More on Gay Marriage

Joe Katzman continues with an attempt at reaching common ground between proponents and opponents of gay marriage. He covers this by listing things that most people will agree should be part of any marriage in our society. A marriage must be...
1. Exclusive
2. Interests of Children over adults
3. Loving/Kind
4. Stable
5. Responsible
6. Unselfish
Now, one could argue that many of these are covered under the "responsible" banner. One of his commenters makes that an issue.
Joe continues to add some other, more specific, items that he thinks apply, like real legal penalties for adultery at the time of divorce, changing legislation to erode the "no-fault" divorce, tougher on deadbeat dads and changes to the adoption laws.

However, as much as we taught the "exclusive" value, once you vary from the man-woman union as a definition for marriage, you open yourself up to the other possibilities. You can scream "exclusive" all you want.
Also, there is the issue of whether we should be letting gay unions raise children. I will quote from one commenter whom I mostly agree with.
It's at this point that I think that homosexuality begins breaking down. Up until this point, we

could argue that a lifelong monogamous relationship between two men (or women) is consensual, responsible, and exclusive - hence moral. But, here we first start getting shaky. If the relationship is monogamous and lifelong between two people of the same sex, clearly the adults have placed their own interests over that of any possible children - first for the simple fact that there are no possible children. That in itself is not enough to condemn, because we wouldn't want to condemn a sterile couple obviously, but it does indicate that the relationship is a wee bit out of the norms we are assuming. But going further, assuming that for some reason the couple adopts, the same sex couple has two problems. First, that the couple will contain no partner who could provide to a child of the opposite sex a direct role-model, nor could the couple provide to a child of the same sex a close relationship with someone of the opposite sex. Both cases seem to me to be unhealthy, and so unless the homosexual couple forswears the raising of a child I feel they are placing their own sexuality on a higher level than the needs of a child. But, presume for a second that they do forswear the raising of a child. Superficially, this may seem healthy, but the unhealthiness of it becomes clear when we realize that no society could approve of all of its members adopting such a lifestyle. It would be cultural and genetic suicide, and in places like France we are seeing the consequences of lifestyles that place ones own comfort and leisure ahead of the needs of children.

I suppose that it is still not enough to sway the most liberal masses.
I found the last couple of sentences interesting. If no society could approve of all of its members adopting such a lifestyle, then how can we let allow any to adopt that lifestyle. I think that the commenter is firmly in the 'homosexuality is a choice not a genetic orientation' camp, which I am also. One of the more snarky comments in the post yesterday told all of us that we'd be sorry when science proves us wrong, that it's biologically ingrained in certain people. Perhaps, but at this point it's not, and I'll wager that it won't be. At the very least, brain functionality does operate differently, but that's psychological, not genetic, and if it's a psychological or emotional condition of the individual, then the sentences above apply anyway.