1) The founding fathers thought rights were recognized, not granted, by humans. They were granted by God. If you think humans grant them, you must think they can take them away, and it's just a matter of who is strongest.
2) State-recognized marriage is not a right. Like copyright, it is the granting of certain privileges, at the expense of the state, with the expectation that the state will benefit. You have a human right to write books and songs, and you have a human right to choose a partner. Separately, the state may have laws to encourage those things. A law recognizing gay marriage is not saying "you're equal with everyone, you can drink from the same water fountains." It's saying "we encourage gay marriage. We want to incentivize it." What is the case for that? Seems like it should be a sociological, economic one.
1) More or less, yep. Even those "natural rights" had to be demanded and paid for in blood. I'm talking about how the world has worked so far, not how I think it should be. It's useful to pretend otherwise most of the time, but when shit goes down you can't afford that luxury.
2) Yep. In this case I mean rights as in "water rights" as opposed to higher-order natural rights. Pragmatic reasons to encourage gay marriage are largely the same as for regular ones: married people live longer and are generally more happy. Stable households mean stable communities. Sensible distribution of estates. More homes willing and able to adopt the millions of kids who need them. Etc. Procreation is not the entire or even the most important reason to encourage households.
Unfortunately those arguments don't hold water with people who think being gay is immoral in and of itself.
Gay marriage does not benefit the state. Marriage between a man and woman benefits the state in that a marriage is a structure designed to provide for the safe procreation & rearing of children. Gays, by definition, don't procreate.
Any society that accepts and encourages gay marriages is committing suicide.
2) State-recognized marriage is not a right. Like copyright, it is the granting of certain privileges, at the expense of the state, with the expectation that the state will benefit. You have a human right to write books and songs, and you have a human right to choose a partner. Separately, the state may have laws to encourage those things. A law recognizing gay marriage is not saying "you're equal with everyone, you can drink from the same water fountains." It's saying "we encourage gay marriage. We want to incentivize it." What is the case for that? Seems like it should be a sociological, economic one.