is neccessary, nor proper.

Because, given the fluidity of what marriage can mean and the potential each definition has to inspire different behaviors, I think it is important to concede the fluidity and even ambiguity and then argue in why marriage needs to mean what you expect it to mean.

A good example of that exchange was when I was arguing with the Sci-Fi author John Scalzi.

In the end, the fact that the Dictionary recognizes two definitions worked against his own argument (and consequently, I feel, yours as well). Sure it showed how incompatible the definitions are, but it also showed they both exist.

Having conceded that the debate is on the merits of each definition, and not our own ability to dismiss the other, I’ve found an easy win every time.

Marriage as it stands now, or at least as I see it in its most inspiring form, is to ensure equality. It is to ensure the equality of each member of a procreational unit, the man the woman and the child they potentially have together. Primarily it is the child who’s considered last in the debate, and they should be considered first.

Children benefit the most from seeing the two identities who combined to create their own, love, honor, respect, and cherish each other. It teaches personal responsibility, tolerance and the ability to share power with influence — the most noble self-governing principles we can have if you ask me. They learn their own heritage and link to the past (which in turn teaches a respect for history).

While there are many ways to try to provide most of that outside of a marriage, there is no way to provide all of that.

Now, perhaps it is because I’m a pragmatist rather then a logical disciplinarian that I take that platform. But since I see marriage as something that needs a sort of revival among all of society, I’m happiest choosing the dualing grounds such that it requires me to extol the virtues of real marriage. Nothing shows what we are losing with neutered marriage more then showing what is protected and recognized by real marriage.
.-= On Lawn´s last blog ..Crossing Party Lines: Marriage in North East =-.

Let me ask you this: if a man and a woman do all the things that you think constitute a “marriage,” but never jump through the hoops needed for it to constitute a “marriage” under the laws of their state of domicile, are they “married?” And if so, why?

I’m pretty sure that you aren’t interested in reading an argument about the nature of marriage as an extension of the nature of men, women, and societies, and I know I’m not interested in writing one, so I’ll just note that there is an alternative to “defined by the state” and “defined by religion” and that this alternative is not just tradition, it has strong philosophical roots dating back at least to Aristotle.

You can mock it, but with all due respect, I’ll suggest that you don’t understand the viewpoint well enough to justify your judgmental attitude towards it. And this is true whether the viewpoint is correct or not. Someone can be wrong without being mock-worthy.

If/when you return to earth, where legal marriage is a construct of the state and ceremonial/religious marriage is a construct of religion, we can resume our discussion as to what the definition of a marriage ought to be. But there can be no reasonable debate as to what it *is.*

When someone says that the law does not discriminate against gays (and by the way, “discriminate against” means something different from “discriminate among”) in the definition of marriage, they are relying on a definition of marriage where marriage is not defined by the law. Anyone who wants to get married can get married. No discrimination. What the gays want to do is not get married. They want to do something different and they want the law to pretend that what they are doing is getting married. This argument is perfectly coherent and reasonable once you acknowledge the way that it uses the word “marriage”.

As long as you continue to insist that marriage is an arbitrary construction of the state, then, of course, the argument makes no sense. But you are mocking an argument that you don’t understand.

That is not the traditional concept of marriage. The traditional concept of marriage is that a man marries a woman and the two of them begin to create a family. Religions and laws merely codify and formalize a pre-existing institution. Neither religion nor law has any more power to change marriage into something else than they do for any other part of basic human nature.

The state can’t legislate that not defending yourself from a burglar is courage. It can’t legislate that when it taxes you and gives your money to Democrat client groups, that you are being charitable. And it can’t legislate that if two dudes take marriage vows that they are then a real married couple.

As to your point about the literal meaning of “discrimination”, yes, I got that. It’s sort of like mocking someone for saying that the sun moves through the sky, because in a pedantic, absolutist sense, it is not the sun that is moving but the earth.

Akin to the dumb statement:

“anybody can operate on a human being provided they are a licensed doctor”

Discrimination, I tell you!!!

Same sex couples living together have none of that. (Families of homosexuals have even prohibited the partner to come to the funeral; hospitals won’t let them visit in intensive care.) If there are children, the partner can’t operate as a parent either.

Same sex relationships, just as heterosexual marriages, are not always only about sexual relations.

Sillier still is your argument that “even where the government does license gay marriage’ it still isn’t a marriage.” As a religious matter, marriage is whatever the tenets of your religion say it is. As a legal matter, it’s whatever the law says it is. Nothing more and nothing less.

OL:
Here’s where the analogy between single-sex marriage and single-race schools breaks down. No one advocates gay marriage to the exclusion of straight marriage. A law allowing people to marry members of their own sex but not the other would indeed be analogous to a law prohibiting the races from mingling, but by that reasoning, a law requiring people to marry the opposite sex is akin to reverse discrimination, forced busing, and all those other policies aimed at forcing the races to intermingle whether they wanted to or not. Not as bad as forced segregation in my book, but hardly exemplary, either.