How does this article fit with the banner ad at the top of the page supporting Proposition 8 in California which would amend the state constitution to take the fundamental right to marry away from gay couples. It seems wholly disingenuous that you laud the Connecticut court's decision here and, at the same time, profit form the advocacy of the withdrawal of these same rights in California. I think it is time to pay attention to who is paying you to advertise on your space before your credibility is completely destroyed.

Thanks for your input, Hoffwmn.

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Gay marriage is now and always has been a straight-up, full-on, monster 14th Amendment slam dunk.

There is no constitutionally acceptable way to grant the STATE benefits of "marriage" to so-called straight couples but deny it to same-sex couples.

I don't thinik it was ever argued as a straight up 14th amendment issue, but it should have been...

I think it would be more helpful to characterize this issue as a conflict between two interests, rather than the overly simplistic "discrimination v. equal rights" framing. It is a dishonest framing, because there is a very legitimate interest in the people to determine what kinds of relationships they will sanction with official status, and more importantly, subsidize and support.

You've given up arguing why society should recognize and value homosexual unions, and instead have resorted to the discussion-killing claim that society has no right to decide this at all. The court's logic is therefore a sham - it rests on the thesis that the state cannot favor certain kinds of relationships (qualified by the gender of the parties in this case), and then proceeds to violate that very principle in limiting marriage to couples. The court took the people's "discriminatory" law, said no no no, and wrote its own (equally discriminatory, by its own logic) law.

I generally think the left's thinking on social issues extraordinarily convoluted and in stark contrast to their generally sound economic principles and values. In fact, the left's economic platform (worthy) will fail to the extent that the left's social platform (destructive) succeeds. You are anti-democratic on social issues, just as the Republicans are anti-democratic on economics.

Nancy Hoffman "Hoffwmn" -

As I replied to your previous comment, in another thread, on this same issue:

Just so you know, I hadn't seen that ad, but it's likely one of the Google ads that rotates in, that I have little control over. Some ads on the site here, I approve before they are seen, others, like that one, are rotated in from a network.

In general, I only disapprove ads (those I have control over, anyway) when they are misleading propaganda of sorts. I've had to disapprove of ads even from folks I like on that basis.

As to the Protect Marriage ad (which I haven't yet seen, as not all ads show in all places for all users here) I'll look out for it and see if it needs to be removed, and if I'm able to do so.

For the record though, I don't disapprove comments based solely on content. Eg., if John McCain wanted to advertise here (even though it'd be a cold day in hell before I voted for him), I'd likely accept his money, as long as his ad wasn't deceptive. Same would be true for Obama (who I can't imagine voting for either!).

Where I can, I try to keep a separation between ad and editorial here, and try to design the page so that it's very clear what is an ad, and what is actual content.

Chris Burns attempted to obfuscate with:

"there is a very legitimate interest in the people to determine what kinds of relationships they will sanction with official status, and more importantly, subsidize and support."

Sure. If they don't wish to sanction marriages for anybody, they don't have to. But they can't defy the Constitution which grants equal protection under the law.

"You are anti-democratic on social issues, just as the Republicans are anti-democratic on economics."

You may wish to review the U.S. Constitution, Chris, as we don't live in a strict democracy. There are certain things we can vote on, and certain things we can't.

The Constitution supercedes all laws, and was written to protect the minority over the tyranny of the majority.

If you wish to change the Constitution, have at it. I'll stand by it. Even if you won't.

Chris, you said:

there is a very legitimate interest in the people to determine what kinds of relationships they will sanction with official status, and more importantly, subsidize and support.

So what is the state's compelling interest? Seriously. And where does this 'subsidizing' of relationships occur?

I'm not sure how my claim can be characterized as mere "obfuscation", as you say. It is a legitimate point (which I will here elaborate upon) that you ought to address in an intellectually straightforward way, rather than sling adjectives.

