After citing this definition, the court find single women online ruled against two gay men who requested a marriage ways to find women online license with the following conclusion:

Straight up, the argument doesn’t work. It is, simply, illogical ways to find women online.

A) The Logical Incoherency of the Argument

Definitional arguments against gay marriage suffer tell if women find you attractive three fatal flaws of logical find your size women consistency. First, they employ ways to find women online circular reasoning. Follow the logic

The argument employs no outside moral, legal tell if women find you attractive, social, ethical or historical ways to find women online rationale as to why the status quo should be retained find asian women online, a prime example of circular reasoning.

Second, pay attention to the primary point being ways to find women online put forth: “Two people of the same sex can’t find zimbabwean women get married because marriage find zimbabwean women is for two people of different sexes find zimbabwean women.” In legal terms find older women online, this is referred to as ipse dixit reasoning – “It’s so because ways to find women online I say its so!” It may be impossible to question such reasoning find women in zurich, but it is hardly persuasive.

Third, the claim find asian women online is non-responsive. The statement “this find older women online is the way things have always been” fails to address the argument find zimbabwean women that things should change. As one of the greatest find your size women legal thinkers f modern find your size women times, Oliver Wendell Holmes tell if women find you attractive put it: “It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that it was laid down in the time of Henry find women in zurich IV. It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished find your size women long since, and the rule simply persists from blind find your size women imitation of the past.”⁴¹

Again, a little history tell if women find you attractive lesson may be in order. The argument, when illuminated by the facts find zimbabwean women, doesn’t hold water.

A) Gay Love And Marriage Historically find single women online

The argument fails on a fourth find asian women online ground as well: it simply is not true. Marriage is not naturally, normally tell if women find you attractive, or even traditionally heterosexual in nature find older women online. Gay unions have been sanctioned in various find zimbabwean women historical eras and cultures from ancient Greece to 17th Century China do women find zyzz attractive to pre-colonial America. Indeed, a 1951 survey find your size women of sexual practices around the world drew the following do women find zyzz attractive conclusions:

To illustrate the presence of gay love cross-culturally and historically, I will explore tell if women find you attractive some of those civilizations which find zimbabwean women have recognized and accepted same-sex unions. Please keep in mind that this is meant find your size women solely as a cursory overview, and is by no means an exhaustive tell if women find you attractive list.¹

Africa: "Woman-Marriages"

In the 1930s, the phenomenon of “woman-marriages” in the Sudan and northern find thai women online Nigeria, once dismissed as an odd curiosity, was given do women find zyzz attractive considerable attention when anthropologists tell if women find you attractive Eileen Jensen Krige and Melville Herskovits find your size women researched and published a study of the Nuer tribe in Sudan:

Anthropologist C.K. Meek described the institution as it currently exists in northern find zimbabwean women Nigeria:

Ancient Greece:

It is widely accepted find cougar women online that same-sex eroticism was common in ancient Greece find women in zurich, especially among the upper find older women online classes. In fact, a great deal of Greek do women find zyzz attractive art and literature represents gay love as the only form of love which can be lasting find your size women, pure, and truly spiritual – primarily because find thai women online it reaches beyond procreation in purpose.⁴⁵ For instance, the concept of “Platonic find thai women online love” derived from Plato’s conviction that only love between find women in zurich persons of the same gender could transcend women zeroxposur swimwear find your style sex.⁴⁶

The Greek notion that homosexuality do women find zyzz attractive was an integral part of the spectrum of human sexuality is perhaps find cougar women online best exemplified in Plato’s Symposium, where Plato tell if women find you attractive puts forth a theory on the origins of human ways to find women online love. According to this theory, all humans tell if women find you attractive were originally giants who had four arms, four legs, two heads, and two sexual organs find your size women — either two male genitalia (male giants) women zeroxposur swimwear find your style, two female genitalia (female giants), or one of each (androgynous find women in zurich giants). At some point, Zeus became tell if women find you attractive angry with the giants and cut them all in half, yielding find your bmi online women gay, lesbian and heterosexual humans respectively, all in search find zimbabwean women of their other halves.⁴⁷

Additionally, many of the Gods of ancient Greece, including Zeus and Achilles ways to find women online, had both same-sex and opposite-sex lovers. Indeed, according do women find zyzz attractive to Greek mythology, when Zeus returns up to the heavens find single women online, it is Ganymede, his male lover, whom he chooses to accompany him for all eternity find women in zurich.

Ancient China:

Gay male love was also fully integrated and accepted in the Fukien ways to find women online Province of ancient China. Indeed do women find zyzz attractive, among the ancient Chinese, same-sex love was commonly find women in zurich spoken of as “the love of the cut sleeve.” The phrase referred find women in zurich to the last emperor of the Han dynasty, Ai-Ti, who cut the sleeve from his shirt when called do women find zyzz attractive to give a speech rather than wake his lover, Tung Hsien find your size women, who had fallen asleep on it.⁴⁸

Ancient Mesopotamia:

Finally, the Epic of Gilgamesh, the most celebrated of Near Eastern myths find your size women, illustrates the celebration of same-sex tell if women find you attractive love in Ancient Mesopotamia. The epic describes find cougar women online the relationship between Gilgamesh — the powerful ruler find older women online of Uruk — and Enkidu, a beautiful male created by the Gods to divert Gilgamesh’s women zeroxposur swimwear find your style attention and keep him from wreaking havoc on the world.

