98
"'marriage' as a male-female relationship has existed, well, FOREVER."

So has human sacrifice.

"Stable longlasting "Marriage" relationships ARE the most perfect social unit known to man. And they DO require societal support."

All caps doesn't magically turn your unfounded opinions into fact.

"Many civilizations have seen the family unit disintergrate, and the society soon followed."

Ad hoc. Just because one thing proceeds another doesn't mean the one thing causes the other. Also, you are making shit up.

Also, this has nothing to do with same sex marriage. You can't demonstrate that same sex marriage can or does have a deleterious effect on opposite sex marriage. Also, you can't show that man-woman marriages are better at raising children.

State it as SLOOOOOOOOOWLY and PAAAAAAAATRONIZINGLY as you choose to, you are still just spouting unfounded conjecture.

@103: I am a very naive person. I expected a cartoon saguaro or something. I clearly need to get out more.

@98-99:@98: Is it nap time Period Troll? Is your poor head aching again?
I know it's hard fighting for equality, but once we're done getting gay marriage squared away, I promise we'll address polygamy, and you, old fashioned boy that you are, can then fulfill your dream of joining Dan and Terry within the bond of matrimony.
Tell me, will you be favoring the prairie dress and hair braid mode of dress after the wedding, or was something along the lines of the Arabian Nights (floaty veils, etc) more what you had in mind?

@105: Well said, but I think you mean "post hoc ergo propter hoc" (after this, therefore because of this) rather than "ad hoc" (for this).

Funny - I never read the troll's comments, yet from the dialog of others I can tell it's the same old tired song he/she/it always uses. "Think of the Children," or "Man-Woman marriage is so important to society that society will literally crumble into chaos should gays be allowed to marry,"
or "marriage is for making babies," etc, etc, etc, blah, blah, and more blah.

Am I right, or am I right?

Man-woman marriage is such a cornerstone foundation of society that over 50% end in divorce - but the troll will feel that's all the more reason to deny gays the equal right. No logic there...

Marriage is silly, and as a religious institution (the basis upon which the counter argument is largely drawn), is unconstitutional. What we are really talking about here is the formation of little corporations. A legal agreement between various parties to become physically and financially responsible for each other. I love the idea of Civil Unions. That is perfect. All marriages should be changed to Civil Unions in the eyes of the law, and any group of people should be able to enter into one. For example, this would allow lifelong non-sexual friends to be able to administer on behalf of what is, despite the lack of a physical relationship, a loving partnership. This would give legal standing to all sorts of loving relationship groupings, regardless of what that group's private behavior might involve, and offer them the series of legal protections necessary for the existence of a functioning and healthy family. It is not the business of government to define what constitutes a family. It is the business of government to defend and protect it's people, and offer them a community of legal protections, regardless of what that community's make up might be.

I think it's quaint that people here are arguing the merits of whether we should recognize polygamous relationships (at least in the economic sense) in our society when we already have one of the best de facto polygamous-enabling institutions: child support. Ask any government child support agency employee to estimate the percentage of cases where one parent has multiple children by multiple partners and...you can probably guess where I'm going with this.

The problem with these Conservative policymakers is that they try to impose some Biblical ideal on everyone without considering 1) not everyone believes in the Bible, 2) not everyone who believes in the Bible follows every single rule, and 3) it's bad policy to craft legislation to force people to behave how we want them to, rather than look at how people actually behave and try to craft policies that will incentivize or disincintivize good or bad behavior.

This is a great article about the aspects of "traditional" marriage and where all the customs came from. It might even give those same sex hating "traditional" marriage junkies pause.

http://archielevine.blogspot.com/2008/11…

A great article on the customs and history of "tradiotional" marriage that might even give the same sex marriage haters pause.

http://archielevine.blogspot.com/2008/11…

@Period Troll

Good afternoon PeriodTroll! It's such a lovely friday. I hope you have big plans this weekend.

I suggest you take your dumbass into a library and look into the history of Polygamy. It was outlawed for good reasons that actually didn't have to do with religion. You know the small things, like men with 16 wives and 120 children who are all being supported by the state as single mothers. Then when the father dies they have no provider other than the state or back when it was outlawed they simply died of starvation. But blah blah blah! Who needs those pesky facts! Them faggots needs to be put down!!

@115: My face when you said that.

Awe.....so period troll and anonymous troll are the same. Tricky tricky lies. I wonder if your also the anonymous racist troll I've semm in the other comments.

Then I suggest you start an e-mail correspondence with Dan Savage instead.

I found Period Troll!!!!

http://youtu.be/In8a0PyDjN8

@118 that guy's counter-protesting the "god hates fags" idiots.