As for the use of the "equal protection" clause of the 14th amendment, it along with the "substantive due process" aspect is quite possibly the most abused clause in the document. Honestly, following recent courts' leads, you can use it to justify almost any decision. Often it seems as if the court decides what it's going to do, then looks for a justification. Finding none in the text of the law or the constitution, they turn to the fourteenth amendment as a kind of constitutional swiss army knife. As a simple illustration of the left's unprincipled pick-and-choose strategy, witness the argument over affirmative action, where their absolutist reading of "equal protection" is carefully set aside.

As for DES's comment, the compelling interest, of course, is to encourage (using the carrot of marriage and its attendant privileges and immunities) permanence in those relationships (heterosexual couples) that are overwhelmingly likely to produce children - both planned and unplanned. I'll take it for granted that you can see why well-structured families are important in the rearing of responsible well-adjusted citizens, and move on to the question of what harm is done here.

It might even be too late, since we started screwing with marriage in the '50s with divorce law liberalization. Society appears to have forgotten what marriage is for - it has not been for the benefit of lovers, it has been for the benefit of children. That is its function. When we "open up" marriage to encompass relationships that cannot conceivably bear any relation to our reproductive capacity, then we legally and artificially sever the natural link between marriage and children, sex and procreation. Marriage now becomes something that exclusively serves the needs and desires of the spouses. It follows that once their needs/desires are no longer served by their marriage, the logical thing to do is allow it to dissolve in divorce, and its function for providing a stable environment for the next generation is lost. This is a problem because there is no other structure we have to fill that void. I won't bore you with the usual list of depressing statistics that illustrated the disadvantages piled up on children of divorced parents relative to their two-parented peers.

Finally, if you don't find this argument compelling, that's fine, you can vote to loosen marriage, and I will vote to retain it. The use of the courts to muscle it onto the people from the top, however, is a tragic cop-out. The comparison I expect to hear in retort is with the civil rights court decisions of the 50's and 60's. The essential difference is clear: the discriminatory segregation laws in the south were historically rooted in racism and hatred, and clearly served no social purpose other than to preserve that racism and hatred. There was no social utility and it therefore was gratuitous and immoral (yes, that's right, morality in the public square). Here, as I've briefly summarized (and many state courts have elaborated on if you were to read the opinions), there is substantial utility rooted in history and culture. Marriage was never designed to be "discriminatory", only to serve a function that happens to be meaningless in the context of a homosexual relationship.

Yes, Chris, that horse is very long out of the barn already.

Marriage isn't for anything but the whim of the married anymore.

But homosexual couples can, and do, have children. Whether it is from a heterosexual past relationship, or a surrogate, or straight-up adoption, a very lot of them have children. By your own argument, they should be encouraged to marry.

We have so many huge crises in front of us and on top of us, the crusade to try to lure, or drag, that horse back into the barn is just suicidally petty right now. When we're back off the brink of WWIII and have all the mitigations in place for the global warming problem and something like a remotely equitable society back, then we can sit down and hash out what the heck is the best way to deal with relationships and families.

Really. Think about it. Are you nuts? Look around you.

Chris Burns said:

Society appears to have forgotten what marriage is for...it has been for the benefit of children. That is its function. When we "open up" marriage to encompass relationships that cannot conceivably bear any relation to our reproductive capacity, then we legally and artificially sever the natural link between marriage and children, sex and procreation.

Good deal. Then we should immediate disallow marriages between couples that may be infertile, or if a woman has already gone through menopause.

Your logic is very sound here, Chris. Also, by the same token, let's be sure to disallow adoption of orphans by gay couples, too. Better that they continue to be orphans.

The homophobia buried by your tortured logic is still quite clear.

If you want to argue Equal Protection in regard to Affirmative Action, we can do that in another thread. But discriminating against two consenting adults, on your twisted notion that they can't have children is, um, weak at best. (Being polite here).

You are a dinosaur, amigo. The world will move on to equality, with or without ya. But thanks for your three or four cents.