Give me the numbers. I’ll spike ‘em.

I was on the highway when this thread went totally out of control.

First of all, I am honored that you responded directly to my points. Dave, the fact that polygamy is recognized in many cultures does not negate the fact that it still represents a relationship between a man and a woman, albeit, multiple men to one woman, or multiple women to one man. William, the concept of “gay virgin” is in the same light as one who has never tasted alcohol. It assumes that ‘gay’ is accepted and implies that a ‘virgin’ is inexperienced, innocent, or undefiled, which is the traditional understanding of “virgin”. Notice that men are not typically referred to as “virgin” in archaic discussion. Furthermore, if your attraction, without action, defines your sexual orientation then this entire argument is mute. The law and arbitrator thereof does not have the ability, nor the capacity, to address unbirthed thoughts. If there is no spoken word, or action, there is nothing to address.

Also, a specific distinction: “private acts between consenting adults” and “state recognition of same sex unions” or ‘gay marriage’ are not equitable. “Marriage”, regardless of what variety you accept, is a “public declaration”. Hence the “…we are gathered here today to witness…” and the “…if there be any person who has reason why these two should not be joined…”

This decision in California says, in essence, that the law of California has witnessed and condoned the joining of, pick a same-sex couple. Read deeper…if you refuse to recognize the “marriage” between them, you stand against the law of the state of California. There is much to be wary of in that precedent.

BTW…the list of churches in defense of ‘gay marriage’ are on the most liberal side of the Judeo-Christian spectra bordering on moral relativism, just to keep perspective.

That this law as applied to private, consensual conduct is unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause does not mean that other laws distinguishing between heterosexuals and homosexuals would similarly fail under rational basis review. Texas cannot assert any legitimate state interest here, such as national security or preserving the traditional institution of marriage.

Of course, this claim of Justice O’Connor is precisely what the Supreme Court of California has explicitly rejected.

Justice Scalia, in his dissenting opinion in the Lawrence case, stated

Today’s opinion dismantles the structure of constitutional law that has permitted a distinction to be made between heterosexual and homosexual unions.

Of course, he was exactly right.

What does this have to do with religion? Dave2 at comment #6 captures the ramifications. The pro-homosexual left will try — with the force of law — to define traditional religion as “bigotry” or worse. If they are successful, religion will become as socially marginal in the US as it has become in Europe and most of Canada. If they are unsuccessful, there will be open war between the secular and religious camps. The position of the small but socially influential religious left should be quite interesting in such times.

Bisexuals certainly benefit from the marriage-equity rulings of the California and Massachusetts courts. The no longer need to arbitrarily ignore half of their potential marriage partners if they want to get married.

Despite conservative efforts to conflate them, polyamorous marriage (whether including bisexuals or not) is a separate issue. The “gay marriage” movement wants to extend the existing hetero institution to everyone, period.

On the practical level, you don’t have millions of people living in triads, tetrads or what-have-you like you have people already living in same-sex couples. So the pressure for polyamorous marriage isn’t there in the same way.

Btw there are lots of BGLTs who are not pursuing marriage. They think being BGLT is fundamentally different and that adapted hetero institutions are not appropriate. It’s a big world out there. Big and scary, if such things scare you.

Attorneys for the Respondent include:
Chapter of the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association, Pacific Central West Council of the Union for
Reform Judaism, Pacific Southwest Council of the Union for Reform Judaism, Pacific Southwest District
Chapter of the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association, Progressive Christians Uniting, Progressive
Jewish Alliance-California, Reconciling Ministries Clergy of the California-Nevada Conference of the
United Methodist Church, Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry-California, United Church of Christ-
Southern California/Nevada Conference, All Saints Episcopal Church, All Saints Independent Catholic
Parish, All Saints Metropolitan Community Church, Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirits, Berkeley
Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, Buena Vista United Methodist Church, Chalice Unitarian
Universalist Congregation, Christ the Shepherd Lutheran Church, Church of the Brethren of San Diego,
College Avenue Congregational Church United Church of Christ, Community Church of Atascadero
United Church of Christ, Community Presbyterian Church, Conejo Valley Unitarian Universalist
Fellowship, UCC Community Church of Atascadero, Congregation Beth Chayim Chadashim,
Congregation Kol Ami, Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, Congregation Shir Hadash, Conejo Valley Unitarian
Universalist Fellowship Faith in Action Committee, Diamond Bar United Church of Christ, Dolores Street
Baptist Church, Emerson Unitarian Universalist Church, First Christian Church of San Jose Disciples of
Christ, First Congregational Church, First Congregational United Church of Christ, First Mennonite Church
of San Francisco, First Presbyterian Church, First Unitarian Church of Oakland, (I’ve cut about half this list for the sake of space.)

Full ruling: http://media.npr.org/documents/2008/may/ca_supreme_ct.pdf

Those on the Left of the religious and political spectrum may also want to make hay over the fact that a certain Kenneth W. Starr (yeah, that one) was an attorney for the appelant, i.e. the state, along with Jay Sekulow and a handful of churches. But they were clearly outgunned, as usual.

The same groups that have pushed for the legalisation of homosexual “marriage” will not lift a finger to help a bisexual in his or her plight. There is a large current in the homosexual community that deprecates bisexuals more than heterosexuals.

str1977 is completely correct.

