i.e. JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN is not a good enough reason to do something...I'd like to smoke pot on a regular basis, but it is not good for me and it is illegal, and thus I choose not to.

And just because you WANT it is even a worse reason.

krellin, I can only comment on what I've read scientific research on, and I haven't read anything about polygamous environments for children. Sexual assault against children are proven to be harmful to the child, so obviously pedophiles are unfit parents. So now you have my comments on your examples.

I can't comment on bullying either, because I don't live in America. I live in Sweden where homosexual relationships are more or less accepted. I was openly bisexual in school and wasn't bullied. I have mates with two fathers or two mothers who weren't bullied, and are well-adjusted productive citizens. All research I have read, even American research, shows no correlation between maladjustment and homosexual parents.

@krellin - OK, so returning to my situation... My wife and I don't just not have kids, we *can't* have kids. Therefore we aren't contributing to society by your definition of how a marriage contributes. So we shouldn't get the benefits afforded couples who *can* have kids? My wife has no plumbing for having children. She had a radical hysterectomy years ago. If she gets pregnant, it will be a true miracle of God. So you would deny us the benefits of other married couples?

You are lim9iting the benefit to society of marriage to just one thing, kids. That is complete and utter bullshit. I benefit society with the work I do as a software developer (and I line my own pockets too, yes) and my wife benefits me by making me happy which makes me more effective at work. You *cannot* impose an argument that the only benefit society gets out of a happy household is if it produces children. That is complete and utter bullshit and you damn well know it. So if you take that being the only societal benefit off the table, and that is the only societal benefit that requires a man and a woman to have naturally, then there is no reason to *not* grant the same rights and priviledges to same sec couples as are granted to traditional man and woman couples. And if you say that the kids benefit to society outweighs all others and is the only reason, then you must start denying those rights and privledges to couples who cannot have kids like my wife and I. You can't have it both ways.

Now, as for kids in the household, you assume the only way is for them to occur naturally. What about adoption? There are thousands of kids who need homes and thousands of couples (traditonal or otherwise) who arew willing to give them loving homes. Are you saying a couple who aren't the child's biological parent's can't produce a happy, healthy, and productive member of society? Well, then let's take a look at adopted children who have contributed to society, shall we?

Andrew Jackson - President of the US of A. Not important at all...
John Hancock - one of our founding fathers. Not too important at all...
Johann Sebastian Bach - Guess he didn't really contribute anything, did he...

Three real quick examples. There are tons more.

So don't discount adoptive parents and the positive influence they can have. And nothing in "nature" precludes *any* couple from being an adoptive couple, only the law does that and, with your view of the law, that makes it impossible for a loving couple who can't have kids naturally to be good parents and raise the next President or the next great thinker or the next great artist.

Oh, and while I'm thinking about it... I don't believe our current President had his father around when he was growing up. I may not agree with the man on everything, but even so, your "perfect household creates perfect kids" bullshit fails that litmus test as well.

And what created that environment? In the 70s and 80s, homosexuals and transvestites were being harassed and bullied here too, but with LGBT-positive legislation and people who dared to become positive examples, it disappeared over time. I believe that it can in any country.

@semck - "you often hear it used by straight people of themselves to describe how much they like somebody of their own gender"

Don't know where you hang but I have *never* heard it used that way.

@Draug -- it's simple...society has to draw a line somewhere in defining marriage. right now, the *majority* (and state votes on the issue supports this claim) believe marriage is one man, one woman...and historically you can make the argument that this is because of the intended benefit of man/woman = child. It does not *require* that you have children, but you put an instution into place that is intended to PROMOTE a beneficial idea...just like governments try to give tax cuts to industries to promote that industry. It doesn't mean that EVERYONE MUST go in to that industry...but it has been generally agreed that furthering that industry is a good thing.

Most people agree that a child raised by married people, IN GENERAL, is a good thing. MOST people (i.e.l SOCIETY) agrees that a MAN and a WOMAN is a good idea for raising a kid, starting with the simple biological fact of procreation.

To limit YOU would be an invasion of your privacy --- we have no right to know about your wife, and therefore can no limit you in your abiltiy to partake in this generally agreeable isntution.

Adam and Steve just want a tax break.

And if Adam and Steve can get a tax break because they are in love, then I shoul dbe able to add Suzy and Lynn and Bob and Pat to my marriage, because my wife and I love them, too, and are in to the orgy scene. Right?

It's not that complicated an argument. Society has to have limits.

Nice, nice. Krellin has begun capitalizing random words - that means he has begun frothing at the mouth back at home.

He's ripe to lose it at some point within the next 2 posts.

just need somebody evil and witty enough to push him over that edge...

