Like I've said before - fine, let 'em have their "gay marriage." Just watch 'em squawk, however, when we start calling heterosexual marriage "real marriage."

"stop bugg(er)ing us"

"upholding their end"

Some slyly placed choice of words???

btw agree with the comment - not a problem with me except they won't shut up about it.

Hardly sly. Subtlety isn't in my nature.

Mr. Judd;

Unfortunately, Sowell is mistaken that unmarried couples can attain the legal privileges of a married couple. Two major points are visitation rights during illness and inheritance.

I would agree that because there is little direct effort to achieve actual legal equivalence, it's the imprimatur more than the privileges that is the motivation.

AOG:

Nonsense. There are hardly any hospitals that don't allow such visitations and inheritance is a simple enough matter to deal with. The problem is that homosexual relationships are so inherently unstable that the current partner is unlikely to be listed in documents.

oj-

Thomas Sowell and you are speaking common sense. It's not equality that the radicals are looking for but the destruction of traditional virtues through equivocation. Marriage is the surrender of your rights as an individual in order to create a funcioning family unit. Homosexual marriages will last as long as the typical "gay' relationship. The possibilty of procreation is non-existent so they will not be monogomous. Generally speaking that is what being "Gay" is. The exceptions prove the rule.

Anyone who leaves their inheritence to be determined by the default laws is a fool to begin with.

And I've never understood the "visitation rights" argument. If a person wants someone to be able to visit , does a hospital have a "right" to prevent that? Is being hospitalized a form of incarceration, where the patient loses the right to free association? If homosexuals are being denied "visitation right", why don't they sue the hospitals as they like to sue everyone else who doesn't acceed to their demands?

If a homosexual couple really want to be able to restrict each other, just form a Subchapter S corp in a state where you only need two people to incorporate.

Visitation can be restricted to "family", which is not in all cases overcome through other legal means. As for inheritance, are the tax consequences really equivalent?

"can be" "not in all" These are the rarities for which we are to overturn civilization?

Again, why not just sue the hospitals that are the most restrictive? Isn't that what real Americans do when an institution places restrictions not to our liking? Play up the sympathy factor and the plantiff can't possibly lose. And, nothing gets a bureaucrat's attention like losing a very public lawsuit.

The only way that "visitation" can be used to justify marriage redefinition as a solution would be if hospitals were winning such lawsuits, and the courts had ruled that legislative relief was constitutionally impermissible. None of which has happened.

The way to deal with the problems which gays may face from inheritance taxes is to eliminate inheritance taxes for everyone. Why should you have to pay taxes when you plotz?

The notion that your gay paramour, or for that matter non-gay paramour, can be barred from visiting you in the hospital is laughable in 2005. Any hospital that tried a stunt like that would be sued all the way down to the tongue depressors.

Mr. Ortega;

That's actually my point, which is that the lack of action on those areas where there isn't legal equality demonstrates that it's really the imprimatur that's desired.

It might well behoove conservatives to push explicitly for legal protections of that nature so as to triangulate on the issue, thereby picking up the moderates and isolating the fanatics.