Leaving aside the apparent hypocrisy of the gay “rights” movement refusing to fight for the rights of bisexuals, the fact that a powerful, well-funded interest group isn’t behind the effort to legalize plural marriage is irrelevant, isn’t it? All it would really take is one recourse to the court system to establish yet another “new” form of marriage, and I’ve not seen one article noting the rather revolutionary nature of this CA ruling and the more far reaching one in Massachusetts.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court stated pretty clearly in its decision in 2003 that marriage will henceforth be available to ALL people who CHOOSE to marry, saying, in part:

“The right to marry is not a privilege conferred by the State, but a fundamental right that is protected against unwarranted State interference.” and “the right to marry means little if it does not include the right to marry the person of one’s choice.”

Likewise, the California ruling noted repeatedly that marriage was meant to be the right to “establish, with the person of one’s choice, an officially recognized and sanctioned family.” (p. 18, 52, 54, 59, 60, 69 and elsewhere)

If a man’s choice is to marry a man AND a woman, who are the courts to say they may not, given these precedents?

Of course the Mass. ruling included such weak legal arguments as the fact that gays are “our neighbors” and that ending man-woman-only marriages were to be overthrown for this wonderful legal precedent: “We should do so because it is the right thing to do.”

Since a gay couple’s emotional plea was apparently the ‘reasoning’ behind the ruling, wouldn’t a court equally be swayed by a poor, discriminated-against triple seeking plural marriage?

It was legal reasoning like that eviscerated traditional Western marriage as we knew it for about 3,000 years. We just don’t realize that, sadly, this old fashioned concept is dead yet - or at least on life support.

I’m curious to know if anyone has ever seen an analysis of the Mass. court ruling - or the recent court ruling in Calif. - in the media that looks at it for its ramifications for plural marriage and the rights of bisexuals.

I agree 100% with the reasoning you present. It all would be unfair and “discriminating” if this remained restricted to homosexual monogamy.

However, it will not come up as a problem. Why? You write:

Must Joe be forced to choose either strict heterosexuality or strict homosexuality, depending upon the mere chronological chance of whom he happened to marry first?

The same groups that have pushed for the legalisation of homosexual “marriage” will not lift a finger to help a bisexual in his or her plight. There is a large current in the homosexual community that deprecates bisexuals more than heterosexuals.

why Europeans are less freaked out about same-sex marriage than Americans are.

Also because we do not (or to a much lesser extent) have the problem of activist judges ruling by diktat.

And remember: how many European countries have introduced homosexual “marriage” (as opposed to civil unions or nothing)? You won’t find that many!

I’ve never understood why people assume that bisexuals automatically want to be involved with men and women at the same time.

That’s not an assumption but a possibility. Who are you to discriminate against Joe.

It’s not that alone. It’s the fact that the state can’t demonstrate a reason to discriminate against them.

The same reasoning destroys your case against bisexual marriage above. There is no reason to “discriminate” against them.

But any way, this is not about “discrimination” but whether the state has any interest in accepting and furthering an institution. It is clear why it does that to traditional marriage, but what actually are the benefits of homosexual “marriage”?

Real discrimination would be laws outlawing homosexual intercourse or same-sex cohabitation.

hmmm Is it the innateness and intractability of GLTBs that gives them status as protected people?

Yes, it is. The argument is that homosexual can’t help but go for a same-sex partner and therefore must be provided for with an institution.

the gist of the decision is that the only thing the court ruled unconstitutional was calling marriage and domestic partnerships by different names. It’s not enough, the court said, to grant domestic partnerships and marriages the same set of legal rights and obligations; you also have to call them marriages.

Does that mean the law could provide for an less-then-equal-institutition that is not called marriage?

On a linguistic note: it is the two spouses that marry, not any minister.

The rationale that “I cannot help myself” or “I was born this way” is problematic when applying it to behavior. In order to be a woman, or a man, you do not have to act. In order to be black, white, red, yellow, brown, or any other hue, you do not have to act. In order to be “gay”, you have to act. The same applies to those who are predispositioned toward athletics, alcoholism, abuse, and behavioral ‘disorders’.

The word “gay” is ambiguously defined but I think, in most definitions, behavior is not required since it only requires attraction. How could gay virgins exist if an act is required?

As it stands, “marriage” between a man and a woman is universally recognized among cultures.

This is flatly untrue. Legal polygamy still exists, even though it’s not in the West.

Those who stand in favor of supporting inclusion of GLBTs in their concept of marriage, equate sexual orientation and behavior to innate, immutable characteristics of each human being.

This isn’t true either. Many supporters of marriage equity, including the Unitarian Universalist Association, take that position as a matter of equity and are mute as to causes of sexual-orientation diversity.

Michael and Jay D both disputed tmatt’s statement that this is going to the US Supreme Court. You gotta look beyond the next domino to fall. Social conservatives in California are at this moment organizing a referendum to amend the state constitution with a heteronormative defintion of marriage, overturning the recent state supreme court ruling. If they succeed and then someone with standing appeals that to the federal courts, say on grounds of equal protection of the law, it’s headed for the Big Bench.