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Originally Posted by BTirish
Pretty much. To be willing to admit a distinction between a lifelong male-female relationship in which reproduction is the natural (but not always achieved) result and any relationship between two people that isn't founded upon reproduction and bearing the children of their union.
I think the infertility question is a tougher nut than you've treated it as being, though.
Specifically, what is this 'natural ordering' that seems to be the gearbox of your whole line here, and why is it to be privileged above the utility derived by the respective people?
A straight infertile couple wed and have a normal sexual relationship. If I understand you, you would say that their coupling 'follows the natural order of reproduction'. I think here you are simply stopping at a convenient level of abstraction in your consideration of the respective actions (ie, insertion of a penis into a vagina). But the couplings of the infertile do not, in fact, feature in the biological realities behind
reproduction - for obvious reasons.
So what is an infertile couple doing when they copulate, then? They are mimicking the act of reproduction as best they can, because of the utility that mimicry affords them.
What do you think gay people are doing? The very same, if you ask me.
There are other issues - if you call an infertile couple who use a surrogate 'married', what of a gay couple who use a surrogate? What of all the ways around biological impediments that human ingenuity has built? Why do they open doors for the infertile but not for the gay?
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I would argue for other claims, but if people aren't even willing to admit this distinction, then the rest of the discussion could go nowhere.
If you are only concerned with the name but are prepared to cede the rights and legal status, I have no particular beef with you. Whatever the law or legal document says, people will
call it marriage. Give it fifteen years after that and a full homogenisation measure will pass no sweat in any case.
If you are concerned with the name and are not prepared to cede the rights and legal status, then we've got business.