CR said
Quote:Who is asking that the be treated unequally? They are asking that laws be changed to accomodate their belief that marriage is something different than the union of a man and a woman. Marriage laws currently treat myself and gays exactly the same.
You are, clearly so. You are asking/demanding that your value system be given priority over another value system. Your justification for requiring this priority status is tradition and/or majority preference. But neither of those justifications are sufficient.
The majority of certain states once held that lynching of slaves was not terribly problematic because, under the natural order of things, blacks were sub-human. Biblical passages allowing for the accumulation of slaves were advanced in support of this 'value system'.
In the late seventeen hundreds, women had no vote and no legal ability to hold government office. This was the tradition. It was the majority preference, at that time.
We understand now that both situations sat in deep and cruel conflict with the principles of the US constitution. Looking back, we can easily understand how folks at the time would simply imbibe these values from the community around them, believe them, and even fight to retain them. But that does not make them right, nor you in the present, either constitutionally nor morally.
Changing the definition of 'marriage' is not logically different from changing the definition of 'citizen'. Can you explain how it might be?
Once, not long ago at all, it was illegal in some juristictions for whites and blacks to marry. Blacks were free to marry blacks, and whites were free to marry whites, but they were not allowed to marry each other. Clearly, such laws were predicated on racist notions. Equally clearly, the rewriting or changing of such laws increased liberty and equality for citizens. Had a black person and a white person undergone the wedding ceremony back then, the existing definition of marriage would have been violated.
