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Tom Tomorrow at The Nation on the embarrassingly crude pole-and-hole argument that has become the centerpiece of arguments against same-sex marriage:
"Sure, not every heterosexual couple can have children or even wants to, but they're still engaged in the act of the act of procreation!" It's all about finding the kind of biological mechanics that are "pleasing" to God, as a right-wing Catholic interlocutor explained to me at a National Catholic Reporter discussion thread recently, when I pointed out to him that his argument for banning gay couples from marriage since they cannot procreate applies equally to many heterosexual couples.
God is "pleased" only with pole-in-hole sexual behavior, my dialog partner hotly informed me, and "He" blesses heterosexual couples who cannot procreate because they are at least having "normal" and "natural" sex, as opposed to the kind of sex this Catholic gentleman imagines lesbian and gay couples having.
So, "Do you, penis, take this vagina as your traditional, lawfully-wedded opposite spouse?": this formulation of the marriage vows is exactly where the political and religious right have ended up, as they snatch at increasingly desperate arguments to keep the full range of human rights at bay for those who happen to have been made by God gay or lesbian.