You may feel justified in your hate Roy, but that doesn't make harming others right.

"supporters of Proposition 8 in California have been subjected to harassment, intimidation, vandalism, racial scapegoating, blacklisting, loss of employment, economic hardships, angry protests, violence, at least one death threat, and gross expressions of anti-religious bigotry.”

hello!! those 'reason' and more (including real death, not just a threat) are things gays and lesbians have to endure every day in some form from the zealots and misinformed voters passing UNconstitutional laws.

How can you not see that??? Why is it OK for US to endure it, but not OK when some of your side gets exposed?

1. Unites the sexes, see the man-woman criterion of marriage law.

2. Solidarity of fatherhood and motherhood, see the marital presumption of paternity.

3. Foundational social institution, see federal precedents. See the anthropological and historical record, also noted in precedents and the legislative record.

4. Responsible procreation, see the legislative record on DOMA, for starters; see federal precedents.

No, I won't spoonfeed you here, not after your very poor performance in our exchanges. You need to do more basic homework. Olson, needs someone to do that for him, evidently. He may be schooled by the pro-amendment testimony, but he could have learned all of this before he put his reputation as a litigator on the line.

* * *

Your argumentation puts eligiblity on the table.

The core of marriage justifies its special status as well as the lines drawn around marriage.

Your argumentation provides no justification for special status (not for marriage and not for SSM) and no justification for drawing lines of eligibility (not for marriage and not for SSM).

Indeed, as your own comments at this blogsite indicated, and as Olson's opening arguments indicated, your viewpoint would flatten the special status of marriage in favor of a merger with something that lacks a core meaning, lacks deep roots, is sex-segregative, disunites fatherhood and motherhood, and is incoherent and lacking a rational basis. The injection of gayness into all of that is unjustified -- it would be an arbitary exercise of judicial power. It would unjustly demote marriage from its special status; it would unjustly elevate gaycentric identity politics to a special status. The arbitrariness stands against all the pro-SSM whining about "discrimination" based on gayness.

It breaks all your own rules of attack on the core of marriage.

Instead of making a case for SSM, you keep flaunting a very week argument against marriage.

Your argumentation, such as it is, stands against society discriminating between marriage and nonmarriage. Your argumentation brazenly demands that society discriminate in favor of gaycentric identity politics. And that, Jonathan, is closely analogous with the racialist identity politics of white supremacy.

* * *

Once again, I'll leave the last word to you, if you'd not abuse it.

-Marriage unites the sexes; SSM cannot.
-Marriage provides for the solidarity of fatherhood and motherhood; SSM cannot.
-Marriage is a foundational social institution of civil society; SSM is not.
-Marriage provides for responsible procration; SSM cannot.
-Responsible procreation has far more societal significance than anything you have said about SSM. It is a coherent set of principles and practices; it begins before conception; it extends well beyond childbirth; it entails the marital presumption of paternity which is vigorously enforced in our legal system.
---------------
Chairm, civil marriage law is about property rights, custody, inheritance and eligibility (no brothers/sisters, minors etc.).

You assume that same sex marriage must meet the criteria you describe above? That is for the courts to determine. if you can make a due process and equal protection argument, then you win! But so far you have failed to do so...

You keep clinging to this homosexual-heterosexual dichotomy.

A husband and wife are a married couple, regardless of sexual orientation. But you keep implying something quite different: that a marriage license makes them a "heterosexual couple". The law does not operate that way.

For example, the sexual basis for the presumption of paternity is blind to sexual orientation and identity politics. Most of the (very few) children, by far, living in same-sex households have both moms and dads whose procreative relationships were usually marriages. The marital presumption of paternity protects their children and the parents. And does so blind to the things you keep wanting to inject into your attack on the core meaning of marriage.

Marriage is a foundational social institution and its core meaning is extrinsic to SSM. To merger the latter with marriage is to abolish from the law and from the culture the core meaning which makes this social institution foundational to our civil society. That -- in and of itself -- would be a harm for all of society.