As the story goes, Gilgamesh and Enkidu become lovers do women find zyzz attractive before Enkidu is killed by “the fates.” find women in zurich When Enkidu dies, Gilgamesh mourns for him as a widow tell if women find you attractive (literally translated from the epic as “a wailing woman”) would find thai women online and veils his corpse as if he were a bride find older women online.⁴⁹

Pre-Colonial America:

Accounts by Spanish explorers and missionaries provide find thai women online evidence of same-sex marriages find thai women online in North and South America. For instance find cougar women online, in 1542 explorer Cabeza de Vaca recounted the five years he spent do women find zyzz attractive among the Timucua Indians of Florida: “During the time I was thus among do women find zyzz attractive these people I saw a devilish thing, and it is that I saw one man married find your size women to another.”⁵⁰Similarly, Pedro de Magalhaes’s The Histories of Brazil, published tell if women find you attractive in 1576, described women in northeastern Brazil find zimbabwean women who “give up all the duties of women and imitate men, and follow find cougar women online men’s pursuits as if they were not women…. [E]ach has a woman find older women online to serve her, to whom she says she is married, and they treat find asian women online each other and speak with each other find black women online as man and wife.”⁵¹

As may be gleaned from the tone of these find your size women accounts, same-sex unions find zimbabwean women were hardly looked upon favorably by the colonists. Indeed women zeroxposur swimwear find your style, gay marriages among the Native find single women online Americans were seen as evidence of the “barbarism” of these find women in zurich foreign cultures, and were denounced find thai women online in the most vociferous of tones. As the engraving find your size women below illustrates, when the colonists find women in zurich ultimately conquered the Native-American tribes their find your size women denunciations took a more savage turn – find asian women online countless gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people find asian women online were brutally massacred.

1594 Theodor de Bry engraving of Balboa find single women online using dogs to massacre Native-American find women in zurich berdache.

Modern American History:

While gay marriages have yet to be formally recognized in the United States outside find your size women of Massachusetts, same-sex love and lifelong monogamous find your size women commitments have been documented for quite some time. One means by which find cougar women online two people of the same sex could live together without provoking find your size women suspicion was by having one partner cross-dress. Indeed, records kept by the Dutch do women find zyzz attractive East India Company reveal hundreds of women find cougar women online caught “passing” as men, and as many as four hundred find asian women online women are known to have passed as men while serving in the Union find your size women Army during the Civil War.

Franklin Thompson (Sarah Emma Edmonds) fought for the Union find asian women online Army in the Civil War.

Among female cross-dressers, a substantial number find women in zurich sought female companionship, and hundreds legally find asian women online married other women. For example, Mary Anderson find older women online, who died in 1901, “passed” as a man in New York City for thirty years. Hall ran a lucrative find your size women business, was active in Tammany Hall politics, gained find zimbabwean women a reputation as a “man about town,” and married find women in zurich twice — the first marriage women zeroxposur swimwear find your style ending in separation and the second do women find zyzz attractive by her wife’s death.⁵²

The industrial revolution brought find your size women great change to American culture find cougar women online, foremost among them being the advent find your size women of economic independence. For the first time in history, the family find your size women unit was no longer necessary for individual tell if women find you attractive economic survival – men and women do women find zyzz attractive could work in factories, earn wages find cougar women online, and survive on their own. As a result find cougar women online, same-sex relationships blossomed find asian women online as individuals could decide whether to marry women zeroxposur swimwear find your style (or not), or raise children (or not).

For women, these long-term ways to find women online monogamous relationships became known as “Boston tell if women find you attractive marriages,” named after do women find zyzz attractive a female couple in Henry James’ 1885 novel find women in zurich The Bostonians. Boston marriages were popular find your size women among well-educated, professional find women in zurich women in particular.⁵³For men, emotional and sexual find thai women online needs were similarly gratified in “buddy” relationships find women in zurich during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Men in frontier find women in zurich communities without women tended to form personal tell if women find you attractive and often sexual partnerships with other men, a phenomenon find your size women documented in countless communities of pirates ways to find women online, hoboes, cowboys and miners find women in zurich.⁵⁴

To put it succinctly, same-sex unions have long been recognized women zeroxposur swimwear find your style, sometimes formally and sometimes find single women online informally, in innumerable civilizations find women in zurich and eras throughout time. Any argument that marriage is, always find zimbabwean women has been, and therefore must be heterosexual in nature do women find zyzz attractive is normatively and historically fallacious.