Political Street Theatre

[Adam's Apple]

Love, Marriage, and the Baby Carriage
By Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe
February 25, 2007

IS MARRIAGE intrinsically connected to bearing and raising children? Advocates of same-sex marriage often argue peremptorily that it is not .

As evidence that marriage and childrearing are not fundamentally related, same-sex marriage proponents frequently point out that married couples aren't required to have children. No law prevents infertile couples from marrying or orders childless marriages dissolved. If procreation is so important to marriage, they say, why should elderly couples, or couples determined not to have children, be permitted to wed?

for full article:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ed...07/02/25/love_marriage_and_the_baby_carriage/

 

[mattskramer]

This is an old point soundly debated. It is the last hope for the anti-gay-marriage crowd. Man + Man cannot produce a baby. Woman + Woman cannot produce a baby. A baby is produce by the joining of sperm and egg. It is what I consider to be an irrelevant point.

A couple can have babies without being married. A couple can be married and not have a baby. Couples (gay or straight) who want a baby can adopt or contact a sperm donor (or egg donor). Again, the old point that marriage is supposedly for the creation of children is insignificant.

 

[William Joyce]

It's a weak point by the marry-a-toaster-if-it-feels-good crowd. Marriage sets the stage for children, two homosexuals do not (unless one's a man and the other a woman!). But even this is beside the point. Homosexuals aren't concerned about fairness, justice or happy smiling children, they're concerned about getting state sanction for deviant behavior. So ignore them. Hell, Bill Clinton can... if you're a "conservative" and you can't even muster this, consider other ideologies.

 

[Gurdari]

Are you a spokesman for the gay agenda?
Marry a toaster...hmmm.

If it was heteros fighting for equal marriage - my 'agenda' would be about the state not fucking with my right to marry whatever consenting adult I chose to, not about my appliances... did you choose to be straight? Were youborn that way?

 

[mattskramer]

It's a weak point by the marry-a-toaster-if-it-feels-good crowd. Marriage sets the stage for children, two homosexuals do not (unless one's a man and the other a woman!). But even this is beside the point. Homosexuals aren't concerned about fairness, justice or happy smiling children, they're concerned about getting state sanction for deviant behavior. So ignore them. Hell, Bill Clinton can... if you're a "conservative" and you can't even muster this, consider other ideologies.

Marriage does not set the stage for children for those couples who choose to not have children. Don’t try to be a mind reader.

 

[Adam's Apple]

Again, the old point that marriage is supposedly for the creation of children is insignificant.

Did you read the article? If you did, I think you skipped over the following very telling points:

"But Gadow and his fellow activists are assaulting a straw man. No mainstream opponent of same-sex marriage claims that having children is the sole purpose of wedlock. Marriages can serve any number of purposes -- cementing the bond between partners, guaranteeing financial security, having a legitimate sexual outlet, ensuring companionship, and so on. People get married for various reasons; the desire to raise a family is only one of them.

What makes marriage a public institution, however -- the reason it is regulated by law and given an elevated legal status -- is that it provides something no healthy society can do without: a stable environment in which men and women can create and bring up the next generation, and in which children can enter the world with mothers and fathers committed to their well-being."

 

[mattskramer]

Did you read the article? If you did, I think you skipped over the following very telling points:

"But Gadow and his fellow activists are assaulting a straw man. No mainstream opponent of same-sex marriage claims that having children is the sole purpose of wedlock. Marriages can serve any number of purposes -- cementing the bond between partners, guaranteeing financial security, having a legitimate sexual outlet, ensuring companionship, and so on. People get married for various reasons; the desire to raise a family is only one of them.

What makes marriage a public institution, however -- the reason it is regulated by law and given an elevated legal status -- is that it provides something no healthy society can do without: a stable environment in which men and women can create and bring up the next generation, and in which children can enter the world with mothers and fathers committed to their well-being."

Okay. Thanks for pointing that out to me. The same can apply to homosexual unions – except for creating children. See http://online.logcabin.org/issues/the_case_for_civil_marriage_equality.html