In correctly pointing out that legalization of homosexual marriage would lead INEVITABLY to legalization of polygamy and polyamory, Prof. Kurtz appeared to be holding back so as not to shock people. He could have put it more starkly, and said it would lead in addition, as night follows day, to the following what can only be called abominations: people marrying their pets or farm animals (imagine a lonely or depressed woman marrying her dog — that’s precisely what will happen), people marrying their favorite plants or trees (anyone doesn’t think so? COUNT ON IT!), adults marrying infants, fathers marrying their daughters, mothers their sons, brothers their sisters, people marrying machines or toys or computers or other inanimate objects, and the list goes on.

The Western tradition of “marriage only between one man and one woman,” together with the sanctity conceded that bond by society and the central, primordial respect accorded it, is, I have long felt, one of the perhaps two or three deepest traditions and most essential pillars of this melding of Europe and Jerusalem which we call “the West.” The wholesome social and cultural repercussions and influences which flow to all of us from that one key institution known as Western marriage are incalculable.

I don’t know much about Islam. What little I know, I deeply respect … except for one thing. Islam allows a man to marry four wives. That single detail profoundly blemishes an entire religion and cultural tradition, and Islam, to improve itself, has to get rid of that, just as the Mormons had to.

China, Japan, Vietnam, and the rest of the far east have the equivalent of multiple wives, with their system of “femme de premier rang, femme de deuxième rang, femme de troisième rang” (I don’t know the terms in English, but anyone who’s read Pearl Buck or has lived — as I did — a couple of years in a house full of Vietnamese in Europe knows all about it). That has marked their societies in its fundamental and distinct way through and through, make no mistake.

For all the West’s faults, thank God we don’t have that blemish. From the time of the writing of the the Odyssey, the Iliad, and the Old Testament, down through today, we have been distinguished by that extremely fundamental characteristic, one by the way which plays a big role in giving Western women — and men too — the best quality of life on earth.

Andrew Sullivan’s ilk and their liberal supporters are now poised to destroy even such a fundamental pillar of all we are, as that.

Prof. Kurtz not only has it exactly right, he’s even holding back a little in regard to the seriousness of the threat that now confronts the West.

Unadorned, I can cure you of your deep respect for Islam with one website:
http://www.mantra.com/~jai/satyamevajayate/loot.html
Look up the Koranic quotes on that website in any version of the Koran that pleases you. Even in the most Islam-friendly translations there is an undeniable promotion of violence towards non-Muslims.

Excellent statement by Unadorned about the centrality of monogamy in the soul and culture of the West. And it’s all in Genesis: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh.”

I wonder, has anyone read the Old Testament? Or did you all just not notice those Patriarchs with their many, many wives and concubines (not to mention the many many genocides ordered by Yahweh)?

The “slippery slope” argument is almost too silly to answer. I’ll just point this out: While there are plenty of gays who want to marry, you never seem to hear from the bestiality lobby. My guess is that, the occasional lonely spinster apart, it just doesn’t exist. And as for polyamory, I think that’s more male fantasy than anything else. But if there’s a sincere quad or quint out there that really works, what business is it of yours?

The crux of the argument is this: Marriage may be a sacrament but it’s also a civil institution that confers many legal benefits upon those who enter into it. I don’t think any gay person is arguing that they an unalienable right to have a priest or a rabbi or an imam mumble words over them. But as a citizen of the United States they sure do have a right to expect the equal protection of the laws. And when the laws confer a benefit on one group and deny it to another merely on the basis of gender that’s rank discrimination, wholly out of line with the main thrust of American history, which has always - over the long run - been about the gradual expansion of freedom. If we honor who we are and where we come from and the best traditions of our country - in other words, if we’re REAL conservatives - we must support the right of ALL our citizens to marry.

Corvus writes:

“But as a citizen of the United States they sure do have a right to expect the equal protection of the laws. And when the laws confer a benefit on one group and deny it to another merely on the basis of gender that’s rank discrimination, wholly out of line with the main thrust of American history …”

We see how the notion of equality has detached itself from reality and gone over the cliff. Equal protection of the laws means that two people, in the same category and the same situation, are treated the same. Thus two people who have been arrested for theft with strong evidence against them are treated the same. Two people who are applying for admission to a university and have the same qualifications are treated the same. A single man and a single woman who want to get married are treated the same as another single man and single woman who want to get married. That’s equality under the law. But we do not treat people in different categories the same. We do not treat a child who has been arrested for theft the same as an adult, even if he is guilty, because the child is in a different natural and legal category from an adult. Two men who want to “marry” do not get treated the same as a man and woman who want to get married, because marriage by definition is the union of a man and a woman.

That so many people in modern society such as Corvus have undergone such a breakdown of basic rationality that they are unable to understand these basic distinctions, but instead are filled with righteous anger about all the “discrimination” they see around them, is a mark of our civilizational crisis.

Further, once these people start to feel free to redefine words at will, it doesn’t stop. Not only does Corvus define marriage as a union of two people of the same sex; but he defines a conservative as a person who supports such marriages! So, please tell us, Corvus. If it is the conservative position to support same-sex marriage, what is the liberal position?

Assuming we concede that its ratification was legal, how the original intent of the 14th Amendment could be so comprehensively misunderstood and fancifully applied is one of the great unsolved mysteries of our time. Corvus — assuming he cares one whit about the truth — would do well to read through the relevant portions of the Reconstruction Amendments Debates. If he does, he will not like what he finds.