Zena ,he is doing what Mother Theresa,that great rationalist ,would have had him to do.By the way , what happened to all her loot?I t didn’t go to the poor sick people .She reveled in poverty and W. doesn’t want a minimum wage or what ever would help poor pregnant women.Neither qualifies as a rationalist ,but as faith-based nuts.

And did you know Bush put a Gag-rule on the U.S. reproductive services that they couldn’t tell the people in foreign countries about preventing pregnancy, or their reproductive rights? These people are dying because there are too many people, and they are starving because they are not allowed the right to their own BODIES. Multiplying misery. It has to be wrong for officials to own and breed slaves. I know it is definitely against the law in the U.S.

Lets delete all arguments and rethink this issue.

Is there any archeological evidence of marriage between same sex couples in any culture or society in recorded history?

Isn’t same sex marriage a new thing?  I’m not certain but it is different because obviously marriage has always existed as an evolutionary device to keep a man around to help raise the children.

Why keep butting heads over this issue?  Why not create new rituals especially for same sex people.  Rituals and ceremonies are very very important for societies and they have purposes.

Its like when a judge wears robes or even wigs and sits higher than others in a court room.  Obviously this is simply a human being like everyone else but in the ritual of trial he/she is above everyone else and it is important that everyone recognize the legal authority of a judge and show respect and say “your honor”.  Its all about ritual isn’t it?  And thats important.

Marriage is an important institution with all its attending rituals and ceremony and significance.  Lets respect that and come up with some kind of ceremony for same sex people so that everyone can show respect to everyone else and everyone can be happy.

Perhaps if there is historical precedence in some culture, than gay marriage ritual could be based upon that.

Barry Johnson,yes, god hates us! Being omniscient ,it knew we would sin ,but it delights in that .Why else would it have a hell in store for many of us?Logic is the bane of theists.

You say heterosexuals hate their own bodies. not true. we are made to hate our own sex drives, our lust for that pretty girl next door as a shameful thing. we go through our youth believing we are evil because of our desire for her, then we marry and suddenly it is alright? Can’t happen. Our hatred of sex and of the opposite sex is based in religious belief beginning with the book of Genesis, where woman is an obvious afterthought and the source of original sin. Where religion begins, reason ends.

I am one half of a childless, heterosexual relationship who is contemplating marriage (again) because of my spiritual beliefs - I can’t have more children - the three kids I had are perfectly wonderful but I’m done...and even though I’ve survived divorce, I still believe in marriage as a stabilizing force in society - I have gay friends of both sexes and they’re just regular people.  They work, pay bills, care about their families, friends and communities - have lover’s spats and just generally act like everyone else I know, except the person they love happens to have the same genitalia - who the %$#* cares?  If we do not own our own bodies, then are we not slaves?  If “they” can legislate who we love and how, then where will it stop?  Marriage between ANY two people who wish to make a spiritual and LEGAL commitment does nothing but strengthen our society - with half of all hetero marriages ending in divorce, how could anyone wanting to marry make it any worse?  Gays are OK when it comes to taxing, taking in foster children, vote-courting, and more, but not good enough to be treated as human beings?  Because loving and making life-commitments are human things - what are they afraid of, anyway?  A shrink would say that they’re scared of their own homosexual urges - so get some counseling, guys - and keep your religion out of our beds and lives!!!  My God and my Saviour love ALL of us, warts and all.  We are supposed to earn that love and redemption by loving all our brothers and sisters in return. Not just the ones who look and act just like us! Accepting is an important part of truly loving - doesn’t mean we have to all do the same thing, just accept that no one can legislate who we love.  It’s that simple - and that hard.
Much easier, apparently to try to force all of us into the RightWing Christian version - bet they wouldn’t have had anything to do with an out-of-work traveling longhair like Jesus.  Funny how Pharisees never change, no matter how many years go by.  Just gotta look past the BS into their hearts.

The logic of Goodman’s position is overwhelming and probably predictable.  I know that she can put the right spin on anything worthwhile, which is what makes her column irresistible.  Having now said what she has said this time, I can imagine what’s coming next:  No marriage licenses for Un-documented peoples either; we can’t have all of these “illegals” running around procreating in a state sanctioned arrangement, can we?  Progeny of married illegals that are born here get to stay here.  I’m sure Washington and New York will soon bring a halt to such goings-on.

How ironic it is to have Gays fighting for the right to be married, when hetrosexuals seem to be fighting for the right to be divorced.

Maybe it’s because they haven’t been legally married, and haven’t experienced what happens when their private relationship becomes a public one. Wherein the state, justifed by the legal contract of marriage begins invading the privacy, and the personhood of married couples to enforce centuries of outdated laws that have little or nothing to do with the couple involved.

Yes, people in love often believe things will be great once they tie the knot, but when love goes that knot quickly becomes a noose, and many couples have experienced the complete ruination of their lives, and their childrens lives, in a family law court, that fuels itself on their bank accounts and pain.

Just examine the liabilities, when your not in the isolating rapture of Love.

This also deems more instability becuase people may marry just to have sex and make babies, but they may hate eachother!

My brother’s marrage is like this. And will only make things bad for the children brought into marrages like this!

I hate others who tell me what to do with my sex and love life. It’s my damb business!

