Personally, I have no argument against traditional marriage. Do YOU have an argument that gay marriage HARMS (as opposed to differs from) traditional marriage? Please share it. What is it about gay marriage that would cause any traditional marriage to fail? How does it affect traditional marriage at all?

Name calling and intimidation is all the left has ever had. Logic is too befuddling to emotional hatemongers.

One argument on how gay marriage IS damaging: Marriage between a man and a woman, and the nuclear family that generally results from it (but not always) is the basis of human civilization. I agree with Aristotle on this one. This is not the only model, but it is clearly the best and therefore the only one that society should embrace.

Any other is a deviation that is not only less valuable, but inherently destructive to moral order. If any other relationship is equal to normal marriage, than any other relationships that you can think of are, including polygamy. If you really think about it logically, even polygamy can be thought of as superior to homosexual marriage.

Children need fathers AND mothers, not two of one or the other, to properly develop. Every single shrink will tell you that the Mother-Father-Child relationship is the best for children.

Children are the basis of society's continuity. One need only look at the liberal bastions in Western Europe that are quickly moving towards collapse and the eventual take over of western culture by our Islamic brothers due to their lack of progeny.

Marriage between Man and Woman must be protected, not diluted or bastardized by equating other relationships as equal just because a fraction of society wants it.

Bernie, you didn't respond to the question. To remind you, the questions were:
Do YOU have an argument that gay marriage HARMS (as opposed to differs from) traditional marriage?...What is it about gay marriage that would cause any traditional marriage to fail? How does it affect traditional marriage at all?

Jay C.:

You miss the point, as so many proponents of Homosexual marriage (which is an oxymoron) do. By bastardizing marriage, you devalue it more than it already has been, further damaging the INSTITUTION of marriage and inextricably, every marriage itself. As I stated, it is emotion, not logic, that drives the left on this issue.

I responded directly to your question, you just don't like the obvious answer.

I don’t think I’m the one missing the point, Bernie. (And I am not a proponent of homosexual marriage, by the way. I AM a proponent of not discriminating against people.) Are you able to state a logical reason for the assertion that if California allows gay marriage that will “bastardize” or “devalue” or “damag[e]” marriage or are you just making an emotional appeal?
You say you already answered my question. I did miss that. The questions were: Do YOU have an argument that gay marriage HARMS (as opposed to differs from) traditional marriage? What is it about gay marriage that would cause any traditional marriage to fail? How does it affect traditional marriage at all?
If you have already answered those questions, please cut and past the answers into a response so I can’t miss them. An argument that traditional marriage is the best way to raise children is not relevant to Prop 8 unless you have some reason to argue that traditional marriage will be harmed, in some way, by gay marriage. How would it be harmed? Is there some good candidate for a traditional marriage who will instead choose a gay marriage? I think a person who desires a gay marriage is unlikely to be a person who would be a good member of a traditional marriage, and vice versa. Do you disagree?

But Jay:

You have not given a single reason why marriage should be expanded to include homosexuals. Actually, nothing prevents a homosexual from getting married...to a person of the opposite sex. It is not I that is attempting to throw a millenia of history out the window, but you.

If you can read farther than your nose, you will see my arguments. Places such as Western Europe have already evidenced what happens when you liberalize marriage rules. Their social structures are enroute for self-immolation.

You wish to falsely make an argument on individual circumstances, or in the micro, when the whole debate is one of the macro. You cannot limit the argument to Adam and Steve, that is a strawman argument. You are proposing that society alter its well established traditions and mores. I have given you numerous arguments, both philosophical and factual, on the macro impacts of your position. You have yet to present one of your own.

That is not debate, that is a dodge, and all the left is usually left with.

Bernie, you seem to be trying to change the subject. Have you forgotten what this discussion is about? I’m not proposing that gay marriage is a good idea. It is the current status quo, something your side wants to change. I said:
Personally, I have no argument against traditional marriage. Do YOU have an argument that gay marriage HARMS (as opposed to differs from) traditional marriage? Please share it. What is it about gay marriage that would cause any traditional marriage to fail? How does it affect traditional marriage at all?

You responded with assertions about how trad marriage is the best way to raise children and that allowing gay marriage would bastardize, debase, and dilute traditional marriage. Now, if gay marriage harms traditional marriage in some way (the way easy divorce and adultery do, for example) then restricting gay marriage might be protecting traditional marriage, BUT if you can’t give any explanation at all of what this harm is, I have to doubt the utility of Prop 8 to protect marriage. I am not refusing to accept your arguments about why gay marriage is a threat to marriage; you just haven’t made any. You've talked about the importance of children and the optimum setting to raise them. Unless gay marriage interferes with that it is beside the point, isn't it? If you don’t like the micro level please tell me what harm gay marriage does to marriage on the macro level or whatever level you can come up with. But don’t whine, please. I can read further than my nose, and you have not yet explained, let alone argued, how gay marriage harms traditional marriage. Anyone who can read can see that.

Jay:

If the destruction of Western Culture by liberalized marriage laws in areas like the Netherlands isn't obvious enough, nothing will be to you.

Marriage is on the decline. Exclusivity is a precursor to something maintaining value. If every rock were a diamond, diamonds would have no value. Same with marriage. When you make any relationship equal to it, you devalue it as a societal norm and a basis for said society. The normalization of any deviancy by default lowers standards.

Homosexual marriage has no purpose other than to define deviancy up to equal with normal human behavior. Period. This damages marriage as an institution and society as a whole.

