"Heartless lack of concern"??? The poor kid has no mother!

Savage's personal distaste for the opposite sex is hardly reason enough to deprive a kid of both a real mother, and married parents. Heartless indeed.

I'm sorry, but I don't understand what a mother can do for a child that a caring man cannot. Does one need breasts to be a good mother, or is a vagina a necessity? Having two caring parents, whatever their sexes, is the important part, not how they're biologically constructed.

Savage gets it wrong. This is a game of hide the ball being played, and he and others play into it. As the first poster above demonstrates, this isn't about factual assertions or arguments. it's about pure emotions. The reason why this struggle is like so many other struggles of minorities in this country before us is not that we are exactly like other minorities, it's that the same rule book for manipulation of facts and argumetns apply. Once you win in one area, they will put up another argument. ie, here you can point to as many children, as many studies, and a many deconstructions of their flawed logic as you want, they will simply change the location of the ball. In the law, one of my professor used to call this the 'dance.'

Hmm. If Dan is such a proponent of marriage -- and is married himself (despite being recognized only in Canada), why does he downplay his marriage and parenthood by calling his husband a "boyfriend"? This term tends to give his partner a temporary status...

Geeze I hate living in a fundamentalist theocracy! Where's my Burka?

As a married, gay man, I have struggled with what to call my partner. He is not my wife, nor do I like calling him husband. We think of each other as partners, but the word partner does not convey the meaning of marriage in general parlance. I end up referring to him as my spouse in public, a wholly dissatisfying word to both of us.

The fact is, marriage is brand new to the modern GLBT community and it's going to take our culture (and vocabulary) some time to adapt. One day, gays and lesbians will KNOW how to refer to their spouses in public, just as straights do today. But my view is just about anything is better than using husband and wife.

Yes, marriage is brand new to GLBT community and it's traditions and vocabulary are totally inadequate to describe couples in same sex relationships. There is a good reason for the quandary same sex couples find themselves in. Marriage was designed for heterosexual couples. Period. In order for gay couples to feel comfortable within this institution they will have to modify to suit their needs. Therein lies the problem. Married people don't walk around talking about their "spouses" or "partners". They have very adequate terms to refer to their counterparts...i.e. husband or wife.

History does not agree with you, LatteLady. In China it was common for one man to have multiple wives, as it was in the Middle East. In some cultures in India, it was not uncommon for one woman to have multiple husbands. In some African cultures, it was common for women to take other women as their wives. So you see, marriage has included situations where there were persons of the same sex married to each other.

Marriage was not designed for "heterosexual couples," it was designed to protect property and identity rights. Couples were not the only sanctioned marriages in history, and neither were heterosexuals.

Marty, if you had any clue about Dan's situation, you'd know that his adopted son has ongoing contact with his mother and that she continues to play a role in his life, and you'd also know that Dan and his boyfriend were married in Canada last year. What they aren't is married legally. Dan's not depriving his child of married parents - the state of Washington is.

Besides, parents can have sole-custody, single people can have or adopt children, and widowed spouses are allowed to keep their kids. When straight people want to raise children without a mother or father, no one seems to bat an eyelash.