[1] where by "rational" I mean justifiable with facts and statistics to back it up.

If you're honest with yourself, you recognize all of this language about rationality as rhetoric in a culture war in which you're attempting to shift cultural norms.

I'm for gay marriage.

When people say that gay people are not to marry their partners, that is discrimination under the legal system, entirely ignoring any cultural aspects.

It's the "Tradition and Morality" section.

... the donation does not in itself constitute evidence of animosity. Those asserting this are not providing a reasoned argument, rather they are labeling dissenters to cast them out of polite society. To such assertions, I can only respond: “no”.

There are other reasons for opposing things, religious reasons for example. Not saying they're well thought out or even remotely valid, but thinking in such a black and white manner isn't beneficial to decent conversation.

Latent effects of refusing marriage like lack of insurance coverage leading to preventable deaths would be a much better match though. And to that, I still believe conversation is a better tool than outright condemnation & intolerance.

Preventing a family from getting married is harm. It is at the very least expensive in time and money. But it also puts children at substantial risk. See the recent decision on the Michigan Marriage Amendment for more on that: http://www.freep.com/assets/freep/pdf/C4220110321.PDF

Should having "decent conversation" be the goal?

Because I prioritise not being discriminated against by my government because of my sexual orientation slightly higher than having a decent conversation.

Stuff like this is why the secret ballot exists.

If government ditched the word "marriage" and said you can designate a person you "cohabit" with for purposes of taxes, benefits, etc, how many of those folks would be against designating someone of the same gender? Those people I'd call "homophobic".

> marriage vows did not have to be exchanged in a church, nor was a priest's presence required. A couple could exchange consent anywhere, anytime.

For the first quarter of the common era, the church was split between trying to get the church involved in marriages (e.g. Tertullian recommending that christians "request marriage from their priest") and recommending eternal celibacy and virginity. Augustine and Isodore of Seville developed the sacramentality of Christian marriage (Augustine at least still taught that virginity remained superior).

The official catholic declaration of marriage as a sacrament (and thus declaration of the takeover) was actually political: it was made at the Council of Verona in 1184 as part of the case against Cathars, who held that marriage and procreation were evil.

The case for marriage belonging to religions is "it's been that way for as long as I've lived". Previously in that category: slavery, illegal abortions, children labour and lots of other awesome company.

A bigger problem, not admitted by the religious side of this debate, is that the legal definition of marriage is what grants many states rights. To some extent that some states would have to rewrite their constitutions to no longer honor marriage as an institution.

I don't think the end game legally would end very well for the people stating that "marriage" is a religious term. It might be in common speech, but given we're talking about granting legal rights its about as relevant as ice cubes to an eskimo. Push this matter too hard and its likely that marriage as a legal term or definition goes away entirely.

I'm all for it but pushing the religious points too far will only cause more issues for those fighting via that angle. (no i'm not a lawyer)

Think of having sex with 12 years old girls - there is nothing irrational in it (it was normal and legal a few hundred years ago), why we keep it forbidden now?

Similarly it is not legal to merry 4 woman (or man). Why? Where is rationality in forbidding this. In fact rational is the opposite - it would be good to have spare wife or husband, just in case of death or ilness.

Since the beginning of the Industrial Age, we've lengthened human childhood. Because people have more to learn today before they can be productive adults in society, the period of your life that is "youth" is longer, and the age where we consider a person mature enough to be fully responsible for their own body is older now.

12 year olds used to be adults, now they're children.

> Similarly it is not legal to merry 4 woman (or man). Why? Where is rationality in forbidding this. In fact rational is the opposite - it would be good to have spare wife or husband, just in case of death or ilness.

If there was complete gender equality and polygamy was as common as polyandry, it would be probably be fine. In reality, polygamy is historically dramatically more common than wives with multiple husbands.

If you take as a given a roughly 50/50 distribution between men and women (and relatively even proportions of homosexuals), that means widespread polygamy causes a large number of men for whom there are no wives available. If one person has five wives, it means there are four men out there with none.

That has a destabilizing effect on society. It's best for everyone if the possibility of finding a mate is not hampered in that way.

Socially, we've delayed the age when youngsters achieve self-sufficiency, start working, etc; but instead of prolonging "youth" currently our habits (most likely due to food industry) have achieved earlier age of puberty than before; biologically those kids are maturing sooner for having kids of their own.

Their position makes even less sense than the other one, the creation of stable family units, and thus the provision of legal and financial advantages to these units trough official recognition of them is usually considered a social good, and the government "being involved" as the provider of the aforementioned advantages is sensible.

