• Civil Marriage is Marriage as seen by, and falling under the scope of, civil law, and being afforded various legal rights (such as concerning hospital visitation, inheritance, child adoption and child custody) and subject to various legal responsibilities.
• Religious Marriage is Marriage within the context of a particular system of faith, for example, a marriage in Christianity being a formal relationship between a Man, a Woman (in that order), and God.

"Defense of Marriage", "Protecting the sanctity of Marriage", "Marriage is under attack", etc

Indeed it is! After all, many same-sex couples would like to make the commitment of marriage, but such marriages are actively opposed by conservatives (and not a few liberals), and for no better reason than to support their overinflated sense of righteousness. Just who is doing the attacking, now?

Also, consider the following:

• The ubiquity of pre-nuptial agreements, which indicate a lack of faith that the marriage will be the life-long commitment it is supposed to be;
• The commonness of divorce;
• Marriage for political purposes, such as for one partner to gain influence and thus power in the social or political group of which the other (or his/her family) is a member;
• The view that marriage is "just something you do", which promotes getting married for the sake of getting married, with little regard for how serious a decision it is supposed to be;
• People in higher social circles looking down on those who are not married, thereby, again, promoting getting married for the sake of being married or for the sake of appearances;
• And, last but not least: drive-through wedding chapels officiated by an Elvis Presley impersonator;

And those things have been observed in the long history of opposite-sex-only marriage. Now, while same-sex couples are not inherently less likely to do those things too, they're also not more likely to do so. And indeed, the fact that there are many same-sex couples out there who want to make the commitment of marriage, is hardly what I would consider an "attack" on the institution of marriage. In fact, the only "attack" on it is denying marriage rights to loving couples, on the basis of righteousness and irrational fear.

Same-sex marriage goes against tradition.

The traditions of marriage have been changing as time goes by. Consider:

• The fact polygamy is no longer widely practiced
• The fact the wife is no longer literally considered the property of the husband
• The fact that marriages can be ended via divorce, and the divorcées can go on to marry others
• Allowing for inter-racial and inter-faith marriages

Every one of those things had gone against existing tradition in their time. Tradition by itself is no basis for logical reasoning: the original reasons for which the traditions came about may have been valid in their time, but times— and traditions— change (as illustrated by the list above) and perhaps those reasons are not valid in this day and age. If they are indeed no longer valid, then it is foolish to continue to cling to them; and if they are still valid, then surely they can withstand scrutiny? The traditions have changed to match the times, and same-sex marriage is simply the latest instance of that.

Same-sex marriage— and non-heterosexuality in general— is wrong, as clearly stated in the Holy Bible.

Your religious beliefs are only relevant to those who hold the same beliefs (and not at all to civil law), and many (if not most) non-heterosexuals are not christians. Those who are will have to come to terms with their religion themselves.

Marriage is about family, and same-sex couples can't start a family since they can't reproduce.

Then perhaps your baleful gaze should also be directed at the following:

• Couples where one or both partners are infertile for any reason (by choice or otherwise)
• Elderly couples who are beyond their reproductive years
• Couples who engage in protected sex
• Couples who choose to not have children for any reason, such as not having the resources to provide for them, or simply because they don't want to have children.

And yet I don't witness conservative forces being set in motion to try to prevent those couples from getting/being married.

Besides, the inability to reproduce— if that is of such paramount importance— can be mitigated by the following possibilities:

• Adopting a child, which ought to become legal for same-sex couples (and will likely become so when same-sex civil marriage becomes a reality, Belgium notwithstanding)
• Artificial insemination, or other means of reproducing without conventional intercourse

Same-sex marriage would deprive children of the conventional mother- and father-figures important for a growing child's social development.

True, but such children would still have two parents who (presumably) both love the child, and having two parents makes it much more feasable to raise the child properly (e.g. one can work, the other can stay home to tend to the child).

Also, mother- and father-figure roles can be fulfilled by relatives (grandparents, aunts, uncles, and the like), if not by the parents themselves, seeing as non-heterosexuals tend to be more open to the fact that "male" and "masculine" (as "female" and "feminine") are not inherently one and the same).

