[TheRealThing]

⬆⬆ From two consenting adults seeking equal protection under the law, we deviate to drug addiction, alcoholism, etc. Logic joined Elvis and left the building.

I realize a lot of posters on this forum have a "God first" viewpoint, and that colors everything. However, a close reading of the cited document suggests the argument being made is thus:

▶Human beings are created and endowed with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty, pursuit of happiness.

▶ The civil authority is not the originator of those rights, thus has not legitimate authority to take them without cause, subject to due process. The civil authority exists to safeguard those rights, and to ensure them in the present and to posterity.

Now, we come again to two consenting adults, not asking for heroin and a needle, or a case of bourbon, or a sheep with which to mate, but rather asking that the protection of marriage be afforded them under the seal of the state. May two consenting drug addicts marry? Alcoholics? Ah, but the state says, "But they are male and female. And God says marriage is only for male and female."

I just cannot concur that marriage should be denied two consenting adults by the civil authority. No one is positing what that union is in God's eyes, but for the purposes of the State, and equal protection under its laws, the seal is granted.

You could concur, but you won't. And even if you couch your protests in your best powdered wig par écrit du jour, you know my argument makes sense.