Edit: Or get divorced for that matter - divorce laws enforced by government (which only exist because it licenses marriages in the first place) have a big impact on who gets divorced.

So the tax-provided incentives are clearly not sufficient to compensate for this decline, and I really doubt they contribute significantly in most cases.

http://www.nber.org/c7282.pdf http://www.nber.org/chapters/c3683 http://www.nber.org/papers/w7510

It's also what my Public Economics professor said back in the day in college... and he was a smart dude.

Also, you're ignoring most of the argument - it's not just about the tax incentive - it's about all of the incentives that government licensed marriage creates. Re-read my prior comments throughout this whole discussion if you don't know what I mean.

It is? First off, the fact that a policy has been put in place is no evidence that it actually works (see also "trickle down economics" and "abstinence-based sex programs"). Secondly, it's difficult to argue about the purpose of the incentives outside of a historical context. The best I've been able to find is regarding the tax part of the incentives: http://www.ncpa.org/pub/bg145?pg=2 It does not appear to be part of a nefarious plot to get more people married.

> you're welcome to read papers that are tangentially related and prove the the point of how strongly influenced by economics/finances marriages are

After skimming the papers, my understanding is that they demonstrate that for a number of women, the social condition of their prospective husband is a huge motivational factor. That is fine and well, but what does it have to do with the state? I'm sure you could find the same studies regarding unmarried couples. I haven't found any mention of government incentives in them, but I may have overlooked something.

> Also, you're ignoring most of the argument - it's not just about the tax incentive - it's about all of the incentives that government licensed marriage creates. Re-read my prior comments throughout this whole discussion if you don't know what I mean.

You are correct that I focused on the tax incentives, as I see that as the most visible of the government-provided incentives. Let's look at the other benefits you list:

> (taxes, pensions, medical benefits) and implicit (encouraging a social construct through government enforcement of licenses and contracts)

I'm not aware of any pension-related advantage of married couples where I live, and there is certainly no medical benefits in a land of socialized healthcare. Is this a US thing? As for the implicit benefits, I'm not entirely clear on what you mean. Are you objecting to the existence of a legal framework formalizing the rights of each party?

But that's a completely useless and unproductive argument to make in the context of the fight being underway, let alone making it while fighting on the other side.

Yup, same as anyone who opposes interracial marriage is racist.

There's not a minimum threshold of bigotry. You don't get to say "How bigoted can I be without people calling me a bigot? ...I can't be bigoted at all?!? That's not fair!"

How do you feel about abortion? If you're against it, then you are seen as bigoted against women's right to their own body. If you're for it, then you're seen as bigoted against the rights of unborn children to not be murdered.

And even if you could think that way, you shouldn't. Why not? Read http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html for why I don't want to put such mental blinders on.

Contrast this with the gay marriage debate. There is no conflict. Gay marriage does not affect its opponents in any capacity. A married gay couple does not infringe on anybody else's right to be married. Opposition to gay marriage is completely arbitrary and rooted in discrimination in all cases, there just isn't any reason why one should care, and even less of a reason why the government should take that judgement into consideration. Any religious, traditional, or cultural opposition to gay marriage is completely moot since marriage is not even real thing, it's simply a legal status with the same name as a historical tradition.

Therefore I'm against a blanket, "You're not allowed any trace of bigotry." Strongly against it. It limits people's ability to think.

Now I can see you responding that this example has nothing to do with gay marriage. So let me give a real example tying that one.

My opinion is that homophobia ties to the uncanny valley (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley for what THAT is) which is the feeling of revulsion that virtually all of us have for the "almost human". (Different people having different definitions of "almost".) Having broached the topic, we can discuss emotional reactions to other races, disabled people, various disfigurements, and the ways in which horror movies play on the natural phenomena.

But wait, what can of worms did I just open? I suggested a connection between widespread homophobia and an innate phenomena that causes the vast majority of humans to feel revulsion under the right circumstances. And it is a pretty strong revulsion - seeing that which you dislike will, like it or not, be about as palatable as stepping in a pile of shit. This really does affect others. (If you argue that it affects others because they are bigots, I can't disagree...but a lot of people are so affected.)

Pretty much everyone who I've really had the conversation with has wound up realizing at some point that there is stuff which they personally respond with revulsion. And some of that stuff results in their having trouble not discriminating. You can try to consciously try not to act on that revulsion, which usually leads to an overreaction and reverse discrimination. But the roots of at least some sorts of bigotry are something that seems to be built in to pretty much all of us - certainly me included.

But if you've conceptualized anyone who has any trace of bigotry as unequivocally bad, then this is not a conversation that you're able to have. Because at some point you're going to have to face ways that you resemble people you don't like.