Besides, this assumes that a child needs separate masculine and feminine role models to begin with, which is certainly debatable.

Same-sex couples already have the same rights as opposite-sex couples under the law. After all, for example, a gay man can marry a woman, just like a straight man can.

Well, using that logic, you thus would not have objected if your 2004 U.S. election ballot had only listed John Kerry as a presidential candidate, with no way to vote for Bush (or any third-party candidates, or indeed anyone that's not Kerry). After all, in such a situation Republicans and Democrats would have had the same rights: Republicans would have been free to vote for Kerry, just like Democrats.

A person is free to marry someone of the opposite sex, but is not free to marry the person whom he/she loves if that person happens to not be a member of the proscribed acceptable sex for that person to love. So on the basis of sex, they do indeed have the same rights; but on the basis of love, which is by far more important, they do not.

The idea of same-sex marriage is absurd because it assumes men and women are equal; not in the sense of equal in value and dignity (in which men and women are indeed equal), but rather that they are interchangable components in a functional marriage.

If they were not at all interchangable, then there would be no same-sex couples, let alone any movement to allow them to marry, now would there?

Besides, since men and women are equal in value and dignity, you could exchange one for the other and the result would be equal in value and dignity.

If same-sex marriages are allowed, it sets a precedent that may result in the legalization of human-animal marriages, human-machine marriages, parent-child marriages, and other such outlandish things.

In some places, same-sex marriage is already legal: currently, the major places include: the U.S. State (or technically Commonwealth) of Massachusetts, the entirety of Canada, Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium, and next year it becomes law in South Africa. And that's not counting the places where some form of "civil union" laws exist, such as several U.S. states and many European countries including the United Kingdom and France. And in all of those places where same-sex marriage or "civil unions" are law, none of those dire consequences have come to pass, not one! None have even been advocated, let alone implemented!

I might point out that what I advocate is allowing same-sex couples to be considered married in the eyes of civil law: nothing more than simply removing the requirement that the two people be the opposite sex: or, even more simply put, to make sex irrelevant. This can be accomplished without extending marriage rights to human-animal or human-machine or adult-child or other such pairings, as they are not relevant to the issue of same-sex marriage. Besides, animals, machines and children do not have the legal wherewithal to consent to marriage, and granting them that wherewithal would have implications in civil law far beyond simply marriage; same-sex marriage, on the other hand, is already fully under the scope of existing laws, except of course for the sex/gender requirements.

So, trying to associate same-sex marriage with such bad things is merely a cheap attempt to discredit it and has no basis in logic or reason.

Speaking of the concept of civil union, why doesn't that suffice?

Because it is not civil marriage. The difference goes beyond mere terminology: it does not always confer all the legal rights of marriage, and moreover it would not be seen as genuine marriage (which is because it is not): "We've got a real marriage, those gays only get their little pretend marriage."

Besides, separate but equal is not equal (a principle that has been upheld in the U.S. Supreme Court regarding segregation).

If we allow same-sex marriage, we'll have to teach our children about it, and that's wrong.

No, children are at that magical age when members of the opposite sex have cooties. They don't care about marriage, let alone same-sex marriage.

Besides, are you saying you ought to selectively withhold information from them (note the difference between "teach about same-sex marriage" and "advocate that they be same-sex oriented")? Certainly if it is so wrong then its faults will be self-apparent and thus children will be able to see it for themselves (or at least will when they reach maturity and their logical reasoning facilities begin to fully develop); or are you afraid you might be wrong and that they will learn that you're wrong?

And using children to sell your position when they have no relevance to same-sex marriage... have you sunk so low? It's yet another sign that you're just grasping for straws, scraping the barrel for some hope, some sign that your position is actually defendable, let alone correct.

Originally posted by Anya

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For how long has it been called a Christmas tree and no one got pissed. But all of a sudden, we’re in the 21st century and we have to be all PC?

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