I'm sure someone has sent this your way but: welcome to the Minnesota marriage amendment battle, Dan! (http://www.minnesotaformarriage.com/2012…)

Actually that is exactly how I see traditional marriage. A promise between individuals. The whole church sacrament thing is relatively recent in human history.

Fuck. I want to marry that guy.

@4: Me too! There's something about smart people talking really fast...

Oh my god. Dan referenced John Green. Life = complete.

Be GGG and dftba folks.

Sorry, he's already married.
http://www.youtube.com/vlogbrothers

@4 and @5, too bad he's married. Her name is Sarah, and she is known in the youtube community as "The Yeti". Here is John's first video on the Brotherhood 2.0 project, which began January 1st, 2007: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tqi9QrNLx…

for those remotely interested in these guys, here's the youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/vlogbrothers

Someone toss me a reference? Who the heck is "Hank?"

@9 Hank is the younger brother of the vlogger. They make videos back and forth, addressed to each other.

From Minnesotans United:

http://youtu.be/CPbSiWt6sNE

And from Keith Hartman:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xvu-gXato…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntC0PNHFR…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNiqfRyoA…

OK so you've probably seen these before, but still...

@10 Thank you kindly!

Nerdfighters!

@9: Hank is a cat running for the senate in Virginia.

http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/0…

@9 and 14: Hank is a celestial body, just beyond the moons of Jupiter, composed solely of ice. Hank was once believed to be a dwarf planet, though is now categorized as a pseudo-meteor.

Marriage is a civil status. Any religious trappings which these couples might desire to have--a blessing from a religious leader, a special liturgy, calling it a "sacrament"--to mark what, from the state's perspective, is a change in the individuals' civil status is another matter entirely. The U.S. is unusual (especially when considering our much-vaunted church-state separation) to have clergy officiating at a wedding "by the power vested in me by the state of..." mark this change in the individuals' civil status. But after the wedding, the couple still must sign the marriage license (a contract provided by the state) in the presence of witnesses, and then file this document at the courthouse--because marriage is a civil status recognized by the government. The government has no business taking cues from certain religious institutions about which individuals are permitted to change their civil status, and which two individuals should be permitted to make such a contract that binds them together.

Marriage is an economic arrangement. I don't know why gays get to marry for love now. No one else does.

John Green worked with my wife several years ago, and while he was housesitting for us one time he was also writing his first novel on our desktop computer. He's as good a guy in person as he is in these videos.

Excellent video but wrong on half a percent are intersexed, it's more like one-tenth of one percent. The higher figure includes things like hypospadias, which are variations in the location of the urethra from 99% of typical urethral location. Yes, technically it's a variation in sexual development, but a very minor one. "True" intersex conditions such as the ones he mentions (AIS, sex chromosome variations), all total add up to about one-tenth of one percent. Anne Fausto-Sterling is the source of the half a percent plus figure and she has acknowledged that she was not referring to intersex actually (which is what it sounded like in her book) but including all technical variations in sexual differentiation during fetal development from the norm. While hypospadias can result from intersex conditions, MDs do not consider them alone a disorder of sexual development, nor do intersex-identified individuals. Otherwise, though, he is spot on, great video.

More medical trivia: Hypospadias can occur in both sexes but typically are easier to notice in males, i.e. you pee from the top or side of your cock rather than than the tip, whereas a shifted urethral opening in females that is still well within the outer portion of the vaginal wall will not be noticed. There are also other variations in sexual development in the womb that Anne Fausto-Sterling included to get to the larger figure, again, which may also be seen in DSDs/intersexuality, but may also exist without a formal diagnosis of a DSD. Her point that biology has wide variations is a valid one but the more substantial variations are relatively rare.

@6 EXACTLY! Did you see Hank Green's rant the other day?!? Also brilliant. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD-INsIbV…

I'd never heard of these guys, but now, after watching a couple of videos, I love them. It's great to hear people talk common sense.

Although, common sense is not that common, more uncommon.

As a Nerdfighter who is also a Savage Love listener, this made me happy and it also it reminded me of how when I first started watching the Vlogbrothers' videos the DFTBA acronym confused me because it was so close to DTMFA.

So weird to have my Internet worlds colliding! DFTBA, Dan!

@ 24

I can't believe I didn't see that! DFTBA = DTMFA...lol

I never thought of that, but each time I look at the acronym for the belly dance style I teach (BSBD) for a moment I see BDSM...and I chuckle.

And as a fellow Savagephile and Nerdfighter I ask your opinion...

The Commitment in your pants

or

Skipping Towards Gomorrah in your pants

???

@9 Hank was a congressional district for the United States House of Representatives in Missouri from 1873 to 1963.

Opinion: my guess is that most people, and especially most Christian believers, are to a large extent Platonists in the sense of believing that there is a pseudo-thing called "marriage" that's out there in the Hilbert space of ideal forms (where every real thing has only component in that space). They also think there is a 'good', 'evil', 'justice', u.s.w. which like marraige exist in some way independent of what humans do or perceive or judge.

@9,14,15:
Hank is also the guy who's going to kick your ass if you don't kiss his.

@25: Clearly the second one!

Also I like to believe the acronym connection is because not dumping someone who is ruining your life is a form of "forgetting to be awesome."

Just definitely not the kid in your pants.

@29. Yikes!