woodencross, can I ask you a personal question? Could you tell me the story about how you chose to be straight?
The public purpose of marriage is to provide social and economic stability in the form of family units. That stability also assists in the rearing of children, but that is an added benefit rather than the core one. Removing the artificial gender restriction from marriage would enable that stability to reach more sectors of society.
Marriage is not a human equivalent of a breeding mill. It is an institution of love and commitment that two people have for each other. How many people proposed by saying "I want to raise children with you?"
Marriage is a social institution, not a private club for heterosexuals. Two people are making the same commitment to each other and professing the same love for each other, no matter the gender of the participants. It is an insult to demean some of those commitments with a different name because of artificial gender restrictions.
The civil rights movement of the sixties was that blacks wanted to be considered people. Why didn't they just settle for another term which was legislated to have the same rights? Because a separate name is never equal. That is why I won't settle for a term other than Marriage.
