Well, to begin with it [gay marriage?] is not natural.
=== That arguement -- "Just 'tain't natural" -- has been used against everything from interracial marriage to heavier-than-air flight. In  The African Queen  Hepburn said to Bogart, "Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we were put on this earth to rise above." Indeed, it is probably "natural" that big people beat up little people and take their food, but we devise UNnatural systems of law that prohibit such behavior. Marriage itself is not actually "natural" since it is a cultural construct, like grammar, hockey, or the Internet. We do not, as a species, limit ourselves to what is "natural." That is for the lower orders.

 

The ultimate purpose of sex is to create offspring.
=== There are 46 valid arguements against that statement. Whose purpose? I've been sexually active [very active] for 36 years, and my purpose for sex has very [very] rarely been procreation. I am probably not alone on this. I've had sex for many reasons; to express love, to release tension, to raise my self-seteem, to raise the other person's self-esteem, to chase away boredom, to assure myself of my virility, to take advantage of an irrisistable situation, to get to know another person, to satisfy curiosity, to win a bet, to show compassion, to comfort grief, and on about twelve occassions, to create children -- of which I have three. Sex is like language -- it can be used an an infinite variety of ways to express or create a limitless range of human experiences. I suspect you are referring to "god's'" purpose, but in our not-yet-a-theocracy, that is irrelevant.

 

=== It seems also that you have shifted the subject from equal marriage rights to the 'morality" of same-sex sexual relations. One has virtually nothing to do with the other.

 

Since male on male or female on female cannot produce children, it is a violation of nature.
=== My father, at 77, married a 72 year old woman. By all reports, there has been a disgraceful amount of sex, but as of yet no baby. Should their marriage be declared a crime against nature and their marriage license recalled? Fecundity and virility are not required for marriage. Sexless marriages are perfectly legal and [from what my straight male married friends tell me] not at all uncommon. You are seriously begging the question when you presume that procreation is fundamental to legal marriage. Not only are there many, many marriages without procreation, there is a hell of a lot of procreation without marriage. That, I belive, is nature at it's most basic.

 

=== There is an implied religious underpinning to your specious arguement. Please understand how irrelevant your religious views are. When we speak of equal marriage rights, we are not requiring anything whatsoever of any religion. The various churches may practice their diverse 'one-truths" in any way they may choose. They can marry gay people or not marry them. It is irrelevant. The Catholic church chooses not to marry good Catholics to thrice-divorced Jews. So be it; who cares? It is still perfectly legal for for Mary Catherine to become the fourth Mrs. Cohen. "Marriage" as a religious sacrement is legally irrelevant. Equal marriage rights refer to the right of two consenting adults to enter into a legally recognized civil relationship, not to get up in front of any given church and perform a ritual. Many churches already perform church marriages for gay couples, but they are not legally recognized by our secular legal system. Should gay marriage become legal, neither would churches be required to perform marriages if they don't "beleive in it." Atheists get married without involving churches. People on death row marry people. Greedy ho's on game shows get married. Anna Nicole Smith gets married. Gay men can marry lesbians. Democrats can marry Republicans. No one's church has to approve of any of these unions, and no church has a right to prevent them.

 

Where would we be if God created Adam and Steve or Anna and Eve?
=== What a compelling and original line of inquirey. There is a religion that believes that the world rests on the back of a giant turtle. Where we would be if that turtle rolled over? Amazingly enough, I don't expend much thought contemplating the what-if's of anyone's mythology.

 

MAX