Kyle wrote:Marriage has always been defined as being between men and women. The numbers involved have varied but a constant has always been that it's between men and women.
Antonius (and, while I was busy with this, Felixsh) have already answered your main point better than I could have; namely, that gays want legal status for their marriages so that for instance one spouse can inherit the other's estate upon decease, care for any children from previous (straight, obviously) marriages, and so forth.
But I want to point out that your basic definition of marriage is a tad flawed. Marriage has NOT always been defined as being between men and women.
Instead, marriage has always been defined as being between male and female.
What the difference? Just this: the concept of
legal age has never been incorporated in marriage, as your own definition of
men and women diectly implies. In earlier times, kids as young as 12 could be married (and not always to someone else the same age either!), provided they were sexually mature enough to procreate. For an example, I might point out that Romeo was only 15 and Juliet was only 13 in that famous play (which I might add was based on two actual persons). For another, the virgin Mary was likely in her early to mid teens; had she been as old as most people today think of her as being (or anywhere over 21 for that matter), she would've been considered as the
Old Maid Mary!!!
What we consider hetero-pedophilia today was a legally sanctioned aspect of marriage in most countries until recent times; and still is today in a few places. So falling back on old definitions of marriage really gets you nowhere unless you want to fall back on a mere form of morality that - unless there IS a God who cares about such things - is pretty well meaningless in modern society.
Dare to be different... and make a difference.
To boldly go where no one in their right mind has gone before...