Of course they can. Unless you mean that the sanctity of marriage is based on the ability of one party to stick their thing in the other and produce a baby.
What about a marriage between a man and a woman who adopt a child? Are they allowed to be married?
Or are you implying that heterosexual couples raise their children better than homosexual couples? That'd be a pretty tough claim to support.
What do you mean by raising kids better? Single parents and same sex couples can both raise kids extraordinarily well; better than many heterosexual couples. And if this is a statement about averages, it is already generally agreed that restricting individual rights based on the properties of a group are immoral and wrong.
"I'd also say yes heterosexuals are sure to raise kids better. What could be better than getting both a woman and a mans point of view on the world? :/"
How about the points of view of multiple women and multiple men? You make the mistake here of assuming that there only are two fundamental points of view, delineated by gender, that people are exposed to. By that argument, it should be trivial to map gender to things like political party, religion, or any of a number of other perspectives? That we don't see this suggests your premise is wrong.
> Should infertile couples not be allowed to marry?
It's not really a marriage, so maybe it should be called something else, just as with homosexual civil unions. But of course there's no way to determine infertility, so it's not practical. It's very practical for homosexuals, though.
If the purpose of marriage is to encourage procreation, then heterosexually couples who take advantage of the legal benefits of marriage (tax deductions, hospital visitation, Social Security survivor's benefits, etc., etc., etc.) without procreating are freeloaders. So let's amend the laws so that only a heterosexual couple that has produced a child can take advantage of those benefits. (Not adoption, and not artificial insemination by a third-party donor! That's cheating!)
There's a very practical suggestion. If I lived in California I'd be tempted to put it on a referendum and see how many votes it loses by.
> Unless you mean that the sanctity of marriage is based on the ability of one party to stick their thing in the other and produce a baby.
I would say exactly that. I would even go so far as to say that a marriage where it is known before hand that the heterosexual couple is infertile is not a "real" marriage.
Of course the whole point of marriage is the biological production of the next generation.
> I would say exactly that. I would even go so far as to say that a marriage where it is known before hand that the heterosexual couple is infertile is not a "real" marriage.
Wow. So a couple that chooses to be married yet chooses no children is also not a "real" marriage?
Not invalid, just inferior to "real" marriages, which produce biological children.
Again, this is a critical distinction between liberals and conservatives. Liberals are obsessed with making sure everyone feels equal and unoffended. Conservatives do not shy away from the reality that not everyone and everything are of equal value. From the perspective of society a biologically fruitful marriage is a superior thing and deserves special status. Sorry if that hurts feelings.
>Conservatives do not shy away from the reality...
Um, Jesus walking on water? Talking snakes? Worshiping a book that condones slavery? Believing that there is a "God" that just popped into being out of nowhere existing beyond time, and that this idea is more likely than the universe just always existing beyond time?
The Branch Davidians called. They want their delusion back.
BTW your comments about liberals don't apply to all of us. I'd be very happy to offend you, and I'm sure it wouldn't be hard, since you seem to be a conservative.
No, it doesn't hurt my feelings. I just think the assertion that marriages that produce children are automatically better for society than those that do not is ridiculous.
What about a marriage between a man and a woman who adopt a child? Are they allowed to be married?
Or are you implying that heterosexual couples raise their children better than homosexual couples? That'd be a pretty tough claim to support.