Re: “Stripped of the fearmongering, the issue before us is not complicated: should a citizen of this state be denied a basic human right because of the way that they were born?”

While I agree with you on same-sex marriage, I don’t think it serves the argument well to frame marriage as “a basic human right” – there’s no right to marry written in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and civil marriage is mostly an administrative thing.

That administrative thing certainly leads to a whole bunch of other things which are discriminatory – succession rights, parentage of adopted or surrogate children, access to adoption in the first place, the ability to have joint tax returns, and a host of other issues. But those are separate from the institution of marriage in essence, and it is possible to pass laws giving access to them without calling the union a marriage. Right now, that’s often not the case – and it’s these differences that are clearly discriminatory, and can serve as a basis for convincing people.

In the end, marriage comes down to is symbolism. Some people believe that marriage is a sacred institution that exists to give a framework for a family – and same-sex couples can’t reproduce on their own. Others see the ability to marry as a way to say “I’m yours and you’re mine, forever”, so there’s nothing sacred, religious or family-related about it.

If you did away with every other difference between a civil union (like the PACS in France) and marriage, all that would be left is the label. And gay couples have as much right to have access to the label as straight couples.

Selling marriage as a fundamental human right doesn’t win any marginal votes, IMHO, because most people don’t think that marriage is a human right, they think of it either as a privilege, or as an administrative thing.

Dave.

and yeah, Phillip Spooner is one to respect.

marriage is a great blessing, a wonderful sticky glue that binds, a place of richness and contentment: the idea of withholding that stability from others is anathema to me.

i am not sure i am as clear on nature vs. nurture as you are, but i believe the point stands either way.