Marriage is a Contract you must enter with Mutual Consent

A woman cannot marry a man unilaterally, or visa versa. (This is why I am not married to Jessica Alba, for instance.)

Both parties must be legally competent to consent and both must, in fact, consent to the marriage.


At such time as a dog, a toddler, a box turtle, a tomato plant or a sofa can legally consent to a marriage, or anything else, really, then we can take up the question of whether an adult human being can marry any of those "partners."

But our system of law holds that plants, animals, objects, ideas and even young human beings cannot consent to enter into contracts or other binding arrangements. On the other hand, both gay adults and heterosexual adults can consent to such things. That is why they, being adult humans, can get married while a potted fern and a bicycle are doomed to live together in sin.

I would suggest that we all remember this handy formulation and use it to abuse the living Hell out of any knuckle-head claiming that adult human marriage equality will lead to inter-species marriage, pedophile marriage, man on dog, etc..