Gay Marriage

No one has to prove homosexuality is a heritable trait.Religion is explicitly defined in the same statement of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to be on equal footing with race, color, sex and national origin. Since religion is obviously a choice and not a heritable trait then the need for a characteristic to be heritable in order for it to be a characteristic that cannot be discriminated against is moot.That is unless you think that we should allow discrimination against people because of their choice in religion.

Because sodomy (specifically anti-homosexuality) laws still existed in 1964 and Johnson actually wanted the Civil Rights Act to pass. Sexual Orientation has been addressed in later legislation.
Besides, your question is just a misdirection. I made the point to refute your claim that non-discrimination legislation only addressed characteristics that were heritable. I think the separate but equal fantasy has already been addressed. I suppose that you also thought interracial marriage should have been given a different name (miscegenatal union?) before SCOTUS took it out of the public's hands.

I understand that you have a lot of people to whom you must respond. Therefore, I can't hold it against you that you forgot or missed(since you didn't respond to that part of my post) that I have already said the two not being anything alike (choice vs non-choice)is irrelevant. Perhaps I should have compared the marriage between a Muslim and a Catholic. It is not illegal now but perhaps it should be or at least have a different name like "mixed faith union". Religion is a choice just like homosexuality and shouldn't be a protected right by your standard.

And it has been shown to you that the application of Constitutional rights to a particular subset of the US population is not affected by whether the defining characteristic of that subset is a choice or not (ie...religious affiliation).Since this debate is about the application of the rights of marriage to a particular subset of the US population, for the purposes of this debate, race and sexual orientation are equivalent.Until you can show them to be unequal within the framework defined by the Constitution, you can just stop with the red herring of them being fundamentally different.

The government can't get out of the "marriage business". Even if they only have civil unions they are still in the marriage business, they just don't call it marriage.You say churches or other religious institutions can "marry" whomever they like. I submit that they cannot. Look at the problems of Warren Jeffs (sp?). He used his position as a religious leader to marry 13 year old girls to 40 year old men. The state and federal governments charged him with a number of crimes but settled for accomplice to statutory rape. He was convicted and sentenced to 10-years in prison because he sanctioned and performed the marriages.
Clearly, if a religious organization marries a couple under the auspices of their belief system, the government doesn't have to recognize that as legal. Hence the government wouldn't have to issue the civil union status to that couple. Now you have a real problem.
Married but not really. No rights as a couple. The spouse can be compelled to testify against the partner under threat of contempt or perjury...among other things.Edited by LinearAq, : bad spelling

I greatly doubt that the 1000+ federal laws that refer to marriage all have within them the definition that marriage is between one man and one woman. Could you provide some examples of said laws with excerpts from the text that validate your claim?

Implicit means very little in a court of law, especially when someone's civil rights are being trod upon by that implicit meaning.Then those federal laws would not have to be altered to accomodate the inclusion of same sex couples in the state of matrimony?Then what did you mean by you said in message 400?

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Also, the argument that "marriage" as defined in 1000+ federal laws is defined as between one man and one woman, and for the reason of maintaining that definition to keep the laws themselves from being effectively altered, that marriage be kept as between one man and one woman is still sound.

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It seemed like what you were saying is that keeping marriage as between one man and one woman prevents us from changing those laws.
What did you mean by "effective altered" then? Did you mean that those laws would have to apply to same sex couples if we changed the legal definition marriage back to being a contract between persons of unspecified gender?
Er...I believe that is exactly what the gay partners want...the same rights as heterosexual married couples have.If we legally define marriage as between one man and one woman, we still have the gay partnerships to deal with. You have said that you support civil unions. In order to give the gay partnerships the same rights as married couples, one of two things would need to happen.
1. 1000+ new laws, that exactly mirror the 1000+ laws regarding married couples, would have to be legislated. OR
2. The current 1000+ laws would have to be changed to include couples involved in a civil union.Seems like a lot of trouble, especially since issuing marriage contracts to consenting adults regardless of gender doesn't even require legislation...merely an executive or judicial order to stop discriminating due to sexual orientation.Well, I guess DOMA would have to be recinded. Also, all those recent state laws explicitly defining marriage.