Marriage is a civil right in the US

I'm sorry CS, but your whole argument is bogus. For multiple reasons:1) People can get married for whatever damn reason they please. Till this day, marriges are performed for financial, social, and political reasons all the time. A few people doing the same thing with gay marriage is not gonna be anythig new, nor will it signal the end of the world.2) A marriage contract comes with responsibilities, liabilities, involved. Severing a buissiness partnership can be messy enough, but imagine divorce in such a sittuation? Marriage is not a free ride.3) This is actually based on real events, a male couple did get married for financial and medical benifits! They were 70+ years old and had no family left. They were bothe very poor and wanted to make sure there was someone around to look after them. They were friends, but the marriage was purely out of convenience. After all, the NEED healthcare and next of kin as a matter of survival.So essentially, your argument is moot. Who cares what peoples reasons are for entering a contract, the real question is what's the reason for keeping the contract sex exclusive?

Kinda like the old 'blacks' and 'whites' waterfountain signs. I'm sure the rational wen't a little like this "If we let the blacks and whites drink out of the same fountain, the blacks might spit in it or something. I mean, you know how THEY are."

LOL! Do you realize the puddle you just steped in?If pre-nups are ok, then you killed your whole point. I mean, seriusly, the whole idea of a pre-nup is that marriage is a contract with certain clauses needing to be met by the concenting parties.It's a contract! So what's so special about men and women? Cant a gay couple sign prenups too that state that the contract is only binding for medical purposes and that neither party is entitled to monetary gain should the partnership disolve?That sounds like a good pre-nup to me...What's your point dude? You just threw it out the window.

So basically, so far, the folks for gay marriage have the following in their favor:-Facts
-Research
-EvidenceAnd the anti-gay marriage group has:-Intuition
-A hankering for the good'ol days that never existed
-An old book
-And an 'iky' feeling about the whole debateWho's the winner? You decide!PS:
Some random arguments that pop into my head while reading this debate. The constitution was written with rich, white, male, land-owners in mind. Shouldn't we interpret everything by this guideline?After all, it's all this mushy liberal thinking that says social mores should advance along with the times. All our laws should be written through the original goggles the founders war.Rights are for white men, who own land, and are wealthy. What's wrong with this? I mean, certainly there are plenty of right-wingers who fall into this categoryAs to the questions of which societies had gay marriage as an institution. Try, Sparta! And ancient Greece in general.Pederasty and homosexuality were considered healthy and natural. In fact, male/female relationships were considered only useful for social reasons and procreation. Even the women were encouraged to have female lovers.In any case, I think so far the 'anti' people are looking pretty silly. Keep it coming, I'm laughing off my chair Edited by Yaro, : spelling

Faith, your argument is so silly, it's laughable. You have presented no reason for gays NOT to recieve the same benifits. The fact is, the only support you have offered for your agument essentially boils down to: "Just cuz.", "I don't like it.", and "it's yucky."

What kind of paranoid BS is this?What do you think society is? Where did you get this nutball idea that any society, let alone OUR society, has ever been anything but a seething cauldron of discord and conflicting agendas?Can you name a date when things were better than today?When was the day there was no war, or that america was as perfect as apple pie, cuz I certainly can't point to one. Society has allways been crumbling in the eyes of those from previous generations essentially because society is not a stable entety. It's an ever changing thing and that's good, that's how a society survives.Seriously dude, give some thouught to what you are saying.Edited by Yaro, : No reason given.

The problem, iano, is theat your position is begging the question. Where is the impending fire?Seriously.People with your possition have existed trughout history, and indeed, thrughout American history. They claim that some big social change is a highway to calimity.I would really love it if someone threw out a date, ya know, a month and year, where society wasn't (suposedly) on the verge of destruction by some sort of moral degeneration or other.Can you show me such a date?Edited by Yaro, : No reason given.

See, Jazzns, that's just the thing. They can't make a case for a sort of 'cumilative' decline, because I can name specific societies, cultures, and time periods that were obviously worse than what we have today!I can name time periods in OUR history that were more 'depraved', and hostile to the population, than any description of modern day america. So the point is moot.If anything, it illsutrates an 'up and down' motion and not a steady decline.ABE: Personaly, I feel things are getting better and not getting worse. I tend to be optamistic about the fate of humanity.Edited by Yaro, : No reason given.

BZZT! You ar poseting unsubstantiated fear as a basis for discriminating a large group of people. 3% of the population to be precice.We have already established that your fears are contrary to objective data gathered about the nature of homosexuality, as well as the practical concerns about gays in family/child rearing sittuations. To put it simply, your position has no foundation.I could simply say it's ok to discriminate against blacks because "You know how THEY are." or "It will lead to mass chaos!". See the similarity? Both of those statements are based on unsubstantiated fear, bigotry, and prejudice.In this case, it is not a matter of opinion, it is a matter of reality versus imagination. It is not subjective. You have made a posative assertion that gay marriage will lead to certain effects. Yet, all emperical data shows that you are compleatly wrong about your beliefs.These things aren't decisions about what flavor of chocolate you like better, this has to do with the disenfranchisment of about 3% of the US population. Your position is invalidated by data iano.You are wrong. Straw man, and red herring. No one is proposing people marrying their sons. You do know that similar arguments where made when the laws forbiding interacial marriage were torn down?People called the blacks 'beasts' and suggested that allowing interacial marrige would lead to people marrying livestock. Hasn't happened yet, has it?Are people marrying dogs in Canada where gay marriage has been legal for several years now?Your fears are so far divorced from reality it's laughable. Incorrect. Neither Rome, nore Nazi Germany were brought down as a direct result of moral depravity. Morals do not dictate the rise or decline of a cultural/national/military power structure. Morals however do affect the quality of life for the people within those structures.As a tangible example, both modern europe, and the USA have the distinction of being built on the backs of slaves. Not to mention the horrible indian genocide wich is essentially why we even have this great land of ours, or indeed, europe has it's vast reserves of colonial wealth.The question has nothing to do with the destruction of society. The question is simply:"Is there a tangible, objective reason, we should discriminate against 3% of the human population?"And the answer, as evidenced by the lack of objective support for your position, is resoundingly no.