You keep reminding readers that for gay activists, this SSM issue is not about justice, but rather about "just us".

As I said in the very comment that you have tried to reply to, the societal interest in responsible procreation does not mean that government must force people to procreate. So you can stop flogging that strawman of your own making. But you keep doing it anyway and thus you demonstrate the "nah, nah, don't wanna hear" theatrics of the SSM campaign.

As for your own views on SSM and the marriage amendment, I'll just parrot back at you your own glibness: "I don't know how this view will change for those that want to continue to think this way".

More serious, what you don't know is not the issue on this point. What you refuse to acknowledge is. You keep running away from the actual disagreement.

Done.

I'll leave the last word to you, if you'd not abuse it.

So has traditional slavery enjoyed support both in and out of marriage. However, like traditional marriage, and traditional coverture "tradition alone" is not sufficient constitutional justification for denying same sex couples due process and equal protection.

Marriage unites the sexes; SSM cannot.
[Why should this be an new objective of homosexual couples who want to formalize their relationships in marriage?]

Marriage provides for the solidarity of fatherhood and motherhood; SSM cannot. [How does homosexual marriage change this for heterosexual couples?]
Marriage is a foundational social institution of civil society; SSM is not. [I've heard no argumentation how homosexuals will change this meaning for heterosexuals]
Marriage provides for responsible procration; SSM cannot. [Where in civil law is the requirement for procreating in a specific way?]
Responsible procreation has far more societal significance than anything you have said about SSM. It is a coherent set of principles and practices; it begins before conception; it extends well beyond childbirth; it entails the marital presumption of paternity which is vigorously enforced in our legal system. [I don't know how this view will change for those that want to continue to think this way].

On the other hand, many marriage defenders have pointed at the fair and just solution of provision for designated beneficiaries which has long-existed, is well-utlized, and is available across the country to most of the nonmarriage category -- regardless of gayness, sexual orientation, and the like. It is based on affidavit and fits SSM emphasis on contract and protections. It just does not come with the trump card of gay identity politics. The complaint has been heard; a solution is known and widely supported. No need for further attacks on marriage.

* * *

You have not shown that any one of those state interests you listed are not also applicable to the rest of nonmarriage.

You said: "So however you distinguish opposite-sex marriage from other stuff, feel free to distinguish same-sex marriage the same way."

Marriage unites the sexes; SSM cannot.

Marriage provides for the solidarity of fatherhood and motherhood; SSM cannot.

Marriage is a foundational social institution of civil society; SSM is not.

Marriage provides for responsible procration; SSM cannot.

Responsible procreation has far more societal significance than anything you have said about SSM. It is a coherent set of principles and practices; it begins before conception; it extends well beyond childbirth; it entails the marital presumption of paternity which is vigorously enforced in our legal system.

If you'd read that to mean that the law supposedly would force people to procreate, then, you are not dealing with the actual disagreement. You are running away and hiding from it.

The term, "male nurse", is not outdated if the individual is both a nurse and a male person. Unlike "same-sex marriage", this phrase is not an oxymoron. The meaning of nurse is based on what makes nursing different from other stuff. There are both male and female persons who do that stuff.

You haven't said what you have in mind. You just dodge the questions which address the obvious problem with that oxymornic phrase.

Explain what makes SSM different from stuff that is not marriage. Given your certitude, given your emphasis on state interests, answering this basic question should be so easy for you.

And yet it has proven to be so very hard for you. That is very telling.

People who disagree with the SSM-merger have the decency to show you a courtesy in public discourse when they use it, or understand your use of it, as a label for whatever it is that SSMers have in mind when they call something both "same-sex" and "marriage". That does not endorse the term nor does it endorse the notion as an authentic subset of marriage.

That you would try to make it an endorsement shows how your rhetoric has gotten in the way of discussing the matter with intellectual honesty. You have just stuck your finger in the eye of people who have been showing you common courtesy in public discourse.

And that, Kevin, reflects very poorly on you, your rhetoric, and your argumentation (such as it may be). Your "LOL" is as phony as your pose here.