Regarding Dave's notion of the purpose of marriage:
"Legal" or civil marriage has more to do with property rights than
anything else, and has been a tool of the ruling class in Western
society for centuries.
To assert that having children is the purpose of marriage is naive.
Yes, it makes things simpler administratively, in terms of children
vis a vis public records, schools, etc., but for at least twenty
years in the U.S. has not been a heavy issue with public
authorities.
To me, the common element in the Bush-fostered agenda on gay
marriage and other so-called moral issues is simply to demonize the
Democratic Party so that those voters who are confused or
confounded by the currents of social change, and particularly the
specter of a woman's right to choose whether to have a child or
not, will vote for what they perceive to be the safe, _traditional_
candidate. As Emma and others have said, what Bush and his ilk
advocate is not moral at all, and their attempt to co-opt that
lovely phrase, "moral values" echoes hollowly with the first
president in my lifetime to espouse the term or something like it:
Nixon--family values was his litany, and the "Moral Majority"
followed shortly thereafter. Like Bush, it's such a mockery coming
from the lips of such a deceiver.
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