"Jesus would rather kill, not marry, gay people" - Franklin Graham

[Angrboda]

If one wants to incline in that direction, then marriage likely has been nothing more than an exclusivistic bonding between one sexual being and another throughout the course of history.  In that case, there likely have been same-sex marriages throughout the course of history, they just haven't been recognized as such by legal or religious authorities.  Which raises the question of specifically what you're referring to by 'marriage'.  As already observed, you seem to conflate talking about the definition of the word with talking about the institution, depending on what's most convenient at the time.  Now you have raised the question of whether you're talking about a formal and officially recognized institution, or an informal one, not involving either religion or government.  Given that humans are animals and as a behavior, are inclined to engage in pair bonding, it's reasonable to conclude that same-sex unions, informally, have a longer history than you're acknowledging.  As noted in prior discussion, homosexual subcultures have existed for a long time.  Are you suggesting that people in such sub-cultures didn't engage in such pair bonding simply because they were homosexual?  If so, I'd like to see your argument for that.  Otherwise, you're likely simply wrong that heterosexual unions have set any kind of standard, historically.  This is especially true when one acknowledges the fact that sanction of homosexual behavior is long standing, and any heterosexual bias in the representation of same-sex unions among officiators of such, whether formal authorities or religion, is likely an artifact of prejudice rather than a reflection of the true state of human behavior.  In short, your marriage argument appears to be foundering on the anvil of some very foundational questions.

What am I referring to by the word marriage? Starting in 2000 (for nice round numbers) and going back 1000 years at at time you asked 100 people from every civilization on the planet what the definition was. The answer you get is the one I am talking about. The one that has been at the center of every civilization that we know of. When you show me that the answer is anything other than between a man and a women, then I will take note of your equivocating charge.

Fine. Then you are arguing that an institution enforced by prejudice should be maintained because prejudice is good, n' stuff. Overruled!

What happened to the 10,000 years argument? You know Steve, if you didn't jettison portions of the argument simply because they've become inconvenient and blithely sail on to the next safe harbor, people would be more likely to believe you when you say you're not a bigoted fuckhead.

Wikipedia says the following about the appeal to tradition, "Appeal to tradition (also known as argumentum ad antiquitatem, appeal to antiquity, or appeal to common practice) is an argument in which a thesis is deemed correct on the basis that it is correlated with some past or present tradition. The appeal takes the form of "this is right because we've always done it this way." ... An appeal to tradition is only a fallacious argument in itself if the argument is not developed further, for example by pointing out that the widespread acceptance of the practice means that there would be significant implications/disruption/cost involved in abandoning the tradition." It seems that at every turn, even if the discussion turned to a more substantial discussion of changing the institution as such and whether such is desirable, you've managed to turn it back toward a rather hollow 'mere' appeal to tradition. If people don't buy your argument and think you're likely a prejudiced cunt and a wanker, I think you have only yourself to blame. As presented by you, the argument from tradition is simply a non-starter.