Note to moderation team: A friendly, calm, and respectful discussion about the origins of the so called gay rights with a special focus on marriage. The thread is void of any reference to hate speech. 

I'd just like to know where these so called gay rights stem from. It's not human rights. It does not follow that a man should be free from harassment (a human right) and also have a right to marry whomever he wants. This is the essential doctrine of gay rights (in my opinion). It seems to go from everyone's right to be free of harm to everyone's right to marry - a strange leap of faith. There is no such legal right to marry. It's a privilege with attached conditions and necessary exclusions. 

So what's the justification for allowing same-sex marriage? Equality doesn't cut it because there is no such thing as absolute, unqualified legal equality. The law is full of exceptions that are essentially discrimminatory. In the USA,  a man can be refused employment as a dressing room minitor at a female clothing store. A black man can be denied casting as a historically white character in a movie production. 

You know I did some searching on the origins of marraige and could not find a single common denominator. Throughout history, cultures have attached different conditions and different meanings to the union. Well, except one thing that was universal, namely marriage has always been between a man and a woman. Marriage may have changed but who married did not. That should say something about marriage between a man and a woman as a self-evident truth. 

Does this not mean that same-sex marriage is purely a political ideology? As such it can only be defensible under a relativist/social constructivist perspective. 

Please keep responses respectful. 

uhm.. how about its a token of love between 2 people? why shouldn't 2 men or 2 women be allowed to express that? Why should it be a man and a woman? is their love somehow stronger? better?

Of course same-sex marriage is political ideology, as it is denied to some people who vote.

i dont care what you do in your bedroom, and the state shouldnt favor one family over another.

Has nothing to do with love because marriage has not always been about love. Why is that virtually every culture throughout known history has allowed the practice between a man and a woman only? The answer is biological. It's a union between a man and a woman because they can produce an offspring. Therefore marriage is an institution of family and family is narrowly thus defined. 

yeah, the maya hadnt samesex marriage, so why should we?      if we look back in history, the most  civilised cultures all didnt hate on gays.

they didnt hang gay people in ancient athens or rome. those are the cultures we should look up to, and not some savages that couldnt get stuff done

Arguing that previous historical practices means we in the modern age can't change and adapt because of new ideas is no different to me saying "We once lived in caves, so why build houses when there are loads of caves about."

Family is defined by the dictionary, http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/family no mention of genders here.

It does not follow that gay people should be free from harassment and harm to gay people should be allowed to marry. It's a leap of faith that has no traceable connection to the precedent. 

Ask yourself this question: if two men/women want to get married, why can't they? I don't think anyone can deny marriage to gay people based on... nothing. It's not like gay marriage is toxic or something like that, let them do what they want ;)

Incorrect; same sex marriage existed in ancient Mesopotamia, and in Rome right up until the 4th century.