For thousands of years, marriage has meant one thing: man and woman.  In many cases, it also means the the beginning of a healthy environment to create a family.  

Now, suppose I lose my wife and am left with my four children.  Then, my sister wants to help me raise the children and moves in.  Is that a "family"? YES.  Should I be able to "marry" my sister? NO!  Gays can adopt, gays can have family's but marriage means one thing and one thing only. 

Interesting choice of words, "power grab by the gay community".  What power are they trying to grab and does it take away any power you now have? Just asking.

First and foremost, the power of the First Amendment.  The reaction by Perez Hilton, and a vocal segement of the gay rights movement, in the wake of this answer and Prop 8, as well as any person who professes a view in the traditional man/woman definition of marriage is automatically labeled a "homophobe" or a "bigot", etc.  It is clear that our right to speak freely on the issue is being usurped by a smaller segment of society.

If you want a foretaste of our future, look to Canada, where many who've spoken in defense of the Judeo-Christian teaching on sexuality have been sued or persecuted under the law.  Rev. Stephen Boission (I think that's the correct spelling) was ordered by a court to NEVER write/speak/preach or engage in worship again on the basis that he wrote an editorial defending traditional marriage.

So this issue, for many, extends beyond just defending the traditional view of marriage and to the very core of our freedoms: the freedom to speak or worship freely.

If we can't speak our minds because it "offends" the gay community, that's a power grab. They are taking away our power to use the First Amendment to express our views and beliefs in the public sphere.

Additionally, in California and elsewhere, government is deriding textbooks, paperwork, and other references that are gender-specific.  That too is a power-grab, an attempt to androgynize the world to make "equal" men and women - when we aren't.  There's also an implied and obvious disdain for traditional gender roles - the notion that male/female are merely "social constructs", but that homosexuality (and any other sexual preference) is not, but perfectly natural and immutable.

When a group attempts to forcibly remake the world in its image, despite the fact that many have voted in favor of defending traditional marriage, and while attempting to deny the actual, written Constitutional rights of  those who object to certain behaviors, it is a "power grab."

Aut viam inveniam aut faciam

Doesn't matter if they can't have children.  They could adopt.  I for one never thought homosexuals should have been able to adopt unless it was from another family member or a friend.  In other words, I don't think homosexuals should be able to just go down to the adoption clinic and adopt this poor child that is not going to have a mother and a father.

balboa: "What if two hetero people who can't procreate want to get married?"

Bal and others, why are you limiting the definition of marriage to two people? Why is it that the gender is the issue and not the number. This is discrimination against polygamists.

If we're going to allow two women or two men to marry each other, why can't adults marry multiple partners? (Well, this does get a bit tricky because Bob wants to marry Carol and Ted and Alice, but Alice only wants to marry Carol and Ted; but I'm sure this is workable somehow.)

                  ~~save your tea, dump congress~~

First, if a heterosexual couple can't have children for biological reasons, that's not a choice they make.  Fertility is the sign of a healthy person; infertility is a health problem.

Second, if they choose not to have children, the difference comes in in that men and women are complimentary beings by nature, making the marriage more likely to better benefit both.

The tendency of men - gay or straight - is often to screw around and run away.  Women, on the other hand, are more emotionally grounded.  So the purpose of marriage - before it was also hijacked by "no fault divorce" and other such stupidity - was to encourage men to settle down and provide both men and women with a support system, etc.

Al Rantel, an openly gay talk show host, sums up the arguments against gay marraige in a column succinctly:

First and foremost of those questions is who said gays want to get
married in the first place? Lets look at the numbers. The highest
number of same sex households in America is ironically in
Massachusetts, however even then it is under 2 per cent of all
households. If gays make up five to ten per cent of the population as
is often claimed, one would expect this number to be five times larger.

As distressing as the state of the American family is today with the
high rate of divorce and adultery, the situation is far less stable
among gays. This is not a slur against gays as individuals, but rather
the reality of what occurs when you have what I call the all gas and no
brake environment of male/male sexuality. I should know. I am a gay
male.

To say that unfortunately the gay world is in a general state of
hyper-sexuality that is not conducive to relationships which marriage
was intended to foster is to put it mildly. Further, almost all of the
issues the gay left claims it is justifiably concerned about like
property, health, and financial partnership issues have already been
dealt with by many states and can be dealt with through further
legislation as needed. Such legal changes would encounter far less
political opposition.

Why then the seeming obsession by the gay left and their activist
judicial allies like the Massachusetts justices to force gay marriage
on an unwilling public?

There is an answer.

Forcing a change to an institution as fundamental and established by
civilization as marriage is deemed by gay activists and other cultural
liberals as the equivalent of the Good Housekeeping seal of approval
for homosexuality itself. The reasoning goes that if someone can marry
someone of the same sex then being gay is as acceptable and normal as
being short or tall.

While I certainly do not think people should be judged by who they
choose to love or how they choose to live their lives, the cultural
liberals in America are after more than that. They want to force others
to accept their social view, and declare all those who might have an
objection to their social agenda to be bigots, racists, and homophobes
to be scorned and forced into silence.

The gay left has still not matured into a position of self-empowerment,
but is still committed by and large to the idea that the rest of
society must bless being gay in every way imaginable. This includes
public parades in all major cities to remind everyone else of what some
people like to do in their private bedrooms while in the same breath
demanding to be left alone.

What more certifiable blessing than state sanctioned marriage of two
men or two women, even for a group that has offered no indication that
most even desire to enter into the kind of commitments that marriage
ideally entails, or that serves the real purpose of marriage. Marriage
exists in order to create a stable and structured environment for
couples to reproduce and raise their offspring.

And so we have come to yet another chapter in the story of those who
would portray themselves as victims in need of another sanction from
the state. This time the price of social acceptance of gays is the
redefinition of an institution that is thousands of years old and a
cornerstone of society. Does that really seem like a wise and prudent
choice for America to make at the wish of a handful of judges, and at
the behest of those whose real goals are more political than anything
else? 

Aut viam inveniam aut faciam

gang supports women who have been attacked/demeaned/whatever ONLY if they are followers of ALL RULES LIBERAL!   Conservative beliefs, forget it!

It is no dishonor to be in a minority in the cause of liberty and virtue. ~ Sam Adams

when everyone thought that Elizabeth Hasselbeck should denounce anyone and everyone who said something against Rosie?  Nevermind that Joy could spew any amount of bile against conservatives.

Memo to Hollyweird: We don't tune in to you to listen to your "look-at-me" speeches and using entertainment venues as platforms.

You can bet if it was a conservative using the pageant to ask about pro-life issues the media would be howling.