I hate word redefinition in political philosophy (misuse of the terms "rights" and "justice" really get to me), but I don't think that is what is happening here. "Gay marriage" is simple a specification of "marriage," like "straight marriage" and "polygynous marriage." What we're looking at is instead the recodification of marriage, which has been traditionally codified (in the developed Western world's case) to be between one man and one woman.
I agree with this.
That's a highly inflammatory example. Ancient Greek culture allowed for certain sexual practices with young boys, but that's obviously not part of modern culture, including modern gay culture. If we want to have a discussion about the relative qualifications of average single men or women vs. average gay or lesbian couples, let's have that discussion, and we can get into the minutia of adoption policy. That's the only place I expect this to "get very tricky." But what you're suggesting seems to be that acceptance of gay marriage will lead to acceptance of legalized pedophilia, an idea you're presenting without evidence.
I agree that this is a highly inflammatory example Sparkey. Please allow me to clarify (and also site examples).
Firstly, I don't think homosexual males are any more likely to molest children than heterosexual males. However, compared to women... both male groupings probably commit these crimes much more frequently than their female counterparts. The recent highly publicized trend of female teachers seducing their male students might eventually effect these numbers on a macro level, but I don't think we're any close to this point yet.
Secondly, our complex societies would not be able to function without laws and contracts. Ask most any social scientist what the most basic legal contract is-- odds are he or she will say the marriage contract. This is THE historical binding agent between a man and a woman in the West. Altering this building block of society will have huge consequences.
Thirdly, (and this is where it gets controversial-- I don't want to get banned so I will limit my statement to this comment)... the Western World has been constructed on Judeo-Christian values. We have looked to the Bible to determine what is acceptable behavior and what isn't. The Bible has served as our collective set of directions to living life.
I've noticed that whenever a man (or group of men) decide that these laws don't apply to them-- big problems seem to pop up from every corner. You asked me to site examples other than the Greeks-- the most obvious is the Catholic priest situation. These priests started thinking they were above Biblical Law, or that these laws no longer applied to them and they abused their authority terribly.
Another example of someone who mistakenly believed the laws no longer applied to them... Michael Jackson. He became so rich and powerful he thought he could do anything, or anyone unfortunately. We all watched that train wreck-- a weird theme park, questionable sleep-overs, multiple pay-offs, plus pet monkeys and oxygen chambers.
So the crux of my point is that when we have members of society that start to veer off the roadmap provided to us by God... I don't see positive things happening. What happens if the whole of society decides to go off-road?
The nuclear family has served us well in raising our children and I think society works best with men and women together raising the next generation. Each compliments the other and frankly I don't see another system that will work better.