You're version of marriage is for the sole purpose of procreation and furthering the population.
My version of marriage is 2 committed people who love each other so much that they are willing to commit to a lifelong, spiritual bond in support and care for each other. No where in my understanding or ideal comes children. Nor did I marry to have children. I chose to marry because I loved my spouse and wanted him in my life forever. I chose to have children because I love children and had that calling on my life to produce 2 little mini me's to love, support, nurture and raise. I had that desire since I was young, before I even thought about marriage and what my life's purpose may be. I always knew I would be a mother.
I think my version includes more people who want to show the ultimate commitment to one another, realizing that there will be hard times and it takes courage, conviction and hard work to make a marriage last through the good times AND bad. If it was just about procreation...well I've already filled my due...is my marriage able to erode and falter because I made mini humans?...Um no, I have to keep working on my marriage, sharing love and make our union stronger.
Any two people can raise a child in a healthy way, married or not, heterosexual or homosexual. Do I think there is one situation which is more ideal to raising the best children? I do not know. For me it was important for the commitment of marriage for my family and children. I was lucky to have been born heterosexual, furtile, able physically and emotionally to have children and able to marry whom I chose.
My ideal of marriage goes beyond any legal benefits I may receive but if I were told that I could not marry because I was in love with my husband for ______________(insert reason) the overall populous thought the ideal of my love was gross or deviant, than I would be devastated. Not only would a domestic partnership not embody the love and devotion I have for my husband, but legally would not be recognized or accepted by our nation as a whole. Anything other than the term "marriage" is insufficient in all respects.
Personally the only thing I think is broken about "marriage" is the fact that everyone is concerned that their marriage will suffer if others have the ability to legally marry. I think those folks should focus on their bond with their partner and try to keep from becoming one of those divorced individuals.
Just because some people are able to have children or marry doesn't mean they should...and just because some people cannot have children(physically) or marry(legally) doesn't mean they shouldn't!!!!!
Not quite. You're a romantic, though, and I respect that.
Like most people, you are looking at marriages as individual things, and commenting accordingly. I am looking marriage as an institution of which individual couples can partake. My reasoning is about why the institution exists in the first place, and not about the desires people have to get married. I contend that if not for the children part, society would not need marriage. Go back to my Brave New World analogy, in which everyone is born in a test tube and raised by the state in big buildings. What possible reason would there be for marriage, in that case?
It's the fact that many, and probably most, marriages DO have kids that holds the whole thing together. This does not mean that everyone who is married needs to have or even want kids. It does mean that an entire class of relationships that can never produce kids on their own might not belong to the category ("marriage").
My version of marriage (which IMO has been the implicitly understood viewpoint in our society for generations) is that BOTH things are part of the purpose of marriage: commitment for the adults, AND the place in which to bring children into the world and raise them ("procreation", to use a colder word). Your version is to only keep the first part, and get rid of the second part. In which case there is no connection between marriage and families, which to me would be a repurposing of marriage as an institution.
Married couples work so hard at it when kids are involved, but don't need to care as much if no kids are involved.
This should never have been about self-worth. Ask yourself why you have boiled down the issue to "Anything other than the term "marriage" is insufficient in all respects." Where did that come from? I'll bet you never gave the matter the first thought, 15 years ago. But now, because people have been shouting about it for a decade or so, you think it matters. I am not going to change my opinion about marriage just because many people have chosen to become offended that the existing definition does not fit them, and will no longer feel dignified unless the definition is stretched to accommodate them.
"Personally the only thing I think is broken about "marriage" is the fact that everyone is concerned that their marriage will suffer if others have the ability to legally marry."
I don't think anyone actually thinks this. That is willfully missing the point.
"Just because some people are able to have children or marry doesn't mean they should...and just because some people cannot have children(physically) or marry(legally) doesn't mean they shouldn't!!!!!"
This is true. But I don't think it changes one thing about upholding the institutional purpose of marriage.
"Any two people can raise a child in a healthy way, married or not, heterosexual or homosexual."
Yes, but it's not about making the adults feel good about themselves, it's about what's best for the children. And, other things being equal (i.e. no child abuse, etc), I will never be shaken from the belief that a married mother and father provide the best possible environment for a child. Just because a gay couple CAN raise a child does not negate the belief that marriage is about families with a mother and father.
It still comes down to you liking "A" and me liking "B" for defining what marriage is, and consequently which relationships belong to the definition.
