I'm going to go ahead and stick my neck out for a moment here, and talk about marriage.

I want to warn you in advance: I'm not really eloquent, and I'm not terribly meticulous. I have no illusions about the strength of my voice or the originality of my phrasing. If it is a rigorous case you want, Jesurgislac has a better analysis - I'm here to speak my mind.

Let me start with questions: What is "marriage"? What is "civil marriage"? And why do we recognize it?

I will try to answer these questions, but I will do so through this last, through the word "recognize" - recognition is the key to the whole business. Civil marriage is no more than the recognition of an earlier marriage, an alliance above and beyond the reach of law. There's a reason marriage sometimes happens in churches - the bond whose existence is affirmed and celebrated in these ceremonies is ... special, for lack of a better word. (I said I wasn't eloquent.)

What, then, is this earlier marriage?

In a word, it is love. It is dedication. The willingness to swear an oath, equal to equal, which in the common phrasing of these things often resembles this: "To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part." (Till death do us part? It is of no consequence, the meaning is clear.) It is a brash and daring refutation of the mundane cussedness of existence, the seemly invincible force of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and the cynicism of the worldly - it declares, to amend a phrase attributed to Martin Luther: "Here we stand. We can do no other. God help us. Amen."

We choose as a people to recognize these bonds, as I have said. Today, then, we must recognize one more thing: what we recognize in these bonds is not the perpetuation of traditional gender roles, is not the perpetuation of the species, is not a perpetuation of anything preceding themselves. It is the bond itself.

No on California Prop 8.

For those of you not following the issues closely: present polling has this going either way. If you agree with me - and I know better than to hold it against you if you don't - noonprop8.com seems to be the headquarters for the opposition. Please: throw a couple bucks in the jar, if you can spare them, and pass the word.