[vhawk01]

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"However, I am sure there are also gay couples who want gay marriage for more symbolic and emotional reasons. Perhaps they simply want to be able to avail themselves of the things that other people enjoy."

Like making children? This is an emotional and psychological issue. Legal means already exist for common law people to make important decisions on each others behalf. A medical directive can appoint anyone you wish to make medical decisions for you, and a will can let you leave money to whomever you want. So I don't think this is for practical reasons, but the emotional reasons you outline above.

We are essentially in a culture war where gays want to be thought of as completely normal people and accepted by society as such. But they are not. Their sexual preference is a statistical anomoly, a minor reflection of societal behaviour, and there is no reason for anyone to accept it as something healthy or desirous.

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Well, my use of an analogy to 'fat weddings' seems to have unintended implications, both accurate and misleading. Even if we were to grant that somehow homosexuality was not 'healthy or desirous' you still have absolutely no leg to stand on. We still allow fat people to get married, no matter how terrible a message this may send to the rest of society. No one cries, "But how will I explain to my children when they come home asking questions about why the fat man is holding hands with the fat woman?"

Needless to say, I don't really agree with you that homosexuality is in some way unhealthy (well, besides all sex being technically unhealthy and homosexual sex between men being slightly higher risk than heterosexual sex). But even if it were, there is simply no reason to single out homosexuality as the one 'unhealthy' lifestyle that we choose to segregate and attack. At least, there is no secular, rational reason. There are plenty of "Jebus says" and "It's icky" reasons, I suppose.