"Start from the obvious: the demand for “gay marriage” only makes sense if marriage is conceived as a legal permission to have sex"
This is obviously wrong. It makes sense as a symbolic commitment to spend one's lives together (however true or not that may turn out to be) and it makes sense as a package of legal rights regarding property, taxes, inheritance, (USA) health insurance, immigration, medical decisions, and child custody[1], and it makes sense as a social signal of that package of rights which people like random nurses in a hospital can be trusted to recognize, unlike civil unions.
[1] While technology is not yet able to let gay couples have children with each other, the individuals are certainly capable of producing or adopting children, or bringing them from a straight relationship, to be raised together.
"Everyone knows that the whole “gay community” rotates around constant exchange of partners"
Just like "everyone knows" that the Catholic Church taught the world was flat until Columbus proved them wrong. "Everyone" can "know" things that are totally wrong.
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Date: 2012-11-17 03:56 am (UTC)This is obviously wrong. It makes sense as a symbolic commitment to spend one's lives together (however true or not that may turn out to be) and it makes sense as a package of legal rights regarding property, taxes, inheritance, (USA) health insurance, immigration, medical decisions, and child custody[1], and it makes sense as a social signal of that package of rights which people like random nurses in a hospital can be trusted to recognize, unlike civil unions.
[1] While technology is not yet able to let gay couples have children with each other, the individuals are certainly capable of producing or adopting children, or bringing them from a straight relationship, to be raised together.
"Everyone knows that the whole “gay community” rotates around constant exchange of partners"
Just like "everyone knows" that the Catholic Church taught the world was flat until Columbus proved them wrong. "Everyone" can "know" things that are totally wrong.