After thirteen, almost fourteen years of marriage we're now expecting our first. A good friend of mine just adopted two boys from a troubled background. Any way you do it's a challenge. Good luck.

Well said.

What Murchison would seem to want is for every wedding to be a shotgun wedding, since that's one sure way to make sure only biologically compatible people get married.

Somehow, I don't think he'd go along with that...

I understand where Bill Murchison is coming from but I also understand why you might get steamed at the way he said things. I've done some commentary of my own on the subject and handled the case of infertile heterosexual couples somewhat differently.

But first a clarification. By God's law, I view your marriage to be equal in every way with a fertile couple's marriage. The fact that God hasn't blessed you so far with a child is something that does not lessen the sacrament, takes nothing away from the holiness of 'two become one flesh'.

The gay marriage debate, however, is about secular law. And secular law is somewhat different. When it's about tax benefits and all the rest of the accommodations that married people get in the legal code, there is precious little sentiment and a whole lot more calculation. But one thing that heterosexual couples procreative and non-procreative both can do that homosexuals cannot is that they can serve as models of fidelity and loving relationships between male and female.

Men understand men and women, women because it is as familiar as your own skin, it is the self you understand when you analyze your own gender. But the other sex is mystery and learning how to deal properly with our complementary halves is both necessary and useful for society, providing a great benefit.

Parents are best but the neighbor, the couple just being themselves at the mall, the entire atmosphere of heterosexual love and caring provide an opportunity for even the most emotionally abused child to see something better out there and reach for it.

In your own relationship, you may never have a biological child. God willing, you'll get a surprise tomorrow. But you can, and probably already have, served up lessons to the little tykes you encounter in normal life and nudged them in a direction that serves a valid, even essential secular purpose, the continuation of society into the next generation.

Beyond that, you've also probably provided a model for adults (perhaps you know it, more likely you don't) who are struggling with a problem in their own marriage. Given the high social cost of divorce, this too is highly valuable.

Homosexual couples, much as they are human, much as they love, by definition can't provide this model of male/female interaction. In the secular, utilitarian calculus of civil law, if you don't deliver the same public benefits, you don't have an equal protection case.

Homosexuals are attempting to pull a fast one, insisting that it is bigotry to assert that they don't provide the goods. They're poisoning the public policy discussion with accusations of homophobia. In reality, the burden of proof is on them to prove that they are substantially the same as the infertile couple. They are not.

Your marriage provides a living witness to a life affirming sustainable model whether or not you are personally successful at biological procreation. Their model is different and comes with an entirely different social matrix, one that somehow, in one way or another, takes years off their lives and leaves them with no future generations.

With the small percentage of homosexuals out there wishing to marry, I hardly believe that the human race as a whole is in danger of dying off. Where, exactly is the proof of your theory? Homosexuals already partner up and do not add to the population, yet there is still an accelerating increase in the population in both the world and in the United States.
How, exactly, is Homosexual marriage going to reverse this trend? Because that's the apparent argument you are presenting-that homosexual marriage will cause a decrease in human population and hence the eventual end of the human race.
I'm with Andrew on this one, you're hiding your ick factor behind a lot of intellectual puffery without really having any valid facts to back them up.

"After all, it's just a biological fluke that we can't have children, while it's natural that two gay people can't have children."

Just to point out that, knowing you are speaking of biological birth, of course, in a lesbian couple, either parent can give biological birth, though not yet to a biological offspring of her partner. That will, on the other hand, change in a given number of years. I suspect that won't make the slightest bit of difference to those making the biology-is-destiny argument. (By the same logic, it's God's will that we all die when disease strikes, unless we are cured naturally, and mustn't interfere with "un-natural" medicine or other science-based cures. Mustn't go against nature!)

Mr. Lutas says: "But one thing that heterosexual couples procreative and non-procreative both can do that homosexuals cannot is that they can serve as models of fidelity and loving relationships between male and female."

Sure. And homosexual couples, pro-creative and non-procreative can serve as models of fidelity and loving relationships between male and male, female and female, person and person. Kewl, but a bit tautological and obvious.

"Men understand men and women, women because it is as familiar as your own skin, it is the self you understand when you analyze your own gender. But the other sex is mystery and learning how to deal properly with our complementary halves is both necessary and useful for society, providing a great benefit."

What do you mean "we"? Sorry you find the "other" sex such a mystery, T.M. And, also, apparently you understand gay men because they are as familiar as your own skin. Again, kewl that you are are down with that. I find it odd, myself, because I find there to be tremendous variability between men, and I've known many women who weren't at all "mysterious," while many men were to me, but perhaps you're one of those different men.

"Parents are best but the neighbor, the couple just being themselves at the mall, the entire atmosphere of heterosexual love and caring provide an opportunity for even the most emotionally abused child to see something better out there and reach for it."

Yep, and so can the entire atmosphere of any sort of human love and caring. My source for this fact? I'm pulling it from my ass, just like you are. It's my observation, and that of millions of people, agree with them or not.

"Homosexuals are attempting to pull a fast one, insisting that it is bigotry to assert that they don't provide the goods. [...] In reality, the burden of proof is on them to prove that they are substantially the same as the infertile couple. They are not."

Argument by assertion is always so worthwhile. In reality, couples who can't share DNA are the same! And somewhere in the next couple of decades, everyone will be able to! Will Mr. Lutas then change their mind? Does he object at present to fertility treatments? Okay, we're both now on level ground, making completely unsubstantiated declarations. But, in our society, if you're going to deny equal protection of the law, the burden of proof says that "strict scrutiny" must be applied to proving there are legitimate public interest grounds for denying said protection. I realize you believe you have such a case, of course, Mr. Lutas, but do please realize that legally, at least, in fact, the law calls for the opposite of what you say about burden of proof.

This is, of course, an argument along the same lines as asserting that the Bible declares that there shall be no racial mixing, and that the burden of proof is on those who want to change "tradition" and law to allow "inter-racial marriage." I know Mr. Lutas will declare that these are entirely different things, but I'm not sure what meeting of the minds is possible on this. A start would be tossing bible-based arguments and appeals to God out the window, since they're not going to fly with a lot of people any more than an argument as to what Kali commands, or Aleister Crowley said, would fly with Mr. Lutas and his compatriots.

Naturally, if Mr. Lutas or anyone wants to restrict their churches or places of worship to only performing and blessing heterosexual marriage, I think that's just fine, and wouldn't dream of saying a word against it. It's the attempt to enforce a certain segment of societies religious beliefs upon civil marriage, and the law, that is objectionable and that will ultimately fail.

I read Murchison’s article yesterday, and it made me so mad for a lot of the same reasons. My great grandmother was widowed in her 50’s. She later married a wonderful man who made her very happy for 30 years until he died. She was biologically incapable of having children when she remarried – would Murchison have made their marriage illegal because of this? Should I have been denied a wonderful great-grandfather just because some stranger thinks the only reason to get married is to make babies?

Should all post-menopausal women who are single, widowed or divorced be denied the right to get married? I hope not (although I know there is a segment of society who view women as useful only as baby-making machines.)

In response to TM Lutas – gay couples have absolutely no obligation to “provide this model of male/female interaction” for you. Nor are they obligated to prove to you that “they are substantially the same as the infertile couple”. There was nothing in your post that justifies denying gay couples the right to get married.

Heather
(adopted - but not unnatural!)