[Tex]

Cardiac,

I was addressing specific, invalid logical arguments in favor of gay marriage, a topic quite separate from the emotional aspects to this issue. One can be completely unsympathetic or fully sympathetic to the plight of gays, and still recognize how silly the above arguments are. I do detect two new ones in your response, which I'll add to the list as follows:

7. We should allow gay marriage because gays really, really want it, and we feel bad for them.

And then this one, not really an argument for gay marriage but a logical fallacy nonetheless:

8. If you disagree with gay marriage, you obviously don't know anyone who's gay.

I trust I don't need to explain why neither of these are compelling arguments. All 8 of these statements have their foundation in ad hominems and appeals to emotion, rather than sound reasoning.

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At the risk of veering off the point, I will briefly address your issue of empathy. It's not that I don't feel empathy for gays; I do, but not in the way you'd like. I feel bad for gays in the same way I feel bad for anyone who makes immoral choices. I have felt tremendous sorrow over some I have known who have made this choice, because I believe in the long run it puts them further at odds with God, and thus, with eternal happiness.

And this is the root of the problem for you and I: we cannot agree on a premise. You want me to accept homosexuality as axiomatically normal. I can't do that. But that doesn't mean I have no feeling at all towards the individuals it affects; it is, however, an entirely separate thing from the logical arguments in favor of and against gay marriage.