When we're talking about "gay marriage," I think we're really talking about the legal status of marriage.

Religions can continue to do whatever they want, and define things however they'd like.  But if we're going to have a "legal marriage" (which we probably shouldn't at all, for problems just like these, but whatever... too late to close the barn door), then let's open it up to all of our citizens.

Current theory doesn't actually have there being a gay gene as such. I think the most likely thing seems to be at the moment that homosexuality is caused by hormones in the mother during pregnancy.

Not that I want to spawn another week-long debate, but...
Rubang,
When you say "They're humans, they're normal, and they deserve equal rights" you realize that would mean we would have to allow everything, right (except for the normal part, as homosexuality isn't in the norm (statistically speaking, I mean))? So, you must mean something else that would justify this behavior.

Everything that causes no harm, then yeah sure.

In fact I'd go so far as to say that given the present over-population homosexuality is highly advantageous to the human race.

Legal benefits between consenting homosexuals is fine. One of the arguments is that gay culture isn't interested in monogamy.

For example:

• 20% of homosexuals have had more than 51 sexual partners.
  
• 8% have had more than 300 partners
• 2.7% have had only 1 partner

The last study has also shown than "all couples with a relationship lasting more than 5 years have incorporated some provision for outside sexual activity in their relationships."...Do you realize how damning that is for benefits/acklowledgement for recognizing rights for a group of people that really aren't interested in monogamy?

I'm not trying to demonize homosexuals. But those are in fact, actual statistics about the community. With a culture that's not interested in marriage....Why should it be awarded that? How about every homosexual bath house is closed in America, in return for gay marriage? Would that be acceptable to the gay community?

yeah, cause no straight person has had alot of partners?

where are you getting this statistics and are you serious?

I really don't know what to say? are we in the same universe where marriage has become a  joke in the straight community? we have people getting married for money, immigration, fame, pregnancy, forced, and you go after those they werent allowed.

They have groups of straight people who swap patners right here in nyc all the times. And, if you read your stats right, you'll realize that's not gay or straight, its just men in general are whores.

It is normal because it naturally occurs in humans and most other mammals.

It is acceptable because it doesn't harm anybody else.

If you're going to go by statistics, then blonde hair is abnormal.  I think we should treat being gay as if it were just as boring as being blonde.

And yes, I think we should allow everything that doesn't harm people.  I don't see how being born with a particular trait harms anybody.  If you're born gay, straight, blonde, white, black, male, female, or anything in between, or a midget or a hermaphrodite or with any mental or physical deformity or disability in any way, I don't think that should affect any legal status in any way.

Gay culture is, what?  How "most gays" act, according to the study you've found?

And, if there's a homosexual who doesn't fit the stereotypes you're presenting here, that person is SOL, because others of "his kind" don't act the way you think they ought to act?

1) It seems as though this leaves ~77% of the sample unaccounted for.  77%, to me, is quite a bit.

2) Do we have comparable numbers for the heterosexual community?  These numbers seem fairly meaningless to me, if we don't have what I guess you'd call "the norm" to compare them to.

3) So?

If there was any given part of the straight community that had these same numbers (a particular ethnicity, or religious group, or whatever), would that mean that community shouldn't have the legal right to marriage?

Marital monogamy is not the same thing as sexual monogamy.  Though the Old Testament demands putting adulterers to death (God is Love), in contemporary society marital partners, straight or gay, may choose not to be sexually monogamous to one another.

Wanting to have sexual variety is not the same thing as not wanting one life partner.

Fortunately, we're not discussing the rights of a "culture"; we're discussing individual human rights.

And people should be "awarded" rights due to being human beings.

Most straight men would gladly do that if their wives would let them.  This is a horrible generalization, but the stereotypical traditional way of looking at it is all men are whores who want sex all the time, and women want security more than sex.  If 2 men get together, they have sex all the time.  If a man and a woman get together, they start out having crazy sex all the time, but then slow down as the woman's libido slows down.  If 2 lesbians get together, this effect is greater, and lesbians end up barely having sex.  I know that's horribly generalizing and insulting to gays, lesbians, straight men, and straight women, but that's the way many people think about this.

Also, it's not illegal to have multiple partners, so that shouldn't affect gay marriage.

And even if some gays don't care about marriage, that shouldn't affect the law in any way.  There are gays that do want to get married.  There are just as many straight people who never get married, or have multiple partners, and they don't ruin it for the rest of us, so the promiscuous gay community shouldn't ruin it for the gays that want to be married.