Those old folks above 65yo oppose SSM by 61%, those 65yo to 35yo slightly favor SSM, and those under 35yo OVERWHELMINGLY support SSM by 61%.

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Please see:
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True enough Robert, but that doesn’t change the reason why marriage is recognized by the state. Childless marriages are the exception, not the rule. Law and public policy are determined in order to address the general good, not to appease radical special interests who represent small fractions of the population that are trying to impose an agenda on the rest of us.

No, children are essential to the issue of marriage, Chuck. Children are the very reason marriage was created and recognized by the state in the first place. Marriage was not an institution merely for adults who want to “make a life together,” etc. If that were the case, the state would have recognized best friends, long-time co-habiting spinsters and any other combination of adults in close relationships. No, the reason marriage is recognized is because a man-woman union is the only union that can produce children. I know you know this.

The best way to order society and to make sure those children are legally accounted for and that the maximum number of children are brought up in this ideal environment (with their own married mom and dad) is to encourage the only relationship that can possibly be responsible for producing children.

The arguments that you use about unmarried people being able to pro-create and the fact that same-sex couples choose to use alternative means in order that the resultant children are purposely brought into the world without either a mother or a father utterly fail. While these things are true, they do happen, how does that equal a good argument for dissolving marriage by redefinition?

The chaos that has been visited on children by leftist ideas of the last generation — sex “without consequences,” abortion, no-fault divorce, a welfare system that rewarded out-of-wedlock births and discouraged fatherhood — has been devastating. Jails, morgues, rehabs and STD clinics are filled with fruit of those ideas. Arguing that since these conditions exist we should just take the next step off the cliff is like saying that the best way to fix a flat is to slash the other tires.

Bottom line, Chuck: The state only has an interest in encouraging conjugal marriage. Any other group of people are free to make any solemn commitments in front of whomever they choose without interference from the state, so that argument of yours fails. It is true, people will produce children in less than ideal circumstances, but the state should not be promoting arrangements in which children will purposely be deprived a mom or a dad. The state should discourage this form of child deprivation by treating the ideal as the ideal. And the ideal, GENERALLY (please save the anecdotes), for children, for whom marriage was established, is for them to be blessed with their birthright — a married mother and father. The state can’t stop people from procreating and can’t stop same-sex couples and homosexual persons from attempting to mimick the natural course of human reproduction through artifical means, but it should not be promoting either because both devalue marriage to the detriment of children, not only the children forced into these arrangements, but future children who will be born similarly deprived because society decided that the emotional needs of a miniscule segment of the population was exalted over the real needs of real children.

Your argument about paying into tax system is another loser. I don’t want to pay for Planned Parenthood’s yearly bailout and I don’t want to pay for the failed government education system in which my child does not participate and I don’t want to pay for a Teapot Museum in Indiana. My point is pretty easy to grasp.

The one concrete reason you have cited enshrining marriage as a purely heterosexual institution is because of “the propagation of and protection for future generations of children.” And YET a heterosexual couple doesn’t require a marriage license to make babies … and as you yourself have admitted, the desire to make babies is not a prerequisite for obtaining a marriage license. Your argument also ignores the fact that countless Gay couples DO have children, either through adoption or artificial insemination; by your logic those couples should be permitted to marry for the “protection” of THOSE children.

But in reality, CHILDREN are irrelevant to the issue of marriage. Ask any Straight couple why they choose to marry. Their answer will not be, “We want to get married so that we can have sex and make babies!”

No, the reason couples choose to marry is to make a solemn declaration, before friends and family members, that they wish to make a commitment to one another’s happiness, health, and well-being, to the exclusion of all others. Those friends and family members will subsequently act as a force of encouragement for that couple to hold fast to their vows.

THAT’S what makes marriage a good thing. Gay couples recognize that and support that. And those that want to prohibit Gay couples from marrying do so only because they don’t want to allow Gay couples the opportunity to PROVE that they are up to the task. As Andrew Sullivan once said, “You can have lots of sex without marriage. And you can have a marriage without much or any sex. But you cannot have a meaningful marriage without love and commitment.”

Now as I mentioned in my initial response, I’m willing to be diplomatic about this. From a purely Constitutional standpoint you can come up with no justification for denying law-abiding, taxpaying Gay couples the exact same legal benefits and responsibilities that Straight couples have always taken for granted … but there is room for compromise in the form of “civil unions” if those benefits and responsibilities are the same.

Think about it: What is the point of require Gay Americans to contribute to the system of financial and legal incentives for marriage when we are not allowed to take part in that legal institution as well? Why is it that Straight couples are encouraged to date, get engaged, marry and build lives and families together in the context of monogamy and commitment, and that this is a GOOD thing … yet for Gay couples to do exactly the same is somehow a BAD thing? To me this seems like a very poor value judgment.