Frosstbyte

Peolpe don't deserve the benefit of the doubt. People are selfish and stupid and listen to what they're told. They're easily misled and manipulated by people with agendas looking to reinforce their own power and wealth. I concede that perhaps they're not "at fault" for being bigots, since they've just accepted whatever they've been told, but that doesn't exonerate them.

All it means to be a bigot is that you're strongly partial to your own group and intolerant of those who differ. I consider being in favor of depriving people of fundamental rights intolerant. If they're reasonable, and after a discussion have ideas that make sense for why gay marriage is a bad thing-other than because it's "wrong"-then live and let live. That's not a bigot, that's a difference of opinion.

If all you've got for me is, "Gays can't be married because they're gay and that's wrong" then I have no problem labeling you a bigot and giving you no benefit of the doubt. That's not even a reason. It's some sort of aborted circular logic whose fundamental premise is hatred of another person simply for being who they are. Discrimination against gays isn't any different than racism or sexism and should be treated with the same degree of scorn. Stop making excuses for people who can't get beyond such insignificant differences.

Infinite, my only response, which I've already said once, is you'd have a solid argument for the sanctity of marriage being violated by letting gays get married if 1) marriage was still in any way sacred and 2) if marriage had no associated legal consequences. The decline of marriage as a sacred institution (you can get married without going to a church, didn't you know?) and the heaping loads of divorces people get (I've served drinks at a marriage where it was the woman's 5th and the man's 4th) have totally destroyed any concept of the first. And you're blind if you can't see the enormous LEGAL-not spiritual-impact that getting married has on both people. There's a reason divorce lawyers make so much money and that's because it's a shitstorm when people have to extricate themselves from the tangle of legal responsibilities they created when they got married.

Marriage doesn't (and never really did) mean only the union of male and female before god. All you have is your gut telling you that it's "wrong," a premise that you have recongized as a weak position from which to argue. I don't understand why your (and others') belief that it is wrong is reason enough to prevent gay marriage when them getting married has no impact on your life.