Sometimes the most obvious and simple fact is the least recognizable.  It is obvious to me that heterosexuality is turning the Earth into hell with the population explosion.  Heterosexuals can’t love their own bodies because it is the same as loving one’s own sex and therefore is automatically a gay orientation which they hate in the name of being attracted to the opposite sex, not their own.  So heteros go through life hating their own bodies and this gives them basically a sadistic orientation toward life.  Freud toward the end of his life (Civilization And Its Discontents} became a pessimist about the future of the human race.  He believed that the genital organization of the adult ego was an organization of the Death Instinct.  And so we see heterosexuality
relentlessly pursuing extinction through endless,
mindless breederism.  Nuclear explosions are obvious phallic symbols expressive of the violent, repressed energy of het males toward their own bodies and their inability to express that love through gay love for their own bodies.
Also don’t forget that the end of the Piscean Age means human extinction through breederism.

Go Figure!

So procreation is not the be all of marriage!Gee, conservatives think that is the only reason for marriage and that one can only have sex in marriage. Boy, they are living in an asylum--- or should be.Gay marriage is the same as straight marriage. The young people are not ignorant in the matter and will soon sway the vote in favor of gay marriage ,according to Peter Beinart .That will be moral improvement , not decadence.

This will only encorage people to bring more unwanted babies into this world!

Until there was enough evidence showing that chidren fared as well in homosexual families, I was willing to concede a point to those advocating caution (although I argued that even if they had not fared as well, it had to be compared to orphanage rather than straight parents loving ), but that is long gone now.
And I think, if children must be the guage, that one of the worst thing that can happen is to be born to parents who don’t really want you.
But homosexuals don’t have children they don’t want, which ever more straight couples will have with all the attempts at limiting access to contraception and abortion. So if the welfare of the kids is the main goal, three cheers for homosexual parents!

Well, the past couple decades have been a lot of fun. But now that I’m 48 and looking menopause in the teeth, and my last chick is just five years from fledging, Mr. R and I need to face up to the fact that in September 2011, with the kids and my fertility both gone, our marriage will be officially drained of all legal meaning. When that day comes, we’ll need to be ready to buck up and say our good-byes, then bravely and serenely go off to grow old alone, as God intended.

Far from adding to the sanctity of marriage, these judges are basically saying that nobody in our society needs to get married unless they are a) heterosexual and b) actively engaged in the breeding process. The rest of you, straight and gay, of whatever age, should just go ahead and live in sin. Or, better yet, stop having sexual relationships at all. This institution has nothing to do with you.

It’s obvious that the defenders of marriage have thought this through with the same piercing moral clarity the defenders of the nation brought to planning of the Iraq invasion.

The ironic aspect of this entire issue is that frozen-hearted conservatives are pretending their opposition to gay marriage is a “defense of marriage.” Yet, their efforts are only demeaning marriage, as this ruling in Washington state demonstrates. Instead of being about love and commitment, marriage is instead about breeding. So the flaming right-wingers have reduced marriage to animal husbandry. Is that any way to defend marriage?

The world’s population is now more than 6.5 billion and growing at the rate of 1.3% per year.

At this rate, the human race in no danger of disappearing due to lack of procreation. The judge needs to rethink this decision if that is his reasoning.

What is really needed is a program to decrease the rate of population in a humane way.  Otherwise the problem will be solved by war, pestilence, pollution and catastrophic events that will inevitably occur as a result of global warming.

This just underlines the very great need we have of separating sex from procreation and religion. There are actually consenting adults who have sex for pleasure. There are consenting adults who do not want to make a baby. Keep marriage legal. Keep abortion legal.

Mr. Campbell,

Thank you for your comments. I’m with you. I did want to make one point though.

In response to your remark: “And finally, on a cynical note, why should gay couples be able to break up without all the legal and financial strains hetero couples have to go through?”

As a gay man who has had to “divorce” without the legal and financial protections of civil marriage I can tell you the “strains” are far worse. There can be no legal remedies for issues like alimony, child support, and community property. It just turns into a free-for-all where one party and the children, if there are any, are invariably victimzed. Divorce is one of the main reasons gays need civil marriage.

Thank you, Ellen.  I’ve been trying to make the same point about childless straight couples for some time.  This applies to my brother and his wife of twenty five years (their situation is medical) and my brother-in-law and his wife of 12 years (a matter of choice). 

I’ve also never been able to get a clear definition as to how my marriage of thirty-five years is in jeopardy or weakened or tainted or in any way affected by gays marrying.

One would think, with better than 50% of hetero marriages ending in divorce, that the right wingers would be supportive of MORE people choosing love and marriage rather than trying to prevent it. 

And finally, on a cynical note, why should gay couples be able to break up without all the legal and financial strains hetero couples have to go through?  The right holds such malice towards gays that one might suspect they’d want to inflict the additional emotional and financial burdens on them as well.

I have been teaching a college course for ten years that examines this issue, among many others. What is most astonishing is that the pro and con articles my co-teacher and I chose ten years ago present the same arguments that were laid out by the court - same sex marriage shouldn’t be allowed because these couples can’t procreate, and children do better in heterosexual couple households.  Now, despite ten years of evidence to the contrary, and an ongoing national debate, we have seen no movement whatsoever.  It is disappointing and distressing to see emotion-based “thinking” repeatedly trump logical fact-based reasoning.