My apologies for the delay in response.  I was away. 

"But the government can, and should, infringe on those rights in the interest of "public Welfare," as it says in the document, or the safe guarding of other rights."

Here is where your subjectivity comes into play.  Should convicted felons be allowed to purchase firearms?  The vast majority of reasonable people will agree that this is a bad idea, hence a background check.  I referred specifically to "waiting periods" and "limits on types of weapons".   You obviously appreciate the concept of drawing a line.  The difference between "liberals" and "conservatives" is that liberals tend to start drawing more and more lines about rights and liberties guaranteed by our Constitution. 

So what most reasonable people agree is a valid line to be drawn in the 2nd Ammendment about background checks, turns into a slippery slope (I'm not fond of that term, but it works for now).  It's all in the "interests of the public welfare" from here.  You see, a background check is reasonable because there's a need to know if the customer has already forfeited some of their basic rights as an American citizen.  Ultimately, this is no infringement upon anyone's rights.  It's the same as employers or landlords running a background check on their respective applicants.  

But then, more citizens concerned for "public welfare" think that waiting periods would increase public safety.  The reasons for this are purely arbitrary and are clear infringements.  The next line gets drawn...

The demand for limits on the types of firearms grows for similar arbitrary reasons.  The Constitution doesn't say "shall not infringe upon the right to bear arms on a pre-approved government list".  Your argument about owning "nuclear bombs" is as predicatable as it is silly.  Cost prohibitions and availability aside, lets look at it from the purely philosophical.  I'll keep it short.  There can be no lawful use of such a device.  Hopefully that won't require more explanation.  Perhaps you could use a different example?

Regardless, the next line is drawn and slowly but surely, liberty is restricted "for the public welfare".  Meanwhile, the very ills these restrictions were designed to mitigate rage on unchecked.  The sadly clichéd line concerning outlaws and guns hits home harder every day.  The lines you keep drawing only box in those who respect the lines.

"I honestly don't understand how any one with a personal committment to the ideals of liberty and equal treatment under the law can stand for marriage for some people but not others.  Maybe you can explain it to me."

A veiled assumption about me, but an assumption nonetheless. 

As has been pointed out in posts above, it comes down to the definition of marriage.  I see you have tried to make a few linguistic contortions above and have been effectively called on it, so I will leave that be.  I have no problem with a homosexual couple that wishes to form a civil union.  I have no problem with any state government that wishes to reform its codes and statutes to guarantee the exact same rights to a homosexual couple to any married heterosexual couple.  I would proudly live in such a state.  As has also been pointed out below, in reality, this is ultimately about contract law.  The honest gay and lesbian community acknowledges this and knows that trying to claim "right to marry" is just grandstanding.  

***(slightly off topic) Your arguments in above posts are intriguing.  You argue against polygamy with the same logic that heterosexuals argue against homosexual marriage.  Consider that 50 years ago, the idea of homosexual marriage was way out on the fringe.  And it was farther out on the fringe than polyamory is today.  You mistakenly assert that "young people" support gay marriage (many do, many don't).  Many of them also support polyamory.  Polyamory is one step removed from polygamy...a short step at that. 

Your argument above that polygamous relationships are unequal is weak.  How are these relationships "inherently unequal"?  I'm interested in your explanation.  Also, how are polygamous relationships "fundamentally different"?***

Back to the subject at hand.

"Female mammals get the short end of the stick, no pun intended, when it comes to reproduction. They carry all of the risk and investment, most male mammals contribute little to the equation."

This sour grapes attitude is childish and a very poor intellectual foundation.

"The trade off is control.  Females are in charge of everything other than DNA that goes into making offspring, and that lets them manipulate variables that might be beneficial to them."

So at what point does a human child cease being a variable to be manipulated in your mind?

"They also get to manipulate whether or not to have offspring."

Yes, the higher brain functions with which humans have been endowed have given us the ability to choose when to reproduce.  We are able to evaluate a host of wildly complex variables in our environment and subsequently exercise judgment over instinct.  Considering our technological advances as a species, females aren't the only ones able to "manipulate" the process either, but that's a minor quibble. 

