User blog comment:1dra7/Republican or Democrat?/@comment-1441098-20121016220344/@comment-1874924-20121018224925

My main point is that the issue is not as black and white as you're trying to make it. So two people want to spend their lives together. That's all very well, but why should the state subsidize it? What's in it for the state? An advocate who tries to dismiss these questions will, in so doing, reveal that s/he belives that civil marriage is or should be nothing more than a platform for government handouts with no higher societal purpose. In other words, a greed motive.

The fact is, most of the arguments that the proponents of same-sex "marriage" make are actually stronger and more logical arguments for abolishing legal recognition of marriage altogether than they are for extending recognition to same-sex couples. You'll never hear the same-sex advocates acknowledge this because they're not working forward from logic and the available facts, they're working backward from the conclusion they desire. As a result, they typically end up seeing only what they want to see.

The reason our society recognizes heterosexual marriage is all about children. Our society believes that children are best served when they are raised by both biological parents (on the premise that they will have the greatest stake in the child's welfare) with a full-time caregiver. The legal benefits of marriage are designed to support this model. If you believe (as many reasonable people do) that this model is no longer relevant, that's a good and reasonable argument for abolishing legal recognition of marriage, but is a seriously flawed argument for extending recognition to same-sex couples.

You claim that heterosexual marriage and homosexual "marriage" are the same is not merely a matter of opinion--it is objectively false based on the currently available facts. Why? Because heterosexual couples can produce children together and homosexual couples cannot, and the legal benefits of marriage are all about getting children what they need. That's also why analogies between same-sex "marriage" and interracial marriage are absolutely false. Indeed, I can assure you with 90+ percent certainty that any given person who makes that analogy is not merely mistaken, but is an out-and-out liar.

At this point, reckless or dishonest advocates will try to dismiss the relevance of children by pointing to married couples who are childless, whether by choice or otherwise. The flaw in that argument is its assumption that the only way to encourage something is by mandating it. Granted, all too many liberals seem genuinely unable to grasp the difference between encouragement and mandate, but that's no excuse.