From Glenn:

Nonetheless, there is no meaningful standard under which things like no-fault divorces and children from multiple marriages are considered "traditional." All of that re-defined what "marriage" is.

If he IS just referring to what is recognized as a "traditional" marriage by the courts, no-fault divorces and children from multiple marriages are certainly not illegal.

From Boy Howdy:

I know that if asked he would say he means "in the eyes of the Lord,"...

Anybody who raises this argument should immediately be countered with: "Then why aren't you out there actively protesting marriages between Atheists?" Nobody advocating gay marriage is demanding that their marriage be sanctified by any church, only that they be recognized by the courts.

Let's get rid of the system where you have to buy your way into power, and then have to answer to your benefactors. Let's eliminate the money to buy votes things. Give everyone, from A to Z the same amount of time on the TV. Nothing else allowed. George Carlin has it right. These folks are all paid for. Lock, stock and barrel. Trillions spent on a military that is little more than a protection / projection of rich folks. The entire country is collapsing while the rich move the money south. Let's eat the rich, put all the gun-nuts into a free range with all the firepower they need and let them have a free-for-all-no-holds-barred (General Nugie on one side, Charles Heston on the other), and send all the religious folk back to their holy-lands, or their respective heavens -- kind of like pre-rapturing them. Dang, and let's televisized the whole thing . . .

Just to jump in, the Republican stance on "traditional marriage" also contains other elements that weren't relevant to Glenn's discussion here. For instance, that the purpose of the marriage between "one man and one woman" is to produce children. During the attempts to pass a traditional marriage bill here, I heard a lot about how my marriage was not a real marriage and was not "traditional" because we do not have children.

That is also not marriage as sanctioned by the state. It has its base in the right wing religious teaching about marriage, which includes that gay marriage is wrong because it is harmful to children, and includes the idea that because the purpose of a marriage is to produce children and gays cannot impregnate each other (or in the male case become pregnant) that they therefore can't get married because it would move marriage away from its "traditional" purpose.

Having been through that, I can say pretty unequivocally that at least here in California, Glenn's assessment of what is meant by "traditional" in "traditional marriage" is on target.

The point is that the word "traditional " has been co-opted for its "feel-good" connotations to refer to something which has no business being associated with the positive vibe that the word elicits.

Adultery and serial marraiges are indeed social ills and to provide them with respectable cover while vilifying gay people who want to partake of the good that marriage provides, (stability, security and love) is hypocrisy at its highest level.

The very concept of "no fault divorce" is an extremely modern innovation. The idea that you could just dissolve your marriage just because you want to was absolutely NOT part of our marriage laws for a very long time. It is really only since the 1960s that "no fault divorce" even existed in this country.

That fundamentally re-defined the institution of marriage, dispesning one of its most traditional features. Yet you virtually never hear proponents of "Traditional Marriage" argue that the law ought to eliminate it, becuase many such proponents -- such as John McCain -- took advantage of that law and, more importantly, know that too many Values Voters want the ability to do the same.

Newt should tell us about serving his cancer striken first wife with divorce papers while she was lying in hospital hooked into a morphine drip. Or maybe he can tell us about having sex in his capitol office with a female aid, while married to his second wife. A Gay person who would rather die than abandon their lover can't marry, but Newt, who treats spouses like a disposable diapers, can marry right after dumping a disposable wife.

Don't some commentaters ravish your heart with one glance look into their heart?

They type like honey is under the tongue. The lips are almost so sweet if the window was a pair of human lips ya'd lean forward to softly and happily smack.

Then there are those who rose like filthy starved ghost with shriveled tiny openings at the mouth-hole--saying more and more far-fetched argument, debate--- And so forth who are those embodied ghost from hell's well.

In the best writings tested, proved, and tried over time as reliable advice, guidance, and reliable counsels-- Saith the legends literatures, according to real students of Life. Fools In Town! Fools Gather at The Fool's Convention over and over to act snide...

