And when Mr. Dante objected, I provided a list of several links showing pro-homosexual marriage authors publicly claiming that it would never lead to polygamy. Then Mr. Dante stopped responding.
I'm only relating it to our conversation. That said, I'd agree it won't lead to, though it can be indicative of a general attitude that emboldens people to challenge on a point. I mean that polygamy has to stand or fall on its own merits. I will concede this, that in arguing for it you could use a broadened understanding of marriage as evidenced by the overturning of social convention in relation to marital restriction by gender, but the problem with the reference is that it puts power in the wrong place. What I mean is that restriction by gender, under any form, is actually running into constitutional problems on its own want of merit, historically.
I thought the Constitution left marriage up to the states to regulate...
That's one argument. If you want to know why the Court became involved there are all sorts of rulings on the point and I'd be happy to link you to some.
Marriage was already defined as being between a man and a woman. State laws aren't a dictionaries. That's what marriage meant, prior to this same-sex nonsense.
See, what you're saying is that the law didn't define it, but that tradition and social expectation set the limits. I think that's perfectly true. That's what marriage meant to the people who entered into it, or how they saw the contract (for those with a purely secular eye on the institution).
Except that now groups of men can get married in Colombia. It's only a matter of time.
All sorts of places have all sorts of laws. But they aren't our laws, lack our foundations, and largely have divergent thresholds, etc. So there's the argument about where the law is going in X and there's one about here and in our system. I can't speak to X necessarily but I understand the here and ours.
You don't think laws about marriage shape the public's opinion of it?
I think they mostly reflect it, which is why for generations the issue didn't arise. That said, I believe that the law does tend to normalize one sort of perception. Those who look at the world through a lens divorced from particular moral precept will see the law as a sort of substitute. But that lens was already indifferent at worst.
And I've never understood why those advancing a religious objection were only worried about the outcome of
this unsanctified union. No one has ever given me an answer on the point. When atheists of any gender marry they do so outside of the blessing of God. That's what marriage must have for a Christian or what is it? It's as though we're reserving the right to mandate the acceptance of a purely religious standard for one group while leaving off on the other because they don't violate a gender bar.
I'd have to be convinced it's a worthwhile conversation of some bearing on a point that matters.
