Originally posted by: glutenberg
Originally posted by: spamsk8r
The analogy may be flawed, but the original point stands. The point is that he and I both have the same exact rights, it's just that he is not happy with the choices available. You are changing it to be "the right to marry the consenting adult he is naturally attracted to." As far as I'm aware there aren't any laws providing this right to anyone (using this terminology, and terminology is important here as we're discussing legal matters), so it's not a right guaranteed to anyone by the state. Maybe I'm wrong here, but then again IANAL.
As far as what I personally feel, however, I think marriage should have always remained a religious institution not burdened with politics. If the religion you subscribe to has no problem with marrying a gay couple, go ahead. Or if you have no religion but have decided to make a commitment to another person, just go ahead and do that. Then we wouldn't have to worry about all of this. The state could provide cohabitation benefits regardless of sex or marital status, and everyone would be happy.
The analogy is more along the lines of this. You're allowed to marry your significant other and so should a gay man or woman. You are not treating the two groups equally as the end result is that you have one person married and another person unable to marry. On paper, yes, it seems like they have similar rights but what you mean is that the two people have the same laws applying to them and not the same rights.
As to your ice cream analogy, it's more along the lines of this, albeit, I'm sure my analogy has many flaws as comparing sexual preference to ice cream preference is just hard. Two men go to a store wanting ice cream. The store has vanilla and chocolate. One man is allergic to chocolate and the other man is allergic to vanilla. They cannot just suddenly get over these allergies. The store owner says to the two men that although he has these two flavors he will only permit the selling of vanilla. The two men both still have the same choices but guess who's left out. The man allergic to vanilla is now left with nothing. He knows that the store has chocolate and generally he has similar purchasing power as the chocolate allergic man but his only option is to buy vanilla and then throw it in the trash.
Man, what a waste of space of an analogy.