(When libertarians won’t engage in second-best debates, they are called dogmatic. When they do engage in second-best debates, they are accused of selling out their principles. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.)

No argument against its veracity, then. I guess as a non-hipster, I don’t find aesthetic conisderations as compelling as you do, Sanchez.

Of course, as a libertarian, Sanchez’s argument should be that the gov’t has no place in the marriage game to begin with. But that argument wouldn’t get him many DC cocktail party invites.

That said, I wasn’t really taking issue with that whole thing — that’s an old argument. I was making fun of Charen’s apparent belief that bisexuals are, per se, incapable of monogamy. Which isn’t just wrong on its face, it’s so preposterously, obviously wrong that it just drives home that queer folks are like some sort of exotic species to Charen, about whom she has to spout inane theories in lieu of having observed any in the wild.

There are at least some people — including some but not all bisexuals — who don’t feel sexually fulfilled when involved with just one person. We call these people polyamorous, and most of us liberal-minded folks recognize their existence when we’re not having a political conversation. (Listen to a few episodes of Dan Savage’s podcast, for instance.) Moreover, many of our arguments in favor of gay marriage have implications far beyond the specific issue. When we talk about freedom of association, for instance, that implies the right of people to form polyamorous relationships.

I think the appropriate response to the slippery slope argument here is to concede the point. Yes, this is a slippery slope — a slope toward freedom, which we should jump on with a toboggan.

Just because I’m bisexual doesn’t mean I don’t understand, and potentially want to enjoy, the benefits of a committed, monogamous relationship. And if I were to settle down with a nice girl (or boy) and stop sleeping around, I wouldn’t stop being bisexual. I’d still be attracted to members of both sexes, I’d just only be acting on that attraction with one particular individual.

My situation as regards marriage would be quite different from that of a gay man or woman who could only marry a member of the opposite sex. Sure, I would have chosen not to act on one facet of my sexual identity, but I would as a result be able to be in an exclusive, loving, sexual, and legally-recognized relationship (assuming I settle down with a man and/or move to Massachusetts), whereas a gay person would have to choose between the sexual and the legally recognized bits in most states.

Look, sleeping with men and sleeping with women are different experiences, but for me ultimately they’re really more similar than not. Men and women aren’t interchangeable, but then people generally aren’t really interchangeable, and certainly aren’t in the sort of relationships that lead to marriage. Sleeping with any one person – at least if you’re doing it right – is a unique experience you couldn’t recreate with any other partner because they’re a unique individual. Monogamy is about valuing one unique person above all others, to the point that you’re willing to forego all other types of sexual experience that you might have with other partners, and that’s true whether you’re straight, gay or bisexual.

Let’s say Adam marries Elizabeth and Kristen. Adam writes a book, then kicks the bucket. A filmmaker wants to adapt the book to the screen. Elizabeth thinks it’s a nifty idea. Kristen thinks it wouldn’t be. Legally, who is in the right? The law says that the spouse gets control over copyrights. It doesn’t specify [i]which[/i] spouse, because under marriage, any person can only have one spouse. Marriage law is based on the assumption that anyone has one spouse (or zero).

Why do I bother, though? You’ll just say I’m making an arbitrary distinction and discriminating against bisexuals who believe that their sexuality means that marriage is discriminatory unless it allows bisexuals a husband and a wife each (a group of bisexuals of whose existence I’ve seen no evidence — at least, no more evidence than that of straights and gays who think they should be able marry polygamously, but regardless…).