>That's a false analogy. The government has a different responsibility to it's citizens than you would have to two of your friends. [...] The fact that you would bring something like that up, does not bode well for your argument that your ability to reason is intact.

It's a narrow analogy meant to illustrate one specific point. It is reasonable to say that the analogy is not applicable to a government because it has an obligation to treat citizens legally (meaning that everything offered to one group must be offered to another), but this hardly seems a universally settled question. If we follow it, why are veterans given special benefits (because we "owe them one", as stated in the analogy for Friend A), and less justifiably, why does affirmative action exist? What about federal contracting quotas for minority or women-owned businesses? etc.

There are many cases where a distinction between groups is reasonable, despite your assertion that the government is obligated to treat all citizens identically. This applies even less to same sex marriage, though, because there is no inherent classification based on unchangeable effects or attributes. Sexual orientation does not enter into it; the government refuses to sanction or endorse same sex marriages for anybody. If I take another male to the marriage office, they will deny me based on my action, regardless of whether I have a natural sexual attraction to that person or not; I do not qualify for marriage because I have not met the defined requirements for the benefits the state has offered, not because I am a member of a certain biological group (as occurs in race, age, or sex discrimination). You do not have to try to marry someone or gain a governmental endorsement on your relationship just because you have a sexual attraction to that someone.

>This is extremely specious reasoning. By that rationale many atrocities of history are justified...the slaves wanted us to expand our definition of "human" and "free man".

No, if we did not have a special classification for "blacks" / "slaves" in the slavery era they would have existed as free men and there would be no force that could compel them to obey someone who claimed to be their master. This is what a natural right is: something that exists naturally and cannot be given by any entity; it can only be abused or protected. Self-direction is a natural right. Special endorsement, licensure, and privilege granted by the government to participants in a certain interpersonal relationship in exchange for certain social commitments ("we promise not to break up", etc.) (that is, marriage) is not a natural right; it is, in fact, something that can't even exist without the exercise of some fundamental criteria.

>At some point in time, some group of people sat down and decided marriage was between a man and a woman...that was an act of actively discriminating against another group of people.

You presume that the originators of marriage meant it as an arrangement between any two adults. It was not conceived as "let's make this agreement for any grown-ups that want to live together ... except gay people, because they're yucky". In the first place, the concept of marriage was a gift from God to mankind. That is where the idea originated (just as the idea of the existence of God was given to mankind as a gift from God, and passed through the generations by our fathers).

Legally it is conceived as a mechanism to promote general social cohesion by providing stability and legal recourse for nuclear families. Homosexuality itself is contrary to this cohesion, so it is counterproductive to extend marital benefits to homosexual couplings.

>There's absolutely no evidence that homosexuality is harmful to individuals or society at large. There's no reason to actively discriminate against it, which is what is going on.

I disagree that we are "actively discriminating". I see it as not just not giving into spurious political and ideological demands without basis. Even if a person believes that permanent homosexual coupling is a fine and good course, this is not in itself an argument to give special privileges to its participants.

>It's natural that it takes an action to rectify it....just as slavery couldn't be stopped by all the white people suddenly deciding to be nice to black people.

Except that if all the white people actually had decided to "start being nice", where "nice" means respectful of natural rights to autonomy, there really wouldn't have been any more slaves. All of the masters would have let them go and not exercised any compulsion on them anymore. Even if the books still said a person could do this, there would effectively be no slavery in your hypothetical where all the white people decide to be "nice".

Gay couples will gain no extra privilege, endorsement, or promotion from the government even if "all the straight people start being 'nice' to the gay people", where an analogous meaning of "nice" is applied (i.e., 'left alone', not 'given whatever they ask for').