On the other hand, most people do marry and most marriages do have children.

Same-sexd couples are not really like boh-sexed couples, not in the way that marriage matters to society.

That draws attention to the fact that the vast majority of those children migrated to same-sex households from the both-sexed relationships of their moms and dads.

Maybe 5% of these children were adopted — and half of those via second-parent adoption.

Another 1-2% were attained by same-sex householders through third party procreation.

The rest? Typically marriages. Women in same-sex households with children are significantly more likely to have been married than men. Overall about half of all such households inlcude at least one partner who had been formerly married or is now seperated or estranged from a both-sexed partner.

Now, if you’d rather point at the tiny subset that attained children through adoption and third party procreation, then, you don’t point at the core of marriage but outside of marriage.

Same-sex parenting via these means of attaining children require 1) parental relinquishment (pre-emptively in the case of the use of “donors”) and 2) government intervention to substitute another adult. That is the inverse of the marital presumption of paternity.

Third party procreation (or the use of “donors”) is extramarital procreaton even when married people use it.

Most married women who use IVF / ARTs do NOT use “donors”. More than 90% use the sperm of their husbands and their own ova.

So compared with 100% of one-sexed arrangements that go outside of their relationship to attain children, a tiny fraction of one percent of married households have done so.

Pointing to children only serves to emphasize that the one-sexed arrangement, gay or not, is nonmarital. Children are not at the core of gay union.

Gay identity politics is at the core of the argumentation that promotes special status for gay union.

Well, the marital presumption of paternity makes the conjugal relationship, at law, a sexualized type of relationship.

It is a rebutable legal presumption, sure, but the criteria for rebutal depend on the opportunity of the husband to have impregnated his wife.

And even at that, courts are reluctant to intrude on marriages. That’s to protect the marriage, the children, and the social institution itself. It is a balance that takes place while the presumption is vigorousy enforced.

Marriage is a foundational social intitution and its core meaning is reflected in the law. The private aspects are protected but so are the public aspects.

The man-woman criterion stands for sex integration. The marital presumption of paternity stands for contingency for responsible procreation. These combine to form a coherent whole. The core meaning of marriage is found first and foremost in the social insitution which is not a creature of the government.

Yes, the conjugal relationship is a sexual type of relatioshp; it is both-sexed.

But what is gay union, at its core? There are no similiar legal requirements that refelct the core of gay union.

So, yes, gay union, or any other one-sexed arrangement, is nonmarital and may have a purpose that is in common with other nonmarital arrangements or relationship types.

Such as, certain vulnerabilities experienced by families outside of the social institution of marriage.

There is an important distinction between marriage and nonmarriage, based on the core of marriage.

Society benefits marriage because marriage benefits society. Unity of the sexes is no small thing. Responsible procreation needs to be promoted and that is a huge important thing. Civil society is comprised of foundational social institution, of which marriage is perhaps the most important and is certainly the most pro-child that we have; as a coherent whole marriage is not a department of the Government. Government merely recognizes the social institution. Government does not own civil society.

So, we have a preferential status for marriage.

And we could have protections for nonmarital arrangements based on the common theme of vulnerability. I don’t think this means it is necessary to enact a new relationship status, at law, since we have provisons for designated beneficiaries already. Maybe they could be made more affordable and/or accessible — if those are actual problems — and made more uniform across state lines.

But a protective status is not the same thing as a preferential status. Marital status is special status because of the core meaning of marriage.

Which leads to the problem with Corvino’s remarks. He has failed to distinguish gay union from the rest of the nonmarital category. Yet he still expects special status for gay union.

If its core meaning, and its public purpose, have great merit, then, plainly state it. An assessment of eligibility criteria can then flow from that core.

Afterall, if we are to distinguish gay union from other arrangements, then, we need to be able to identify it by its essentials. Otherwise, forget special status. And forget merging it with marriage.

First, how can people understand that two people of the same sex can be intimate, when heterosexual parents can’t even talk with their own children about their relationship with their own partner? How do we talk about sexuality when parents view their children, even when their 21+, as asexual? How can adult children talk to their parents about their parents relationship when we get squeamish thinking about mom and dad going at it?

Add to that, a lot of heterosexuals parents try to pass that responsibility of teaching sexuality to their children on to the public schools, and then get upset when a subject talked about in public or privet schools that makes them uncomfortable/squeamish. Plus, do I need to remind anyone that we had eight years of “Abstinences of the brain”- {Brain being the largest sex organ of the body}- where we just taught fear about sexuality, and every condom will fail, even when they don’t. Do I need to remind anybody that Rush Limbaugh is still looking for a girlfriend? Do I need to explain why he’s fail here? Does the words “lack of empathy”, “Narcissism” and “Misanthrope” mean anything? With examples of that, how do we expect people to have a grasp of what a relationship means. I was floored when I heard that large percentage of eighteen year olds who were taught just “abstinences,” did not know that sex was pleasurable. That’s what 8 years of teaching ‘Absence’ of the mind has given us. Now we got 8 years of people who don’t have the tools to even think how a relationship can be intimate, let alone tell you what that intimacy truly looks like. Or have we stopped laughing at the comedian’s line: “My husband thinks brace yourself is floor play.”

We can’t even look toward our religious intuitions for help with sexuality. Part of the reason being, their goal is to keep people ignorant so they will not loose their power of fear over the people that sit in their pews, and keep the money rolling in. The other part is we have men in power that have no clue what it means to be in a honest open caring relationship with a mate (male or female), and dealing with the human side of what it means to be in a relationship. The fundamentalist who are all worried about people having sex and marriage with animals only do so because they have no clue what it means to have a relationship with humans. They think that everybody else is like them. Just look at who’s doing all the porn on line, it’s the fundamentalist because they can’t attach to or communicate with a real warm, breathing human being.

Most people don’t have a clue what a relationship is, even when they are in one. Or is all that divorce just because every one is communicating so well? I am surprised when people don’t know that sex is messy; and that relationships are more then put Tab ‘A’ into Slot ‘B’ and pass some DNA. I too agree that relationships are more then making a kid, but it’s just a byproduct of heterosexuality. BUT the real question is do we have enough grown-ups who don’t giggle or get grossed out at two boys or girls kissing, and understand that handholding is just a start on the road to what it means to be in a relationship, and who are not afraid of someone else’s desire for recognition of their own personal relationship?

‘We’ are like ‘them’ because we are all human.

We’re all on this planet together, and we should all enjoy the same access to the rules and laws that govern the societies we all share.