I would but he has muted me.

By the way, to anyone who is interested, Sex at Dawn is a brilliant book. It's an anthropological study of sex in hunter-gatherer societies that highlights cultural bias in previous anthropology, which assumed that we evolved into sexually monogamous animals. When studying hunter-gatherer societies, which is the "natural" state of humans, multiple sexual partners and shared parentage is very common. Sex is not used in these societies only for procreation, but as part of a complex psychological and social framework, just as it is in our closest relatives in nature, the bonobos. Of course they know who the mother is, but in many of these societies, all the men are "dad" and the biological mother does not necessarily raise the child. The point is that monogamous relationships and mother-father-parenting are CULTURAL ideas, not natural. That doesn't mean that modern relationships are right or wrong - it just means that when we are in monogamous relationships, we fight part of our nature. This is why people cheat, and why people have ludicrous jealousy when their partners are sexually interested in others, because they assume that their cultural view of relationships is true. Just read the book!

If I wasn't though, I would say if Society must have limits (Get the government out of my life kind of limits) rather than giving Adam and Steve or Krellin, his beautiful wife, her horse, Suzy, Lynn, ob, and pat to his marriage (I had him at horse) why don't we say fuck it to the whole thing?

Why Are YOU Krellin entitled to a HAND OUT because some woman is stupid enough to want to spend her life with you. Why are you entitled to a HAND OUT because you are raising your kids to be mindless Neo-Nazis. Whats with the entitlement Krellin? Why are you entitled to this HAND OUT but Gary and Steve are not even though Gary and steve are more likely to adopt those most vulnerable in our society and therefore benefit society.

What an entitled ass. Krellin is truly the worst.

Very nice Vaft!

But Krellin won't listen to this, because your book doesn't mention Jeebus even once.

anyways, that response by Vaft will definitely send Krellin into a rabid frenzy. Well played.

Yellowjacket, of course I'm not talking to krellin. It's just a book recommendation to people with open minds.

And I forgot to add my most important point which is also in the book. Of course I'm not stating this as fact, all science consists of theories until they are disproved, but this argument in the book is strong. The reason homosexuality is so common in humans is because SEX - IS - NOT - ONLY - FOR - PROCREATION - IN - HUMANS. There it is. Sex is used socially, culturally, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually etc. in humans. We are a hypersexual species. Just think about how many times we have intercourse in a lifetime and compare this to any other species. We can live according to the cultural ideas, and I live in monogamous relationships as well. There's nothing wrong with it. But it's not nature, it's culture.

Vaft -- you moron, I never said sex was only for procreation. But FOR THE PURPOSES OF SOCIETY AND HANDING OUT MARRIAGE BENEFITS, SEX IS FOR PROCREATION you dimwitted moron. what the fuck is so hard to grasp about that concept.

hah well if it's for people with open minds it's CLEARLY not for old Krellin :P

He has a mind like a sprung trap. Closed, and prone to rust.

point Yellowjacket

aww yeah here we go :P

Let the games begin (2 above)

someone please attack Krellin for accepting a handout and call him a welfare father

thats 4 above now.

krellin, I wasn't talking to you, I was sharing a book tip. I was telling you earlier why I thought that gay marriage is a good idea. Then I went off on a tangent that had nothing to do with you. I've told you my side and you've told me yours. You're not interested in mine and I'm laughing at yours, so let's leave it at that.

dammit 6 above

lol fuck it, you get the idea.

Nice Vaft, prepare to be screamed at incoherently and then (if you keep making sense) muted.

ask Krellin his views on global warming ;P

Is it God's punishment for me taking it up the arse?

no he's got me muted, you have to say it yourself :P

but you should wait, keep going the way you're going. This will be very fun for you :P

I won't leave it if your idea of "leaving it" is smack me with an insult and walk away liek a coward. And COWARD you are, because you are too afraid to address the specifics of my points, as are most liberals, or you selectively address them and selectively misinterpret as needed.

Vaft -- what is the purpose of the government? And, by extension, what is the purpose of the government handing out "benefits", such as allowing people to claim they are married? If the purpose of government to just willy-nilly make everybody happy just because they *want* and *demand* a so-called "right"? (If so...where does that stop?) Or is the government a body limited by a ruling set of principles (i.e. the Constituion for the US, laws, etc)

the problem with people like you is that you are so wrapped up in "me me me me me....what can the government GIVE TO ME..." that you fail to comprehend even in the slightest what the government is intended to do...and, on the flip side, what the government is truly incapable of doing with any measurable success (such as the "war on poverty" -- which is really "make voting-slaves of the dependent class")