Anyone who can read understands these arguments, as does the voting public, even in California. I will remind everyone that polls on Prop 22 and other propositions related to the homosexual agenda all showed the conservative side losing going into election day. This is an issue on which voters do not give pollsters honest answers. The left has intimidated people with their venom on this issue.

Voters will make their will known again, in the solitude and privacy of the voting booth.

Bernie says:
“If the destruction of Western Culture by liberalized marriage laws in areas like the Netherlands isn't obvious enough, nothing will be to you.”
Gosh, Bernie, I seem to have driven you over the edge. “destruction of Western Culture…in the Netherlands”???!!!??? Bernie, I’m an old guy. I’ve been hearing about destruction of Western culture in the Netherlands for fifty years now. Socialized medicine, socialism, acceptance of hippies, rejection of Christianity. Now it’s acceptance of gay marriage that’s causing all the “problems”? Western culture is always going down the tubes in the Netherlands or Scandinavia, but year after year it’s a nice place to live. I have a high school friend in Oslo, Norway. It's ok there. Acceptance of gay marriage is a symptom of their general live and let live culture. Its not cause of anything. Get real.
Bernie says:
“Marriage is on the decline.”
Well, that’s sort of true, if you go on divorce statistics, but it’s been on the decline for 210 years, Bernie. The industrial revolution, increasing wealth and 25 other things have been contributing to the decline of marriage. If people have more options they don’t have to put up with as much crap, and you get more divorces.
Bernie says:
“Exclusivity is a precursor to something maintaining value. If every rock were a diamond, diamonds would have no value. Same with marriage. When you make any relationship equal to it, you devalue it as a societal norm and a basis for said society.”
Bernie, sorry to break this to you, but marriage is NOT a thing like a rock or a diamond. When I fell in love with my wife, the other millions getting married that year had no effect on my valuation of the relationship. None. Heck, when I got married it cost me taxes. The so-called “marriage tax’ was high in those days. I paid more in federal taxes as a result of my marriage. Did not care.
Bernie says:
“The normalization of any deviancy by default lowers standards. Homosexual marriage has no purpose other than to define deviancy up to equal with normal human behavior. Period. This damages marriage as an institution and society as a whole.”
OK, now we get to the truth. You don’t oppose gay marriage because it has any affect on traditional marriage; you oppose it because it causes “deviants” to be treated like human beings. News flash, Bernie: gay people ARE human beings. Nurses, doctors, conservative republicans, PEOPLE. Accepting them isn’t “normalizing deviancy;” it is recognizing human beings. Look in the mirror, Bernie; we all have our flaws.

ABC's of Protecting Marriage

ACTIVIST JUDGES We already voted once.
BENEFITS Domestic partners already have every benifit the State of California can provide. Gays should not be allowed to redefine marriage for all society.
CHILDREN Kids grow best with a mom and a dad in the bond of marriage.

Jay:

You couldn't be more wrong. Marriage is an institution, something you obviously fail to understand. It has intrinsic value that has nothing to do with you and your wife. It is obvious you have never studied philosophy, or your Bible for that matter.

Institutions are far more valuable than gold and diamonds. You must think society sprang from a rock in the desert to have such low ideas of societal institutions. You attempt to place every discussion on the personal level, which is great for socialists and anarchists, but unsuitable for discussions regarding the greater good. Like the peace nut who argues against the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima, you base justice on the micro level, incapable of seeing the overall good, or evil, of the entire action's effect on the whole.

FYI Jay, just because we all have flaws doesn't require society to make them equal to normal behavior. Anyone, darwinian or not, can see the fatal flaw of your argument. It is you who is equating the unnatural with the natural, the deviant with the normal, not I. There remains no functional, logical way to equate homosexuality with normal relationships. By nature, it produces nothing. Therefore it's value, to nature and society, is nil and undeserving of marriage.

Period

Bernie says:
”You couldn't be more wrong. Marriage is an institution, something you obviously fail to understand. It has intrinsic value that has nothing to do with you and your wife. It is obvious you have never studied philosophy, or your Bible for that matter… You attempt to place every discussion on the personal level, which is great for socialists and anarchists, but unsuitable for discussions regarding the greater good.
Actually Bernie, I could easily be more wrong. Ask anyone who knows me. No offense, but I know that marriage is an institution. (It was you who compared it to diamonds and rocks, not me.) I also know that its value has nothing to do with my own marriage. But when I am discussing things with folks who tend to overblown generalization, I find that it is useful to get back to reality. If the large-scale assertion is shown to be unreliable at the specific level it is a good indication it doesn’t hold up at the macro level either. You are correct that I have not studied philosophy. No class in it, and I can’t remember any book I read on the subject. But I have read a few things and listened to a few arguments, and I recognize the weakness of your attempt to argue by analogy that the value of marriage depends on rarity, just like diamonds. And again, Bernie, marriage is not like a diamond. Its value doesn’t depend on rarity. Millions get married. I don’t know how many gay people will want to marry. What are they, 1 or 2 % of the population? How diluted will traditional marriage be by adding 2% more marriages? Your argument by analogy makes no sense when examined. You have yet to suggest any way in which traditional marriage will be harmed by calling gay relationships marriage as well. Apples aren’t affected in their nature or value because there are things called crab apples.
On the other hand, your argument that gay marriage should not be allowed because gay people are deviants and therefore undeserving of marriage is clear and direct. It is, candidly, the only argument against gay marriage that makes sense to me. I guess my question now is why the people who support Proposition 8 don’t just say that. Why this silly “protecting marriage” line when you can’t tell me what banning gay marriage protects traditional marriage from? It protects marriage’s good name from gays, who are bad. That’s it, isn’t it?