Excellent!

i dont want to go back to the medieval either (it was all so drafty and cold, food was kind of rough too) but is this the issue? i mean i'm not going to get up on the ramparts to defend marriage between a man and woman, a big chunk of me doesn't give a rats ass if people marry thier dogs, but i do think it's more complicated than it's made out to be. everybody wants to talk about love - stinkin love; can we talk for a few minutes about economics.

lookit, the reason we have a big ole ceremony with the family and friends all dressed up in thier sunday finery, people flying in to ruin what would otherwise be a nice summer weekend for them, is that we don't want the people who are getting married to return the toasters for money two weeks later and go thier seperate ways we have the big ole ceremony, and i can't think of a culture that doesn't have a big ole ceremony (hmmm, what do pgymies do?), is because we don't want people to back out it. we're saying to the people who are getting married that you'd better, for once in your life, take something seriously.

and why do we say that to the happy couple: - why bum them out on thier happy day? - ; because what we, as a society, expect of them is that they will go forth, have kids, and therefore become the basic socioeconomic unit on which our civilization is based, the nuclear family. go, make eisenhower proud.

marriage isn't about love. it certainly isn't about two guys named steve declaring thier undying devotion for each other. that's nice steve and i really want you to have that civil union thing (a ceremony that is about love) but i don't think you should be able to get married.

now, yeah sure, there's married couples that don't have kids and we took a flyer on them and it didn't work out and i don't what to tell you about that. and, yeah sure, there's lots of gay couples who do have kids and they should have all the rights and priviliges under that the law that everybody that has kids have. god bless them. i know my argument is not watertight.

but if it's really about not going back to the medieval, then isn't it not about preserving our institutions. and isn't marriage is the big ugly grey institution in back of city hall. i'm sorry kids; marriages are for a man and woman. that's just the way it is. sorry.

I think that my problem is not that marriage is for a man and a woman. It is that all the good heterosexuals ruined it for everyone else by walking all over it, quitting as soon as it good a bit rough, walking on the kids as well as the hubby or wife. And if Christians actually thought marriage was sacred and even a sacrament, we would not have had a huge divorce rate for decades. [I blame hyphenated names in part. Either you are one family or you are not. But don't hyphenate for God's sake.] So, in the end, for what it is worth maybe showing that it is worth doing for love between two consenting adults is something that can bring dignity back to marriage.

well spoke but i'm gonna stick with my argument, ragged as it is. as long as you know that if the steves want to adopt i go to the for the wall for them.

Fair enough. Scottish marriage laws were always so weird traditionally and our predecessor Celts were into the whole warrior-man-lovey thing so I am not coming from much of a background wherein I might give a hoot about my perceived constituency of hetero-peeps on this one. Who knows what the Vikings got up to.<p>You have hetero-peeps, too, right?

you mean the red spots on my butt?

Peeps, not pimps. :-)

<i>i mean i'm not going to get up on the ramparts to defend marriage between a man and woman, a big chunk of me doesn't give a rats ass if people marry thier dogs</i>

Which makes a nonsense of launching into a peculiar screed as to why your neighbours cannot marry each other and no dog in sight.

<i>i'm sorry kids; marriages are for a man and woman. that's just the way it is. sorry</i>

Not in Canada or Israel. And fortunately we don't give a rat's ass whether you like it.

Actually I do give a rat's ass as he is an actual person I know - who has made me dinner and sent me mail with surprises in it - but I am quite content that you do not, Flea. I am not going to do what Marian might recognize as an "Oliver" either.

By "we" I meant Canada and Israel; countries where people are increasingly free despite the irrational wishes of all too many of their fellow citizens.

I knew there was that "us"-ness in there but I had to mention the pressies to ensure they keep coming. And the Calgary roasts as well.<p>And that is exactly why we have constitutions and courts to interpret them as living documents and not some sort of fingerprint of the magic elves known as "the Founders" - to ensure "people are increasingly free despite the irrational wishes of all too many of their fellow citizens".