Fools sow such discord and dare even mock writ considered classic, timeless, and revered as reverential in tone and spirit (inner) with wisdoms to counsel and guide humankind.

It is a dumb wager to mock some things.

Biblical literature has other instrumental accompaniment prose that appeals to healthy mentalities, yet, (music of sorts) O-- some are so full of smug-nose lowly arrogance that they will miss what a child knows. A child folktale will bring anguish to a mocker of truth who is so self-assured and cocksure, renoun as a diabolical one, and not a cute little spotted and speckled frog sitting on a water log watching a mosquito fly bye-- yum-yum!

O, a foul human will become a black "crap" filth consumer. O, go into business with a pincher flea bite sucker. O, a ill bingo player paid troll will shout 'Bingo!" Sad. Some people lost human attributes and are a pokey little slow to learn.

A snail will need excessive attention too, and, many lowly lust-full-empty corpses go to shoot-a-wod with fellow slimes.

A slime ball pig can spurt a load of vile and miss Everything good, noble, sententious or...Just...or of beauty and to craving to be focused upon. The crooked will remain crooked till DEATH and need to be observed at death day burried upright with a hole dug by a fence augur? Yes. But buried head first upside down, unfortunately.

McCain's kind of vile species are marked. They can lay and 'ball' a million trollops but never know Loves joy of a real divine mistress sent to give guidad and secret knowledge.

O, for simple instruction...(Athena's) Put a word into my ear and I'll pass it outward from my lips.

O, for some reason, during an entire Life, the grandeur of the whole is never viewed and a unhappy "fighter" in the wrong tyrst gets more and more lost to his or her's own Self-Delusions.

What is invissible is revealed and concealed so that a babe can know more than a "scholar" adult.

A 'scum' will quote one biblical book's or the NYT's and mis-appropriate a text to build a institution, kill, and remain culture-ignorant. "Fit To Print?" Somethings have no appropriate words. A depraved beast who renounces their fellow humanity and will always downgrade their own soul's innate capacity for divine/human participation, in that 'stupid' process downward....

A pride will aim to depreciate others-- yet, I believe Glenn's ardent zeal is a secular/spirtual, same-same, no dualism...and a very essential message for our ill culture, flondering near self-ruin..., And would a blog you APPRECIATE have a lawyer debate a case best using an Innana's vulva, a pagan Baal, a Gilgamesh or a Ganesh Elephant head symbol?

O, good point, brownie shooter 242=0.

O, Ho-No keep score. No one deserves a brownie pointed hat?

O, go to war-hell-gates and see spitting fire, terror, and mop brain-slop-guts when a gun-shot's lead blows the entire cranium away to soak into a jungle or dessert floor-- Come back shooter242 and show us the best way to listen to the cicadas sing. We need a boon. We get dizzy and dreary with repitition. Are you a disguised one who cares? You make some of us feel gloom.

You are like lover-bomb-man pro-kill some more, Senator McCain who killed boo-coo innocent urban and rural farm workers, in my opinion, yet, there are degrees of depredation and deplorable levels one will go into the underworld of fellow lowly...--- And so on and on. I'd rather not mention folk by name. I do read the first post commenter and could not resist today.

How many human brothers/sisters will a person slay and falsely pronounce they are sane? Mourn. Keep up this valuable service. I was going to avoid the 20 mile journey to town at $1.11 cents petro-per-liter. I was hoping to declare today that I ain't gonna' Read The Salon @ the Library to save money. I will watch the changing color birch tree leaf flop in the wind outside my bedroom window. I vow and then re-vow to break what I vow. I get personal and was gonna try to be less attatched to the blog-world.

The folk here are the kind who would probably put ya' up like a gloomy pup, shooter, for the entire winter if ya' came to town and just yell, "I popped in for a free winter bed!" Just don't tell anyone bebop-o sent you.

I tell NS complainers who get irate at me about gas prices to "No blame me. Write Hairy and Nancy."