I found a couple of very thoughtful posts on the gay marriage issue which I think are well worth reading. I say "thoughtful," because both are sincere, and not hemmed in by ideological considerations.

Sean Kinsell criticizes the implicit (maybe explicit) tyranny in the approach of demanding approval:

Anyway, I know I've banged this gong plenty already, but I will never, ever get used to this stuff. When will people get it through their heads that you can't coerce people into approving of you? You can, possibly, coerce them into postures of approval, temporarily, through political machinations. But the current climate indicates that--and can you blame them?--they're not going to sit still for it for long.

From my perspective as a resident of Japan, one of the saddest things about idiot gay-lefty rhetoric is the way its campus proponents manage to infect foreign students with it. Then they bring it back here and are thrown off balance when it doesn't square with reality, often on more basic levels than that of the SSM debate. A close American friend recently described how a rather clingy Japanese employee, having been essentially disowned by his father after coming out, asked him for advice about how to fix things. My friend is a patient, gentlemanly guy and responded on the order of, "Well, I can tell you what I would do, but I'm from a different culture, and the way I see my choices is different."

I wish I were more patient and gentlemanly myself. When asked similar questions, I've generally responded along the lines of "Why didn't you think about this before coming out to him?" Western-style individualism doesn't, after all, guarantee that you'll get everything you want; it just allows you to prioritize things for yourself--as opposed to having them prioritized for you by the clan, village, or state--and go after what's at the top of your list without impediment. I can empathize with the belief that candidly coming out to your parents is preferable to a lifetime of question-dodging and waffling, but if you decide to do so without preparing mentally to deal with the worst-case scenario, you're asking for trouble. I'm not defending parents who disown their children for being gay, only making what should be the common-sense point that you can't control other people's behavior, let alone their feelings. Having the backbone to follow through on your beliefs even if you're despised for them is part of being a free citizen.

And likewise with relationships themselves. Positions of the "if you don't respect us as mature, centered adults, we'll hold our breath until we turn blue" variety are incoherent. They're also counter-productive. In external terms, whininess is a PR disaster. In internal terms, signalling to young gay people just getting their lives in order that it's okay to blame all their problems on the failure of straight society to confer "dignity" on them stunts their growth. Adult resilience is attained by confronting obstacles and testing your own strength in the course of overcoming them. Until SSM advocates learn to focus on practical obstacles to keeping relationships together and learn to keep a lid on the self-pity, they're not helping anyone except anti-gays on the far right.

From the Grand Stand, who has gay friends and family members, finds that opposition to same sex marriage is agonizingly difficult, because it is personal:

We want to dramatically alter the definition of the institution of marriage and change it, so that it no longer has the meaning and purpose it had before... so that a few people can be happy.

I'm sure there are thousands of wonderful homosexual couples that would be happier and more stable as a result of the change in the marriage definition. It would make it easier for them to conduct their business and financial affairs, move from place to place, and immigrate to new countries, with all the rights and privileges of married couples.

But at what cost?

Ah, there's the rub. The cost to the millions of other couples, the effect it would have on our attitudes towards children, parentage, and family would be enormous. Its emotional and financial costs on stability, the further erosion of our attitudes about paternity and how and when it is established, and everything that goes with it, would have to be decided again, rethought, re-examined—decisions that enable other decisions, good ones and bad ones, but always more decisions that we should never set it motion to be asked. Every time we've asked these questions we've allowed the wrong decisions to be made at significant and perilous cost to innocents.

It isn't about the people alive today either. These decisions change for all time, for all of recorded history, for generation and generation to come the further decay of the greatest institution, marriage. They set in motion a series of other changes that we cannot predict, although the ones nearest and closest to us, the ones we can see, are bad enough.

When all is said and written, it is marriage that has lasted, despite our best attempts to tear it down, remodel it to our whim, or disregard its value and place in the peace and prosperity we all desire, and the state of being in which my dear friends find themselves. Everything that has come before enabled their existence, the stability and safety that the institution of marriage provided has sheltered them, given them opportunity, life, and sustenance, and now for their sakes, we should destroy it?

Can I stand at this point in history, looking back at all that has been done and achieved, all the stability and peace that traditional marriage has brought and for the sake of a dear friend say, "Sure! Let's risk all of human history to this point, so that YOU might be happier and live easier"?

What if some other person had made that decision long ago that made their existence moot? And they did do that. Countless times people have been asked to choose between what is right and what is easy. They made decisions that might have brought comfort and happiness to a few, but sacrificed the many in the process, and they chose us, generations and generations forward, never knowing with certainty if mankind would hold out as long as it has.

I would happily and joyfully attend a private and unofficial ceremony and witness vows made to a partner, in the company of friends and family. I would stand at their sides as a steward of the rings or other tangible offerings exchanged, to remind the couple of the promises they have made. I would be comforted by their greater chance at happiness and the stability that a commitment to their partner might provide. In all ways I would respect the commitment made as valid and as important as any other oath or vow taken, but this commitment will be a private one, never recognized by society or the state, as a marriage. It is bond between two people who will never bear children, who will never offer to society the chance of replacement and steward for the next generation, that earns them the rights and privileges that marriage conveys.

In every way I can give it they have my emotional support. In every other avenue, from supporting equal wages and opportunities to equal treatment under the law, they will have me as an ally, but in the one area where they are not the same, not equal, different rules will apply.

I also think it is very dishonest the way the gay marriage issue substitutes for sincere thinking. It has become a way for trendy people to achieve "fast-track" certification of non-bigoted status. Few take the time to grapple with the realities of people.

I liked the old days when it was cool to be gay, but no one worried about aping mainstream society's institutions, much less claiming them as civil rights.

From where derives the idea that marriage is an attribute of citizenship -- the status of which defines whether one is a first or second class citizen? I don't think legal inability to marry is any more of feature of citizenship than would be the social inability to marry. Heterosexual or homosexual; there is no "right" to marry anyone. A prerequisite is finding a partner who agrees with the idea of entering into a legal contract. Whether that contract is state-sanctioned depends on a variety of factors. Love alone is not enough. A married man falls in love with a married woman. They cannot marry. First cousins fall in love, but cannot marry. A lonely man or a lonely woman want to marry, but neither can find partners. Gay or straight, they cannot marry. I don't see any of them as second class citizens. A homosexual man can marry a consenting homosexual woman (or either or both parties can be heterosexual). The sexual preferences of the parties are not prerequisites, and are secondary to the sexes of the parties. Are married homosexuals first class citizens? I don't see why.

And what about the heterosexuals who would obtain an entirely new "right" to marry others of the same sex? I'm not sure why they would do it, but let us suppose they have financial reasons. They are in love with each other's money and power and want to share it. To offer an absurd hypothetical, should Donald Trump be allowed to marry Bill Gates and combine their fortunes and futures? Right now, they can't. And while I abhor the idea of amending the Constitution to stop them, I don't think the question involves an attribute of citizenship.

Yeah, I know, Bill and Don are straight. But does it really matter?

(I thought the whole idea was that it shouldn't.)