Most importantly here he includes transgendered people in his definition of legal rights as men and women--this is particularly odious, because it shows he wants to ban something which is currently legal in every single state except for Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Idaho, and Ohio; 45 against 5, and in a lot of the rest of the world too, which is heterosexual marriage between a postoperative transwoman and a man. He clearly thinks this is unacceptable even though it falls within his own definition of "marriage is between a man and a woman" -- since of course he doesn't propose banning marriages between, say, castrated men and women, or men and women with high testosterone levels or ovarian cysts who are sterile, etc, etc, all these other combinations of reproductive defects which prevent a couple from having children. So there's a clear bigotry involved in the statement which, ironically, destroys his own consistency in addition to the "consistency" being an irrational demand.
I have no problems with same-sex or transgendered couples having the same legal rights as married men and women; I see no reason why Joe and Jim or Gen and Jane should not be able to share leases, mortgages, bank accounts, inheritances, or health benefits in the exact same way that married couples do. However, I believe that those rights should be civil rights. The notion and reality of marriage through history has been a contract between man and woman (supported by religion, make of that what you will), usually though not always with the object of promoting offspring. Marriage has historically been a religious and civil ceremony designed to acknowledge and promote families. And I feel the word "marriage" should be reserved for the union between man and woman.
But of course he continues;
In particular, I want everyone to look at this post.
Upon further contemplation of the word "marriage," in my mind it really boils down to one basic premise: if you're going to have children, the best environment to raise children is in a family, with a mother and father, stability and structure. The legal rights and prerogatives that accompany marriage are designed to encourage the traditional Mom-Dad-kids family structure. The dominant cultural associations with marriage include a man, woman and usually children. Frankly, I don't see the harm in this association if heterosexuals and homosexuals have the same legal rights as couples but use different terms to distinguish their relations. The difference in relations is already implicit in the different choice of partners; vive la difference! Use a different phrase to define your relationship.
In this post, we can see that he slyly tries to justify his position of marginalizing homosexual couples as second-class citizens, because though he says he has no problem with the legal rights, he also says: "the dominant cultural associations with marriage include a man, woman, and usually children." I.E., he wants to preserve the usage of the word marriage for heterosexuals to preserve the dominant cultural associations--in otherwords, to preserve oppression and separation against homosexual couples. This is a classic segregationist argument.
It's also a personally deeply offensive one, as he implies that in two arbitrary categories (I'm bisexual so I easily could end up marrying a girl someday) I, for example, am an inferior citizen, and less suited to be a parent (and I certainly will be, given the chance; there are many children in the world to be rescued through adoption) than, say, a smoker (of course, he is one--he doesn't mind giving his kids cancer, but we can't let them catch the gay!), a drug user, a convicted paedophile, a murderer, an obese fathead, a retard, the impoverished who don't have enough money to keep their kids from being horribly malnourished, etc, etc. All of these people who are objectively far, far worse than a pair of gay/lesbian parents who are more likely than average to be successful and prosperous, are somehow better for their kids, in some magic way, than having two mommies or daddies. And indeed, the male/female structure may be ideal, but by denying the male/male or female/female structure any legitimacy at all he is declaring that the male/female structure is inherently better, even if when it involves deadbeats, drug users, cigarette addicts, abusive parents, felons, and countless other examples of abhorrent and deviant behaviour which can enormously harm the lives of children, or even kill them or give them health problems for life.
That, is unquestionably bigotry, and bigotry defended by a wall of ignorance, no less. And that is something worth discussing here.
