Does it matter more who espouses a view or whether that view is correct? If prison inmates and illegal aliens said that the President of the United States is George W. Bush and someone else said it was Ralph Nader, who would be correct?

This isn't prejudice, but it is discrimination, and if it's correct, then there's nothing wrong with it.

Gays are free to marry, just as are straights. What they do not (at least currently) have the right to do is to have that marriage recognized by the government. I could marry a woman without either a priest or justice of the peace.

My friend, who is extremely pro-gay rights, even has doubts about requiring the government to acknowledge gay marriages if other things regarded as perversions, such as polygamy and bestiality, are denied legal recognition.

(Sorry about the disjointed nature of this post, but it's late and I have a head cold)

The argument over "gay marriage" has nothing to do with marriage per se. It's about money.

The whole point of the relentless drumbeat for gay marriage is to secure for homosexual couples the ability to coerce employers into providing them with the noncash fringe benefits that go to married couples, the ability to coerce the Social Security Administration into paying retirement and survivors' benefits to homosexual spouses, and the ability to coerce the Internal Revenue Service into treating them as a married couple for tax purposes.

Marriage as a State-certified and enforced institution is meaningless. Easy divorce has almost made marriage as such meaningless. A contractual arrangement that can be sundered at the whim of either party is of no value. But if we look at the financial benefits, the significance of the campaign for "gay marriage" leaps into high relief.

Further thoughts here.

I hate to do this, as one who is opposed to the legalization of gay marriage, but "...coerce the Internal Revenue Service into treating them as a married couple for tax purposes".

The last time I looked, I paid a marriage tax penalty and did not get a marriage benefit.

--The last time I looked, I paid a marriage tax penalty and did not get a marriage benefit. --

Some do, some don't, Paul. My accountant assures me that, for certain purposes, a middle-class couple that's income-tax-penalized for being married is still better off that way. She cites the rules concerning death taxes and the sale of a house due to divorce as examples. But I don't pretend to possess or understand the details. Some things are beyond a humble software engineer and avocational Curmudgeon.