Our higher brain function also enables us to recognize the value of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  We have also advanced so far beyond other mammals in that we conceived 'rights' and the laws to protect those rights.  Our societal constructs have enabled us to behave as humans, and not barbarians or lower order species.  We do not allow intruders to kill our young, nor do we allow mothers to eat their babies.  Men killing or maiming other men so that they may rape women is also disallowed among humans, despite the "mammal" tag. 

Interestingly enough, our society (including you) frowns upon polygamous relationships, yet many mammal species find it kinda nifty.  The parallels to the animal kingdom, while convenient in a pinch, really don't even stand up to mild scrutiny.  It's why you wasted so much time offering that absurd mammalian preamble, then threw it out with:

"None of those things are possible or socially acceptable for human females."

Because you're smarter than that.

Then you offer this highly disengenuous remark:

"People should still be personally responsible..."

Everything you wrote after that is antithetical to personal responsibility.  If you believe abortion is ethical and acceptable, then just say so and leave it at that.  Don't offer platitudes just to seem moderate.

Sure society does a piss poor job of helping out our unwanted children.  Always has, always will.  No amount of money or expansion of social services will change that.  That's why personal responsibility is so important.  However your solution doesn't promote the personal responsibility you so claim to appreciate.

While your care for children and concern for suffering is admirable, I find it difficult to reconcile that with your advocation of the intentional snuffing out of human life for purposes of convenience.  Getting the discussion back to the Constitution, your view begs the question - when do you feel a human is entitled to the "equal treatment" you so cherish?

They feel they must get married. Why dont they make up their own ceremony, and services. What is preventing them from doing that? Why do they feel the need to make a mockery of the marriage of a man and woman? They seem to hold everything else we love in contempt, then they wonder why folks dont appreciate them much?

My Gov. thinks I am dangerous, so be careful

"Television is a freak show" Bernie Goldberg

Once you can understand my argument?  I think you understand it perfectly... you've only asked one question in your most recent post-- what is more important than the right to life of a potential human, genetically distinct from it's mother?

As far as I'm concerned, I think that the mother's right to terminate the physical investment that keeps that baby alive is more important.  You admit that the egg is a part of me, and I get to do with it what I will.  But even when that egg combines with a sperm, until it can survive on it's own, I still consider it part of the mother-- it may have different genes, but it is still completely dependent on her body, her energy, her hormones and minerals and amino acids.  Everything that builds that baby, physically, comes from the mother.  The genes just tell the stuff where to go and what to look like.  Carrying a child is a risk, and women should have the right to abandon that effort.  I suppose I don't think there are any other rights aside from that one that are more important than the baby's right to life.

You may find my position barbaric-- certainly I would never have characterized my opinion about whether or not fetuses that are aborted should have to feel any pain as a "right," but you demanded to know what rights I thought they should have and I figured that counts.  

I still think you are oversimplifying the way our founding documents define people.  The Constitution doesn't really say much about it at all.  When the Declaration says that all "men" have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, I could argue that that must, logically, mean that they didn't consider slaves to be "men."  Were women "men"?  Were unborn babies "men?"  I don't really have an argument to make here because I am no historian, and I don't know enough about prevailing attitutes at the time to know if it is reasonable to apply the logic I just outlined.  If you do, lay it out there-- but don't just tell me it's simple, man=person=human being unless you have some evidence that you're right.

So, other than that, do you have any other questions about my position that you need resolved before we can get on to the point at which you answer some of my questions?

The link just went to a Wiki article on Roe v. Wade. If you scroll down, you can see the Douglass quote. 

Douglass said that the lower court used the ninth amendment to reach it's conclusion, but that the SC rejected that in favor of the fourteenth.

I would imagine that Scalia believes that the "other" rights should be discerned by the people, through the legislative processes of the states. He basically says that the courts have no power to grant rights, that that power lies with us. That is why so many of us on the right abhor Roe v. Wade, because we believe a conferred a new right to expectant mothers through judicial fiat. 

I hope I have made some things clearer for you as to our thought processes. Whether you agree or not, I cannot change, but I think I have proven that being against abortion is more than just a religious conviction, even if maybe religion plays the biggest role. There are implications legally and Constitutionally that are worrisome to us regarding Roe v. Wade. 

Beyond that, I believe that using abortion as an after the fact profilactic is babaric and downright shameful. These are lives we are discussing when you boil it down. 

"If the man, with the power, can't keep it under control...some heads are gonna roll." -Judas Priest