In an age where 60% of African-American children are born out of wedlock, and over 50% of marriages end in divorce... where 2nd, 3rd or 4th marriages are all not just common and accepted, but usual - I'd say that particular horse bolted a long, long time ago.

I know more monogamous long-term couples who haven't married than have. Marriage is seen as a prequel to inevitable splitting. Marriages like ours are exceptional now.

How forbidding some monogamous couples from marrying is going to help this undesirable situation - and I agree that it *is* undesirable - is beyond me. How forbidding some people - those who are Intersex - from marrying anyone at all - likewise.

If Mr Regnerus is correct - we'd see a detectable dip in the number of couples getting married, and a detectable rise in the number of divorces, in jurisdictions that allow marriage equality. That may take a few years to become apparent, but the "half life" of marriages is only about a decade, so in ten years we couldn't miss this effect, and it should be detectable at 5.

It's been 12 years in the Netherlands, 10 in Belgium, 8 in Canada... nada. The Regnerus hypothesis has no evidence for, and a lot against. A superficially plausible conjecture that experiments have shown isn't the case.

Ideally, Sociologists and Scientist for marriage equality should be searching for downsides. Those against, searching for upsides - to avoid bias. Instead it seems it's "verdict first, then we try to cherrypick data to confirm predetermined conclusions". That's not just confined to Regenerus of course, nor to the confirmed anti-marriage-equality camp.

Acute paranoia.

Re Immutability - if I apprehend you rightly, women are a suspect class because sex is immutable.

Except some people change sex.

See:

Gender change in 46,XY persons with 5alpha-reductase-2 deficiency and 17beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase-3 deficiency. Cohen-Kettenis PT. Arch Sex Behav. 2005 Aug;34(4):399-410.

A minority, to be sure - but rather more than have changed sexual orientation.

"What I find to be generally the case, dirtywithclass, is that conservatives use truth as a the basis of what they should think and how they should act. Progressives use truth as a tool if it suits their purpose in supporting something they have already decided. "

That used to be the case. Not so much these days, the Religious Right started going PoMo decades ago, and now are nothing but.

Example:
"6. Scientific Method
We affirm that the scientific method is useful in carrying out the creation mandate of Genesis 1:28 to subdue and have dominion over creation when the investigators have Biblical presuppositions and when the Bible does not directly give us the answers we seek; that the use of the scientific method is entirely controlled by the presuppositions of the investigators and therefore the results are a pronouncement of faith rather than of scientific fact; and that the faith nature of the results of scientific investigation is evidenced by the investigators’ proselytizing intent, that is, their attempt to transform man into their idea of what man should be.
We deny that the scientific method can ever be applied in psychology without its being thoroughly determined by the presuppositions of the investigators"

-- From The Christian World View of Counselling,
Mr. George C. Scipione, Th.M., M.A., Chairman
Dr. Lawrence Crabb, Ph.D., Co-Chairman
Dr. Ed Payne, M.D., Co-Chairman
Dr. Jay Grimstead, D.Min., General Editor
Mr. E. Calvin Beisner, M.A., Assistant to the General Editor
With contributions by members of the Psychology and Counseling Committee of The Coalition on Revival

The scandal was that it was ever pathologised in the first place, when there was no experimental evidence that it was a pathology, only an "everyone knows" assumption.

The APA's actions here are a good example of checking common wisdom against facts.

The problem though is that it had to be voted on - as if a matter of observation also had to be popular as well as true. That's deeply troubling, and does show politicisation.

This poses a great threat to the Democrats.

If the GOP jettisons all the crazies, the Flat Earthers and SoCons, letting them go off and form their own Theocratic Party... then they will attract a LOT of voters who currently vote DNC because there's no Republican Party any more to vote for, only a bunch of lunatics.

In the short-term, the GOP will have a net loss of votes. In the long term, it's the only way the USA is ever going to have a functional 2 party system. 2 sane parties anyway.

I agree with everything you say (with one important exception), and if anything, you understate the problem.
The only quibble I have is over the phrase " tinker with their Corporate Equality Index". This was a real improvement, with many knock-on effects outside the Fortune 500.

However... the political arm of the HRC is as tone-deaf as ever, and it's gone beyond scandalous to bizarre that it's RWGs - Rich White Gays - only. There isn't even any tokenism, it's all-white, all-the-time, and they're unashamed of it.

Please keep on publicising this. If I can notice, all the way in Australia, others can too a bit closer to home.

Rather than calling someone who's ill-informed "ignorant", it's better to put the evidence before them. To educate, not engage in argument.

This stuff *isn't* taught well - if at all - in schools. Yes, it's all on the Internet, the facts, the medical journals and so on, but life's too short to investigate *everything*.

Put the evidence, the facts, before them. Reasonable people can differ on the interpretation and meaning of those, but at least we have a well-informed basis for discussion. Calling someone "ignorant" just because they don't know anything about an obscure subject, and don't even realise they know nothing about it, isn't helpful.

Citations please? You know.. evidence? Facts?

I know "Mass Resistance" claimed four such occurrences in one county, but both county sheriffs and police records showed they were making things up. Same with their tales of Transsexuals raiding churches and performing surgeries on kidnapped members of the congregation (as described in their 127 page report on the subject). That's why they're on the list of "hate groups",in between the Muslim Brotherhood and the KKK, they deliberately lie.

"You aren't born with both male and female DNA"

Actually I was, but mostly my body is 46,XY.

As is this woman''s - and her daughter's
"A 46,XY mother who developed as a normal woman underwent spontaneous puberty, reached menarche, menstruated regularly, experienced two unassisted pregnancies, and gave birth to a 46,XY daughter with complete gonadal dysgenesis. " -- The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism January 1, 2008 vol. 93 no. 1 182-189

1 in 300 men aren't 46,XY. Some women are. It's more complicated than the simplified child's version you were taught in grade school.