I do appreciate you proving my point when you said, “I advocate keeping government out of personal relationships, period.” That’s the ultimate agenda: the devaluing of traditional marriage in our society, so that its considered no different than shacking up as a social value. Its not about letting homosexuals in, its about devaluing government-sanctioned marriage, period. Its about attacking the idea of the traditional family to be replaced by, “Do whatever you want and its all equally okay.”

Not me. I advocate keeping government out of personal relationships, period. But if government is going to sanction the partnership of two individuals, it must do so fairly and treat all individuals equally under the law.

Cue the “but gay men are free to marry a woman just like any other man” argument (and conversely for lesbians, but y’all rarely get so riled up about the lesbians as you do the gays). You could have made the same argument in 1950: “but black men are free to marry anyone in their own race, just like any white man”.

It’s discrimination, pure and simple. It’s sexism. It’s telling me I may only marry the subset of humans (the female ones) you religiously approve of.

OK, here it comes:

The ludicrous part is the question of what gives the State the ability to say who’s married? The State already determines that in saying you can’t get married if you’re too young or too closely related. How you can justify gay marriage using Sean’s exact argument (which he may revise) without backing polygamy, incest, and child brides, I don’t know.

I love the “well, if gays get married, next it’s incest, polygamy, child brides, men marrying dogs, etc.” slippery slope. How can the state allow gay people to marry and not these others? Simple – we have laws against sexual harassment and statutory rape. These are partially based on the principle that someone in a position of power and authority may not abuse that position to take advantage sexually of someone, even if that someone wants them to.

Thus, incest and child brides are already — and would continue to be — forbidden.

As for polygamy, polyandry, or bigamy (which I don’t necessarily think the state should oppose, but let’s stick with your argument), how does “one person may marry one other person” turn into “one person may marry many people”? Homosexual marriage no more introduces legal polygamy than heterosexual marriage does. (And what’s wrong with polygamy? If it’s good enough for Lamech, Jacob, Esau, Gideon, David, Solomon, Shaharaim, Joab… and hey, where’s my seven hundred concubines?)

As for the men and the dogs, which I know you didn’t bring up, but so many of your ilk do, let me know when dogs have the legal right to enter into contracts.

When it gets right down to it, you have no argument but “my God says gays are icky, and I think they are icky, too.”