Gay Marriage.

    Even the words, alone, set many people teeth on edge and put them into fighting mode.  Like many of my personal, political views, my opinion on whether or not gay marriage should be legalized is based less on my support of same (My personal view can be summed up as "Eh... Why not?)  but based more on my disdain for the reasons nearly all gay marriage opponents give for opposing it. The most frequently used and "reasonable" of those arguments being...

1) Marriage is a sacred institution that must be protected.

    The underlying issue here being that marriage is supposed to be a holy, sacred thing and by letting the evil gays take part, it's ruined forever.

    First of all - how would two men who happen to love each other and want to make their relationship official and legal tarnish marriage as an institution more than "The Bachelor", "Who Wants To Marry A Millionaire", or any other of the growing number of like shows?  How would two women taking vows at a Justice Of The Peace sully marriage more than Michael Jackson/Lisa Marie Presley or any of Liz Taylor's last five marriages? Or any other person who's been married and divorced multiple times?

    Secondly - if marriage is so holy and sacred, why can judges and ship's captains perform legal marriages?  Why can I go online, spend fifty bucks, and be certified to perform marriages myself within a day?  Why do you need a government approved license to get married?  Why do you need to go to court to end a marriage?

    And thirdly - the "must be protected" thing invokes the idea that gays are evil degenerates (which also suggests that there's no such thing as hetero degenerates).  Say that's true...  A death row inmate - given permission and a willing partner - can get married.  A convicted child rapist can get married without question.  A working prostitute - in Nevada, obviously - can get married without a second thought. (And if recall correctly, The Bible had plenty to say about prostitutes.)  How are ANY of the former examples less evil or more deserving of marriage than two law-abiding, loving people who just happen to be gay?

    Anybody got an answer to that that isn't basically "Because they're gay?"

2) The Bible defines marriage as being between a man and a woman.

    Point of fact: It doesn't.

    It talks of men and women, husbands and wives, but doesn't say a thing about marriage itself.

    And even if it did, so what?  There's a little thing called "Separation of Church and State."  As long as non-religious individuals can perform marriages, the Bible shouldn't enter the equation.

3) Marriage is for procreation and child rearing only.

    This is actually my favorite reason - mostly because it's the easiest and most fun to blast.

    So if marriage is strictly for the purpose of generating children, why do we allow people who are sterile to marry?  Why are couples who decide not to have children allowed?  Or women past child bearing age?

    And another thing (which ties into point #2): Say I go through a full sex-change operation.  Legally, I'm a woman and free to marry any willing male.  There's going to be no children born of my marriage.  Genetically, I'm still a man.  So why can someone who's technically still a different sex allowed to marry?

    Anybody got an answer to that that isn't basically "Because they're not gay?"

4) Allowing Gay Marriage would allow bigamy, incestuous marriages, bestiality, and underage marriage.

Wrongheaded

Ridiculous.

Archaic.

Misinformed.

Silly.

Okay, now that I've gotten my initial reactions to that idea out of the way...

First of all, we'll ignore that old "gay = perversion" chestnut. (I don't agree with homosexuality as a lifestyle choice, personally.  But I feel the exact same way about multiple tattoos and body piercings.  Take that as you will...)

Secondly - all four of the above already have laws specifically banning them.  Gay marriage does not.  And anti-sodomy laws themselves are being struck down as fast as someone notices that their on the books.  And frankly incest and bigamy are the only ones that stand a snowballs chance in hell of  even being altered, let alone overturned.

In my personal opinion, I wouldn't be adverse to first cousins marrying (siblings or parent/child parings still have a high squick level for me, mostly because such pairings bear the stench of child abuse, regardless of the age and/or willing) and I'd allow bigamy as long as each spouse signs off on it (you want a third wife, each of your other two must official consent) and they made it a federal crime to take additional spouses without said permission or without declaring before hand how many spouses you have beforehand.

5) What's wrong with civil unions or just arranging Power of Attorney?

Nothing's wrong with civil unions, on the face of it.

If you ignore the stench of "Separate, But Equal" such laws give off.

And as for arranging power of attorney, why should gay couples have to jump through legal hoops to secure the same rights normal married couples receive as a matter of law?

And that's all I got to say about that.