>The essential difference I see isn't one of individual probability of parenthood, but of aggregate. Not all heterosexual couples rear children, true. But the likelihood of a randomly selected example rearing children is vastly higher than that for a randomly selected homosexual couple. That, I argue, is what makes it worthwhile for the state to support the former and not the latter.

so, according to that principle you declared, the state clearly shouldn't support marriage (no new marriage licenses and no tax benefits to the childless couples with already existing licenses. Shouldn't the state just automatically annul the existing licenses of such couples?) after the age of 50 or 55 - i.e when that likelihood fells below whatever threshold you consider "worthwhile".

So instead of changing the tax code to be more specific (change the marriage tax benefits to child-rearing benefits) you're proposing we deny one of humanity's oldest and most important rituals (which means a lot to people intrinsically and symbolically, having just married my wife I know the feeling) to an entire group of people?

Yeah I feel like you're post-rationalizing a gut feeling, because you didn't think too hard about alternative solutions to the incentives/tax burden problem.

Going to the courthouse to do paperwork surely is not the oldest and most important ritual you're referring to, but that's the only part of it that the state has power over.

> instead of changing the tax code to be more specific (change the marriage tax benefits to child-rearing benefits)

That's actually closer to what I'd consider preferable, which would be no changes to existing marriage rights, but a federal civil union statute with marriage-level financial benefits contingent upon child-rearing. But such a thing would never be taken seriously on either side of the political crevasse - far too much for conservatives, far too little for progressives, thus decried from both sides. Is it too soon to bemoan the equation of nuance with assault in the modern American political environment?

> deny one of humanity's oldest and most important rituals [...] to an entire group of people

An entire group of people who have never in Western history, perhaps not even in human history overall, had access to that ritual, until the Supreme Court last year discovered in the Constitution a right heretofore unknown. It is very hard to overstate the extent to which this represents an upheaval of tradition, and such things don't happen in a vacuum - or, utopianism notwithstanding, without consequence. Being myself a member of that roughly one percent of the population which has been led to believe it may enforce its will upon the whole without fear of backlash, I don't think it is too hard to imagine what kind of "gut feeling" there might be somewhere in the back of my mind as I speak on this subject, as I've so often done over the last few years.

It's possible my analysis lacks accuracy, although that's yet to be demonstrated, and falling back on insinuations of bigotry doesn't really indicate confidence in one's arguments. But if you want to know what motivates me to concern myself with the subject in the first place, you need look no further than fear. I don't want to find myself in a war, and I really don't want to find myself in a war my side is all but guaranteed to lose - and one in a hundred isn't the kind of proportion that's conducive to a win. But some people seem to want to start one, and to put me and mine in it. They say it's for our benefit, but I've been observing and comparing their claims and their actions for some decades now, and I think they are lying. I also see no reason to expect that, when all the heavy things they've so blithely flung into the air start coming down on people's heads, they'll feel any need to stick around and share the horror they've let us in for. That seems to me like an outcome toward which it's eminently reasonable to look with trepidation.

We'd got by this long without being able to marry. We could've been satisfied with Lawrence v. Texas, which is an amazing accomplishment in its own right, and given it another generation or two before we told the rest of America again that it could take its morality and shove it even further this time. No, that's not ideal, but what is? Nobody ever promised us, or anyone else, an easy life. Nobody ever promised us a just world, by our lights or anyone else's. And the whole concept of progressivism revolves around gradualism, or so I'd been given to understand - the idea, I gather, being that of modifying morality over successive generations by a process mainly centered on education and subtle social pressure, rather than forcible reengineering of whole swaths of society at a time. Quibble though I may with the nature of such a process and the purposes to which it might be put, I at least have to admit that it has a reasonable chance of working. Trying to do everything in the space of half a generation like this is liable to get a hell of a lot of us killed, and to leave those who aren't worse off than they were at the start. I guess that's easy to contemplate for people who don't stand to suffer as a result of it. Here on what's liable to be the pointy end, maybe not so much.

Seems like I mistook what you represented and attacked what I thought you were. Text is a bad place for casting stones like I did.

I don't know about gradualism. You seem to have a better eye on the strategy than me, so I'll take your word for it -- though I'm struck by your cynicism about allies fleeing you when things get hard... but I can understand where it comes from. The number of people who would put themselves in harms way for someone else's fight is pretty low, so your numbers indeed look bad. Damn. Thanks for taking the time to reply. I hope for all our sake america isn't as dogmatic and lazy as you think it is..

> But the likelihood of a randomly selected example rearing children is vastly higher than that for a randomly selected homosexual couple.

Okay, but why guess? We already register children and parents, so only issue marriage licenses when a couple has a child. That takes the guessing out of it.

> but to do so in practice not only massively increases the bureaucracy and cost involved and brings in creepy edge cases, but requires a panopticon state in order to work.

I don't see how, the state already knows who a child's parents are.

What about postmenopausal women, a point raised elsewhere in this discussion? What about men and women who simply aren't fertile, for whatever reason? What about families in places where births aren't registered? Such places still exist. What about the death of a couple's only child? Is the marriage thereby annulled? What effect has all this on divorce? "Creepy edge cases." And I can't see how maintaining all this additional information on which married status is now contingent (unless it's not!) could be achieved without a massive increase of bureaucracy, with its concomitant cost.

As I've just mentioned elsewhere in this thread, I think a lot of this has origin in my failure to make clear that I'm not arguing one vast change in the status quo versus another, but rather arguing one vast change in the status quo versus no such change. (Status quo ante at this point, of course, but let's not get hung up on that point, when we've spent the entire conversation to date assuming that this is still a question meriting discussion.) Making marriage contingent on procreative capacity would be a vast change to the status quo. Permitting homosexual couples to marry, exactly as heterosexual couples do, is also a vast change to the status quo. There are cases in which vast changes to the status quo are not merely justifiable but utterly necessary. This does not seem to me to be such a case.

> What about postmenopausal women, a point raised elsewhere in this discussion?

What about them? By your logic, won't be able to get married, unless they adopt, since they can't have kids, it's clear-cut.

> What about men and women who simply aren't fertile, for whatever reason?

Same, no marriage, unless they adopt.

> What about families in places where births aren't registered? Such places still exist.

Can't get married unless they register their kids. We can't have them benefitting from the institution of marriage if they aren't willing to do the legwork.

> What about the death of a couple's only child?

Could go either way, they gave it a shot. I'd be for letting them stay married.

> What effect has all this on divorce?

I don't know, what effect does not letting homosexuals get married have on divorce? Same deal.

> "Creepy edge cases."

Not really, though, they have pretty easy answers.

> And I can't see how maintaining all this additional information on which married status is now contingent (unless it's not!) could be achieved without a massive increase of bureaucracy, with its concomitant cost.

What's the additional information? It's literally "do you have any children? yes/no", which the state already has. You're literally advocating guesswork instead of using one simple and readily available piece of information.

I don't know, these arguments are so bad that I feel like you're trying to avoid recognizing that my solution is clearly superior. It makes me wonder what the real reason for you being against homosexual marriage is.

It usually isn't necessary to claim "my solution is clearly superior."

Civil discourse usually ends by presenting your clearly superior points and letting the weight of their clear superiority carry the day.

Questioning what the real reason for [him] being against homosexual marriage is an "Ad hominem fallacy".

Or issue marriage licenses, but take away any economic benefits and let the money follow the children instead.

Ok, so single out homosexual couples, because it's easy.