marriage used to be much more a practical arrangement than a story about love and passion, but today when most people marry because they want to (and often for romantic reasons) and not because they have to (for whatever reason), it's rather obvious that people think differently about marriage. it doesn't change the main purpose and role of marriage in the majority of history.

for the same reason it's totally unreasonable and illogical to suggest that man would dispose of "marriage" just because its original function isn't strictly needed anymore. to the contrary: exactly because the role of marriage has changed so much over the past 100-200 years, its new(er) role as the biggest symbol of love and devotion has made it desirable for all kinds of couplse.

anyway, the bottom line is that your old "historical argument" against same sex marriage has been <debunked>; marriage and the family unit used to be necessary for people's survival and it is no longer. marriage has gradually taken on partly a new role among/for people - which is the reason it hasn't been abandoned (yet).

So for this hundreds of years of mariage evolution, it's just in the past 10, 20, however many years, that the world realized that we were way behind the times with our understanding of marriage? Could you show me the Magna Carta of Marriage with accompanying intellectual discussion of the matter?

< it has been *extended* from man/woman to something more.>

Remember the days when the U.S. had a stable, thoughtful, intelligent vice president? (Joke Biden: "Believe me, the President's got a BIG STICK!")

Here is a Vice President taking a stand on gay marriage, and talking from personal experience:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5je...
(No that was not the hack Joke Biden.)

Another example of the media bias that claims Obama has taken a "historic stand", not so. Obama's stand has evloved based on political need. Whereas Cheney, in the link, spoke from the heart with nothing to gain. Anyone with any sense is easily able to compare the moral difference.

Obama comes up short again. To make up for this shortness, his staff (including Biden) work like devils to make him long....

http://content.usatoday.com/communi...

(Man, I love the picture accompanying that article!!!)

All the presidential bios on the official whitehouse site now reference Obama. He is the historic first, even when he wasn't even part of history.

That's some long legacy he's got!

This get harder, as one reaches middle age. I was against same sex marriage, as a younger guy. Now, I realize that by denying same sex marriages, you are taking away the freedoms of other peoples by denying them the right to have their civil union.

These couples, both di-male and di-female have adopted kids and have had a splendid time of it all. Don't force your morals on them.

Note that argument from tradition seems small-minded after history sweeps it away.>.>

Human History, (thought and action) Advances in One Direction Only?

Recent posts on this page point to a belief in the advancement of human culture toward gay marriage, as though the direction is inevitable and/or "right".

That this is coming from the Left, primarily, is contradictory and internally confilcted thinking at best, and must set up some of that famous "cognitive dissonance" normally attributed to other types of believers (usually on the right, on this forum).

American Liberal Believers in inevitable human progress toward the good, with regard to gay marriage, need to think for a moment of humanity's progress from using stone tools to tearing off mountain tops to get at coal. Consider:

* Humanity's progress in its march toward filling the skies with the dangerous carbon molecule.

* Humanity's progress toward stripping the earth of its fantastic rain forests and carpet of jungles.

* Humanity's progress toward spreading untreatable bacterial diseases, which are evolving much faster than any "miracle medicines" can contain them.

* Humanity's invention of "Ethnic" black music which has progressed to flaunt crudity, violence, and denigration of women in the worst ways.

* Humanity's progress toward communal and collective society which has been responsible for the torture and death of millions of Koreans, VietNamese, Chinese, and Asians (part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) to name only a few of the places where such "inevitable progress" (according to Marx) scored victories.

So, all human historical trends are progress toward good? No?

Ah, but YOU are smart enough to spot the ones that are. How comforting.

As response to my post, my first reaction to this statement from you was "How similar a reaction, to the enlightened Christian belief, which says animals evolved, and have no soul, but Man was a Special Creation, and different rules applied. He was created in God's image." Proof by exemption.

So: to take an <evolutionary biological reproductive anomaly> and elevate it to <equal status to normal reproductive biological activity> in such a fundamental preservative role (marriage) in human societies: that will have zero negative long-term effect on that society?

No other possible arguments?

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N.B. Those who know the history of the Supreme Court very well, say that eventually a "liberal" court will use the Loving decision http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mildre... to apply it to gays.

I.e. It's a useless fight to oppose this "progress".