There's a flaw in your "men with guns" formulation. Without "men with guns" it's kind of difficult to set and enforce laws. I realize you're an anarchist and wouldn't mind that so much, but for the rest of us there's nothing inherently wrong about men with guns enforcing the law if the governing body making the laws is legitimate and if the people vested with enforcement authority are well regulated, diverse, and constrained by law, morality, and consequences.

Trace, my argument isn't about comparative outcomes for specific children. My argument is primarily a moral one:  it is the responsibility of biological parents to raise the children they create. It's secondarily a practical one: it's better for the rest of us when we don't have to bear the burden of the choices of others. It's tertiarily an intuitive one: despite your willingness to sever the link between biology and parenthood based on how very, very often biological parents end up being inferior, I'll continue to trust that blood is indeed thicker than water in most cases. Finally, it's a conservative one: some crackpot will eventually decide that children should be raised by the state based on the empirical evidence that children are better off away from their inferior biological parents and raised by experts to become excellent citizens; best to keep safe one of the institutions that keeps this particular bond secure rather than let it get anywhere near that point.

continued

2.     Government has no business getting involved in personal relationships with a few exceptions: when there is coercion or abuse, when public health is impacted, and when the relationship is procreative. Procreation is included on that list because the effects on the public are fundamental and far-reaching. What is the justification for government involvement and third-party loss of freedom when a relationship isn’t coercive, abusive, a health risk, or procreative?

3.     Removing the gender aspect of the formal institution of marriage (here I agree with katievs that no one can change the natural institution, regardless of the law) will make it essentially meaningless and without a limiting principal. Either it becomes a vehicle for distributing benefits and imposing social values on the rest of us (the likely scenario), or it withers entirely and the natural institution is all that remains (the Libertarian dream scenario).

continued

Here's my argument(s):

1. Gender has been the essential and defining characteristic of marriage in all of its forms in all times and places. Marriage is where people make a baby and then take responsibility for its care and raising within the new family unit that’s created. Formal government marriage institutions are a recognition of this basic reality and are meant to encourage, support, and enforce it in socially acceptable terms. The discussions about the effects on children of _____-parented households are truly interesting, but ultimately not quite applicable to the current discussion (maybe a separate discussion on adoption practices is needed); as I argued on a different thread, the ideal scenario for raising a child is secondary to actually producing one. On the whole, anything other than biological parents bearing and raising their offspring is a second best reaction, at best, for both children and the rest of us.

Trace, for the most part the term "cowardly" doesn't seem to apply, certainly not to katievs.  Have you read through all of the threads on this topic here at Ricochet? In them you'll find forthright arguments that make no moral judgements on homosexuality.  However, there are many of us traditionalists who don't make quite the same arguments as katievs does.

Thanks for taking the time to comment on my contract questions, MFR. You bring up many good points. Thinking it over this morning, I'm still unsettled on the topic. It seems to me that there's still only one reason we'd want to (or have sufficient cause to) enforce the permanence of an agreement about sexual activity or presence in the home: the effects it would have on children within the family (the emotional effects on a spouse are alone not sufficient, IMO, to get involved). There's only one reason we'd want to impose opportunity cost penalties on the withdrawing spouse: the effects it would have on the children directly and the effects it would have on the spouse who gave up financial interests in order to tend the family (spouses without children have ample time to develop themselves, plan for their future, make provision for their eventual old age support, have no obligations preventing them from supporting themselves should the union break up) - without children it's just like quitting a job.

Are these really examples of actions , though?  Are they "something of value" (as I've seen consideration described) that can appropriately be judged by a court? Refraining from sex with other parties would count, I suppose, but what remedies could a court impose for breach of such agreement? Surely no property or money would be involved as such a breach doesn't cause financial loss, right? 

My point isn't that contracts don't have a formal legal component. My two points, poorly articulated, are that

1. I'm not sure that marriage is a contract - it's different. I'm no lawyer, but I did once learn about the elements of a valid contract. What is the consideration given in a marriage?
2. I don't think the marriage agreement is simply and only between the spouses. In marriage, the public makes promises to enforce the agreement according to its own standards whereas in regular contracts the public promises to enforce whatever standards are specified in the contract. Also, marriage obligates third parties in ways that other contracts do not.

Fine, but that still doesn't address the antecedent disagreement: what is marriage and does gender have anything whatsoever to do with it? Even still, there must be identifiable property in order to obtain/record a deed and one must be able to prove rightful ownership of such; there is still some minimum standard which must be met before the deed will be accepted and recorded. Similarly, with marriage there must be an underlying relationship that is appropriately handled by the institution.

I'm asking seriously. Is this your serious response?

Any old "people" - without qualification? Are you saying that a same sex couple could have presented themselves to the public as married and their claim would have been respected? After all, I could claim to be the president of the United States and I wouldn't need any evidence of legality either - until I started making claims on others based upon my claimed status.

So do you also maintain that at the point of breach courts are able to declare that the relationship doesn't qualify as a marriage because of the genders of the people involved? If so, then welcome to the basic so-con position (people are free to do what they want and no one else is obligated to recognize or accept their arrangement). If not, then why even pause to make this irrelevant distinction between formation and breach; why not stay on target by saying that gender is never a legitimate basis for third parties (including government) to reject a claim of marriage on the part of a same sex couple?

Why do you think that marriage is, or ever was, simply a contract amongst individuals without a formal public component?

I agree. I like him even more now that I know he understands conversational French (unless there was an interpreter I missed somewhere).

1. Of course I distrust individuals to some extent. We're all flawed and selfish in some ways.
2. I didn't say that "individuals" can't get along without government lending a hand. Of course individuals can do that. Why does that preclude the public from also acting on its own behalf to help make the foundation even stronger?
3. Part of my point is that marriage isn't just about the individuals; the public has an interest in procreation. Even still, this helping hand isn't forced on anyone. If you don't want it or need it, then don't seek it. The helping hand of formal public marriage is completely voluntary.
4. Marriage is different from welfare in that the depencies are completely reversed. In marriage, it's the public that depends on the underlying arrangements and realities of formal marriage, while in welfare it's the recipient that becomes dependent on the public.

I think it did throw you off. That the nation will not exist without the foundation of the preexisting social substructure of family life is not the same as saying that the social substructure of family life can't exist without nation.