And THAT is an example of why I don't want the mental blinders that keep me from even trying to think about homophobic people in terms that are more sophisticated than, "They are awful people."

(For the record, I am straight, I am not homophobic, and I voted against prop 8. Also my sister has some gay friends who wish I'd reconsider the "straight" bit...)

So what? The veracity of scientific studies is not at issue here. My point is that unlike the abortion debate, there are no muddy waters in play here. It's unequivocally wrong to deny homosexual couples the same legal rights as heterosexual couples, there is just no other reason beyond bigotry to deny them the freedom to be married. I'm not saying that we should hunt down all the bigots, I'm saying that bigotry alone is not a satisfactory justification for any position and is easily rejected as such.

But wait, what can of worms did I just open? I suggested a connection between widespread homophobia and an innate phenomena that causes the vast majority of humans to feel revulsion under the right circumstances. And it is a pretty strong revulsion

Ok... Perhaps that's a possible explanation, it's also a completely irreverent one. I am revolted by the sight of individuals who put 4 inch gauges in their ears, but that personal disgust doesn't justify an attack on their right to start a consensual legal relationship with another consenting adult. My disgust doesn't matter. Their relationship is none of my business. Laws against gay marriage are in a similar vein to sodomy laws, namely, a bunch of hateful, entitled, "revolted" traditionalists who want to leverage the force of the government to prevent consenting adults from living their lives in a way that affects nobody but themselves. It's simply wrong. There are no two ways about it, nobody gains anything by keeping homosexuals away from marriage, it's only purpose is to deliberately deny homosexual couples the satisfaction of inclusion in a legally recognized institution.

Furthermore what you are stating is your personal opinion that a sense of revulsion and disgust is not a valid source of moral opinions. But now you're opening another can of worms. Preliminary results from brain research have identified 5 different subsystems in our brain that underly opinions that get called "moral". Those 5 systems are:

1. Recognition of suffering in others.

2. Reciprocity (the golden rule).

3. Hierarchy (respect for elders, power systems, etc).

4. Coalitionary bonding (loyalty to your group, patriotism, etc).

5. Purity (praising cleanliness, viewing things as gross).

In general liberal moral systems tend to focus on the first 2 and conservative moral systems tend to focus on the last 3. As much as you think that revulsion and disgust are not proper bases for moral opinions, most of the world disagrees with you. And if you want to live in a democracy, you're going to have to live with results that you don't like. Furthermore no amount of complaining on your part is going to change this inconvenient truth.

People may simple be bigoted towards gay marriage, but hold no strong opinion on the individuals themselves. That this is a possible stance is self-evident given the current legal situation.

If you oppose equal civil rights for group X, you are bigoted against group X. There are certainly different degrees of bigots--I'd much rather deal with someone who favors most civil rights other than interracial marriage than someone who thinks black people were better off as slaves--but they are all still bigots.

If their specific bigotry is homophobic, why would they not be conflatable?

I mean people may simple be bigoted towards interracial marriage, but hold no strong opinion on the individuals themselves. That this is a possible stance is self-evident given the current legal situation. (and apparently not at all racist)

Yes,like anyone who opposed civil rights for blacks was racist.

To take it even further, what if someone thought that the civil war was not (primarily) about the rights of African slaves, but rather a proxy for a rivalry between two political factions? Does the Union treatment of Native Americans suggest they were overflowing with humanitarian sentiment when it came to dealing with non-WASP peoples in general?

It's important to ask such questions, because the Union of the 1800's, and the political supporters of the civil rights movements of the 1900's, could have in fact been harmful to the very people they were claiming to help, because helping them was never their true goal. I am not saying that such people were consciously manipulative, rather it was simply easy for them to use the cause of others as a justification for actions that benefited themselves.

Likewise, could it be that Mr. Eich was not against the rights of homosexual people, but rather attempting to resist another political faction's attempt to control the moral narrative? Based upon his own statements, as well as the statements by those who have worked with him who are homosexual, I see no indication of malice. Furthermore, since he has been with Mozilla since the beginning, it would stand to reason that if he had a significant opposition to the organizations policies, he would have left long ago.

Or interracial marriages, since that's much closer to the issue.

It is plastered everywhere as a superficial emotional argument but it is logically baseless and, worse, it is hijacking the compassion people rightfully have for the suffering of black people in order to push a particular agenda. It's shameful.

Of course, I expect to be downvoted because I know that in our current society all opinions and preferences should be held in the highest regard, except those you disagree with and especially those that appeal to an objective morality.