If you do get to Abraham and Sarah, you may want to consider other biblical heroes.

I once looked into a few examples of what we can learn about marriage from the Bible

Since I wrote that, I’ve also considered that Daniel (and Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego) was a eunuch and that Joseph married the daughter of a pagan high priest. In fact, “traditional marriage” is nearly completely absent from the stories of Biblical Heroes.

You might remember the name Therese M Stewart, Chief deputy attorney for the City of San Francisco who testitfied before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals regarding Californi’s Prop 8. She legally destroyed this argument via California Law. And although this information is regarding California, at a high level, it is true in many states including my own.

Below is an Excerpt from the PLAINTIFF-INTERVENOR-APPELLEE
CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO’S
RESPONSE BRIEF

http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/general/2010/10/18/10-16696_answering_brief.pdf

California Treats Lesbian And Gay Parents Identically To
Heterosexual Parents.
Proponents contend that “only sexual relationships between men and women
can produce children” and thus that opposite-sex relationships implicate the
government ‘s interest in children “in a way, and to an extent, that other types of
relationships do not.” Brief at 77; see also id. at 82-83. If this were an accurate
account of California’s interests, one would expect that California laws governing
parentage and parent-child relationships would distinguish in at least some respects
between same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples. But they did not do so before
Proposition 8 was passed and they still do not.

As discussed supra in Section I, even after Proposition 8 the California
Constitution guarantees same-sex couples the right to form families and to have
and raise children within them on the same basis as opposite-sex couples.
California statutes further guarantee these rights. And when same-sex couples
have children, they have the same parental rights and obligations as any other
parent. Elisa B., 117 P.3d 660; K.M. v. E.G., 117 P.3d 673 (Cal. 2005); see also
Kristine H. v. Lisa R., 117 P.3d 690 (Cal. 2005).
Moreover, California’s parentage laws do not privilege heterosexual couples
or married couples in establishing parental rights and responsibilities. See Elisa B.,
117 P.3d at 664 (California adopted Uniform Parentage Act in part to eliminate
distinctions between children born to married and unmarried parents). Indeed, to
do so would be inconsistent with the California Constitution’s protection of the
autonomy of all persons in the realm of family matters, including decisions to have
and raise children. See Marriage Cases, 183 P.3d at 399, 418 n.27. And it would
be inconsistent with the overarching purpose of California’s parentage statutes: to
promote the welfare of all children whether they are born to a married couple or in
any other setting. Elisa B., 117 P.3d at 668-69. Toward that end, California law
does favor providing children with two legal parents and stable family
relationships. Id. at 669 (“[T]he Legislature implicitly recognized the value of
having two parents, rather than one, as a source of both emotional and financial
support.”); Kristine H., 117 P.3d at 696 . But to the extent the existence of a
marital relationship plays any role at all in matters relating to parenting, California
law treats the domestic partnerships of same-sex couples identically to marriage.
See supra Section I.A.

California law thus is flatly inconsistent with the idea that the State’s
interests in childbearing and childrearing are somehow different with respect to
opposite-sex and same-sex couples. It neither privileges nor burdens one type of
couple differently than the other when it comes to childbearing or parenting.

So anyway, some of what George is saying now in the SSM controversy is a rehash of arguments that were previously made back when the freedom of heterosexuals to obtain contraceptives was still a matter for public-policy debate.

This stuff is all recyclings.

I’m willing to bet that there’s an old interracial marriage case or book somewhere that makes assertions that something similar to George’s “OBS” happens between monoracial couples but not interracial ones. And somewhere nearby in the literature of the time there will be a clear refutation of it.

Historically, the view that marriage is defined by reproduction is actually a more recent revision than the view that it is a romantic union.

For reals? Tell that to Anne Boleyn.

Actually, current laws do not require that the male spouse has a penis, just that he is legally a male (ex. on the birth certificate). It may be uncommon, but there are valid (uncontested) marriages where the male spouse does not have a penis, due to injury, birth defect, or other cause. The same is true if a woman has had a hysterectomy, clitorodectomy, or other procedure or injury.

Also, current laws may not explicitly state that a male/female couple must be heterosexual to be married, but in practice it is often enforced as if that were an implicit requirement. Just look at immigration law to see this in action. A male/female couple who are married are not considered “legally” married for immigration purposes if they are not a heterosexual couple.

One other thing I would like to add. I think that George’s use of the term “revisionist view” is a deliberate attempt to poison the well. You should add this to his list of logical fallacies. Historically, the view that marriage is defined by reproduction is actually a more recent revision than the view that it is a romantic union.

So, once again, it seems as though the only time people do “deep thinking” about marriage is when they are trying to deny freedom to others.

Well… I’m not sure that the current SSM debate is as clearly about liberty or its denial as Griswold v. Connecticut was.

For that matter, Bowers v. Hardwick and Lawrence v. Texas were definitely about freedom, and so were Pace v. Alabama and McLaughlin v. Florida (both dealing with interracial sex) and Loving v. Virginia (which decriminalized interracial marriage).

In contrast, the SSM debate may be (depending on how you look at it) either about a right to equal treatment, or about whether same-sex couples have a right to any level of legal recognition at all. But our basic Freedom to live openly as couples without interference from the state, and without the taint of being nominal “criminals” has already been affirmed by Lawrence.

P.S. If you’re not familiar with the Pace and McLaughlin SCOTUS cases about miscegenation laws, here it is in a nutshell:

Pace : McLaughlin :: Bowers : Lawrence

(In each pair, the first case upheld the constitutionality of a certain “Victimless Sex Crime” law, and the second case later reversed that opinion. Mind you, it took 80 years for Pace to be reversed, but under 20 years for Bowers — so the US has definitely made cultural progress!)

So anyway, some of what George is saying now in the SSM controversy is a rehash of arguments that were previously made back when the freedom of heterosexuals to obtain contraceptives was still a matter for public-policy debate.

So, once again, it seems as though the only time people do “deep thinking” about marriage is when they are trying to deny freedom to others.