Thank you not just for clarifying this, but also for providing an extensive bibliography for those who are interested to make reference. I have tried, over and over again, to point out that I never "chose" my sexual orientation -- it simply unfolded as puberty hit me, and I had about as much choice in this matter as I had with respect to my height, bone structure, or weight.

There are those who will never believe this. There are those who will insist, to this day, that all gay persons are liars; that we are all part of a massive conspiracy aimed at overthrowing the family as the building block of society. What these people fail to understand is that those of us who believe in gay marriage wish to STRENGTHEN gay families -- at least one in every five openly gay persons is currently raising a child.

Thank you for your message. It is long past time that we heard another voice of sanity on this thread!

PHILIP

Let me clarify this issue further.

The only reason the California Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8 (in Strauss v. Horton, 46 Cal.4th 364 (2009)) was because all of the substantive legal rights, privileges, and benefits of marriage remain available to gay couples in California, in the form of legally binding "domestic partnerships" -- only the designation of marriage has been snatched away from gay couples.

How do you feel about this? How do you feel about domestic partnerships? Should these remain available? If so, why not marriage? If the two concepts lead to substantively identical rights, privileges, and benefits, which of them (if either) should be available to gay couples -- and what reason exists for the other option not being available?

PHILIP

If you can argue this issue on its merits, without your anti-gay hatred obscuring factual analysis and logic, then by all means, let us debate this issue. But if you are going to insist that gay people are so worthless that we should not be raising children in the first place, expect a spirited and angry rebuttal – and expect me to call you as I see you.

The choice is, and remains, entirely yours.

PHILIP CHANDLER

I also pointed out to you the cold fact that many gay couples raise children, and that several state supreme courts have weighed in on the importance of marriage to such families – marriage provides children who are raised by gay couples with a degree of stability and certainty that is lacking in its absence. Your response was to opine, implicitly, that gay couples should not raise children in the first place.

When all is said and done, I believe you to be guilty of vicious, anti-gay bigotry of the crudest form. You cannot articulate a single coherent reason to prevent gay persons from marrying, so you fall back to positions which become increasingly difficult to defend, each of which gives way to more and more obvious animus (i.e., hatred) towards gay persons.

CONTINUED...

I then pointed out to you that the courts consider marriage to be a “fundamental” right. This means that any attempt to deprive any group of persons of the right to marry must satisfy the demands of strict scrutiny as a matter of law – and one of those demands is that of narrow tailoring. You went off on a tangent, accusing me of misrepresenting you when, in fact, all I did was point out that you were trying to have it both ways – treating marriage as a mere contract when it suits you, then treating it as more than a mere contract when it suits you. Make you your mind – either marriage is merely a civil contract in the eyes of the law, intended to effectuate reproduction, or it is a basic, fundamental right, with purposes other than that of merely effectuating reproduction.

CONTINUED...

Calvin – the problem here is that you are not consistent in your reasoning.

First, you claim that marriage is merely a contract, and that the only issue that distinguishes marriage as being of any great significance, in your eyes, is that it is related to procreation. I pointed out that such a worldview necessitates the conclusion that infertile and elderly couples should not be permitted to marry, and that couples who choose not to have children should not be permitted to marry. You responded by stating that a contract does not have to include every possible exception to its general purpose. If that is indeed the case, then what is wrong with adjusting the contract so as to include gay persons too? If the contract can include some persons who are unable or unwilling to procreate, then what is your logical basis for excluding gay persons, whilst including elderly, infertile, and unwilling couples?

CONTINUED...

Calvin writes: "This presupposes that gay couples *should* be raising kids to begin with."

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Response:
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AHA! Now here, at last, we have it -- an open acknowledgement, by you, of your own homophobia. Implicit in the above statement is the judgment -- by you -- that gay persons should not be raising children in the first place. This is proof positive of your own homophobia -- your own personal animus towards gay men and lesbians.

Why, pray tell, should we not raise children?

PHILIP CHANDLER

Calcin writes: "This presupposes that gay couples *should* be raising kids to begin with."

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Response:
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AHA! I finally caught you in all of your bigotry and nastiness! Caught absolutely on the hop!

Implicit in the above statement -- by you -- is the notion that gay persons are incapable of raising children properly; that gay persons are somehow unworthy of raising chldren (I take it, from your response, that you don't believe that gay persons should be raising children to begin with). If ever I needed proof positive that you are motivated by contempt for gay persons, you have just provided me with that proof -- without as much as a hint of a fig-leaf of covering rhetoric.

You have just nailed shut the lid of your own intellectual coffin.

R.I.P.

PHILIP CHANDLER

To cite from Chief Judge Judith Kaye’s dissent in Hernandez v. Robles, 855 N.E.2d 1 (N.Y. 2006) (the New York gay marriage case): “Simply put, fundamental rights are fundamental rights. They are not defined in terms of who is entitled to exercise them… There are enough marriage licenses to go around for everyone.”

You attempt to misapply the rational basis standard of review when strict scrutiny or at least quasi-strict scrutiny is the correct standard. This lies at the heart of your inconsistency, and hence your inability to defend yourself without falling into huge holes in your logic.

PHILIP

Calvin writes: "A civil contract ... doesn't presuppose that every single participant will reproduce, nor does it require ...will reproduce."

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Response:
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This response shows just how wrong you are with respect to both the law and the facts.

Marriage is more than a mere contract -- it has been described by the US Supreme Court as a "fundamental" right (see Zablocki v. Redhail, 434 U.S. 374 (1978), Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967)). When an attempt is made to deprive any group of a fundamental right, the law requires that the state meets the burden of "strict scrutiny" -- which calls for precisely the form of "narrow tailoring" described above. You would know that had you read the relevant case law before describing marriage in such narrow and stultified terms. You are wrong precisely because your understanding of the nature of marriage is wrong.

CONTINUED...