Matt wrote:
>
>
> OK, well I was trying to use semantics to frame this in a way that it
> could be used to persuade the Xtian right.
1. Do you really think it is necessary to convince _everyone_ of the rightness of gay marriage to win the point?
2. Do you really think that the "Christian Right" can be won over by _any_ argument?
3. Do you really think that members of the "Christian Right" will even read complex arguments for Gay "Civil Unions"?
It seems to me that such gains as the Gay/Lesbian movement has achieved have been achieved by variations on "We're Queer! We're Here! Get Used to it!" Not wholly unrelated to this is an article on the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre I was reading this morning in the Chicago Tribune. It quoted a Tribune editorial a few days after that event referring to the massacre as grounds for repealing Prohibition. To some extent the "General Public," but certainly the political leadership if the nation, is very much like Emma Woodhouse's father in Austen's _Emma_.* The first step (and the decisive step) in convincing him to accept something was to create the conviction that it was a Given. Gay marriage will be achieved when (and I think _only_ when) the political leadership (and their taskmasters in the ruling class and the media) become convinced that not granting it will create more public disorder than granting it will. That is what convinced that racist slob Senator Dirksen (and others like him) that "the time had come" for a Civil Rights Act.
Carrol
*When first sounded on the subject [of Emma's marriage], he [Mr Woodhouse] was so miserable, that they were almost hopeless.-- A second allusion, indeed, gave him less pain. --He began to think it was to be, and the he could not prevent it-- a very promising step of the mind on its way to resignation. [_Emma_, Ch. 55]
My guess is that one needs about 5% of the population determined to achieve gay marriage, about 30% not minding, and about 30% resigned to what they cannot prevent. The other 35% can lump it.