It is a red herring because it pretends that male-female families constitute the ideal parental unit. There's no reason to believe this.

Only a male and a female can produce a child. This is the parental unit. All other parental units exist because the ideal has failed. This is the reason to believe it ideal.

Conception and good parenting are two very different animals.

Sara-

Do you have your facts straight? I think the law in New York is that unmarried couples of the same sex have the same rights of adoption as straight married couples. So why is your daughter at a disadvantage? Can't your partner adopt her? Is the problem that the father of your daugher retains parental rights? If so, I'm not sure being able to marry your partner would change your daugher's legal status meaningfully. She would be only be a step-daughter to your partner, which in my experience doesn't give her the ability to be covered under your partner's insurance. Sounds to me like your daugher isn't really being disadvantaged by this ruling.

In any event I agree with the posters who have noted that the children issue is a red herring. Marriage is a right granted by the state to individuals (not to families). The right is in no way affected by the intention or ability of the individual to procreate. I am virtually certain that no state legialture has ever made a finding that straight couples need the protections of marriage more than gay couples for the benefit of children. Of course, the judge only said that the legislature could rationally make such a decision, which I think is just plain wrong given what state law already says about gays having the right to adopt.

It bears mentioning that the judge who wrote this decision was appointed by Governor Pataki in 2003, after Pataki won a third term in office in a November 2002 election in which he defeated his Democratic opponent by 750,000 votes. Shortly before the election, practically giddy with glee over the enactment of state-wide non-discrimination against gays and lesbians in a deal it brokered between the legislature and the governor's office, the Empire State Pride Agenda ENDORSED Pataki. Talk about making a deal with the devil! As ye sow, so shall ye reap.

Several months ago, when this issue was on the front pages in Seattle, I took the time to actually read most of the King County judge's decision on the comparable law in Washington state.

I'm paraphrasing from memory, but the judge ruled that the ban on gay marriage creates two classes of children: "legitimate children" who have hetrosexual parents and "illegitimate children" who have gay parents. This situation will continue unless the Legislature was prepared to 1) outlaw gay men from adopting children and 2) somehow force lesbian mothers to give up their children. Without that, the judge did not see any compelling benefits to society to deny all children equal protection under the law regardless of their parent's gender orientation.

I thought his reasoning was both humane and logical. We'll soon find out if our state Supreme Court agrees with this, but I was proud that the debate here started by asking what effect these laws had on children.

Some posters have argued that civil unions are what gays should really be working towards. But marriage is about much more than legal rights; it is about how the community views you. Rightly or wrongly, married people are viewed as "normal," stable, etc. For example, once a straight person reaches a certain age and hasn't married or isn't in a very serious/live-in relationship, people start to view him or her as somehow outside the norm. It isn't fair, but it's real.

In order for any minority to be accepted in society, the majority has to see them as more or less like them. As weird as it sounds, the Cosby Show probably did more for black integration into society than a lot of other things.

It's true that married couples are no longer in the majority in this country, but most heterosexuals marry at some point in their lives, and it is still seen as the normal, desirable thing to do. By denying gays the right to marry, the majority is depriving them of a significant means by which they can be viewed as "just like them." I recently attended a wedding party for two women who got married in Canada, and it was, in most ways, just like every other wedding I've attended. As someone attending the party, to me these women are now in the category of all of these other people whose weddings I've attended, and that, I know, will subtly impact on how I feel about them, will make them, in some way, feel more like me.

In addition, I think that when you're married, the surrounding community takes your relationship more seriously. When two unmarried people break up, people shrug and say, "oh well, they'll find someone else." When two married people break up, the community (usually) sees it as a tragedy, and friends and family will go to bat to try to help the couple through their problems. This is another important aspect of marriage that won't be solved through civil unions.

The reality is, the right to marry is much more than the right to inherit and all of the legal protections. It's a means of being an accepted part of the community. I don't say any of this to disparage singles -- I didn't marry till I was 35, and went through my share of not feeling accepted, or having people ask why I hadn't gotten married yet (in other words, what was wrong with me). I don't agree with this attitude, but I also don't deny that it's real, and if two gay people love each other and want to make that commitment, it isn't fair to deny them that.

"First of all, me thinks "non-ideological" doesn't understand the meaning of the words in that handle. If you're expressing an opinion, you're basing it on your personal ideology."

How sophistic. A semantic argument linked to an ad-hom. It's also illiterate.

When the neocons are referred to as ideologues it’s not simply stating they have opinions otherwise the word become universal losing any useful meaning. Duh.