You appear to be a person of reason on most topics.
However, please recognize that your statement here is a circular argument.
You are attempting to prove "marriage laws defining marriage as one man and one woman discriminated against nobody" because "every man, woman, and child was treated exactly the same under the existing laws."
Your supposition, thus, is that laws discriminating against a particular group, in this case gays, are ok because everyone is treated the same. Your supposition is that it's ok to discriminate based on sexual orientation, because they don't have to have a sexual orientation that the law discriminates against.
Your argument attempts, poorly, to defend discrimination as long as everyone is discriminated against in the same way. But the law did not ban all marriages irregardless of sexual orientation did it? Nope. It discriminated only against gay couples, because the majority believed at some point in time that discriminating against gay couples was good for society.
I double dog dare you to answer to your support of discriminating against gays.
[MENTION=6847]Foxfyre[/MENTION] I triple dog dare you to answer to your support of discriminating against gays.
I don't and have never supported discriminating against gays.
The marriage laws were written to protect children pure and simple; i.e. being aware of any communicable diseases, age limitations, restrictions on marrying persons too closely related, etc. Most are rules and regs that are entirely unnecessary in a same sex marriage.
Otherwise there would be no need for marriage laws of any kind. But children do require one man and one woman to create same, and while single parents or gay parents can be great parents, children nevertheless benefit from having a loving mother and father, i.e. positive role models from each gender, in the home.
Further, though there are always exceptions, the traditional family is the surest safeguard against child poverty, it helps keep track of the genetic blood lines that might be important to know, it promotes more stable, more affluent, more safe, and more aesthetically pleasing quality of life, and most societies have found it promotes the general welfare to encourage traditional marriage.
Nobody was discriminated against in the marriage laws that existed in all 50 states. You didn't have to be 'in love' to get married. You could be of any race, any ethnicity, any sexual orientation, etc. etc. etc. The requirement was purely that a marriage consisted of one man and one woman who were not married to anybody else, who were at least a certain age, and who were not too closely related. You cannot change the definition of something without making it into something different than it was.
Did that mean that people, straight or gay, who for whatever reason could not or did not want to marry were somewhat disadvantaged over people who could and did marry? Yes it did. Which is why I have long been an active hands on up close and personal advocate for laws that would help other people form family units with the tax and social and economic advantages that married people have enjoyed. That way we get everybody what they need and leave traditional marriage intact.
Does that make me a bigot? Ya'll think you should picket my place of business, threaten me and my friends and family and customers, threaten my suppliers? Destroy me. Wreck me financially? All because most of you do not agree with my views on this?
If you think so, in my opinion you are far more evil and dangerous than a fundamentalist Christian baker will ever be.
I think you might be right. If so, this is no longer American, home of the free.
Do they have a giant crucifix on their sign? Did they only cater to christians and was that in writing?
