re: #66 iossarian

At the most, I would say that the antis say that marriage is a right which gay people should not have, in the same way that criminals should not have the right to go free. In fact I would hazard a guess that for many antis, this would be a way of rationalizing their opposition. “Do you let a criminal go free? No! Then why would you let a similarly deviant person abuse the sacred institution of marriage?”

But in general, I would guess that they don’t even see marriage as a “right” that gay people could have, just as they don’t see healthcare as a “right” that poor people have, or equal access to education as a “right” that ethnic minorities have.

Marriage is nothing more or less than a special kind of contract between individuals. Freedom of contract, including individuals having the right to establish contracts with each other, is one of the most important fundamental rights in a civil society. You have to present damn good reasons to restrict such a right. That someone is a criminal and has abused the legal system previously may be a good reason. Sexual preferences cannot be a good reason, ever.