so let me get straight
marriage exists because man + woman = baby and married parents are optimal for a given child
except gay marriage would be man + man or woman + woman. these groupings are incapable of producing a child, meaning there are no additional children being brought into less-than-optimal situations
gay couples have the option to adopt children that are certainly NOT optimally situated with married parents. this adoption is presumably an improvement where an optimal outcome is not possible
it's funny, you acknowledge that "choice" is largely irrelevant (which i agree with), but your argument depends upon an assumption of choice. your argument is that gay marriage would promote the rearing of children in non-optimal households, but that only holds water if the alternative is for those children to be reared in optimal households. that's not possible unless you are attempting to push gay people into hetero marriages where they can produce children in an optimal setting.
but if we assume that people in gay relationships will remain gay, they can be integrated into institutionalized marriage and utilized as a sub-optimal improvement for children that would otherwise be raised in a gay single parent household, left unadopted, or raised in the household of a gay, unmarried couple. just as straight marriage promotes an optimal living situation for the third party child, gay marriage would promote a preferable -- if not optimal -- living situation for any child
also this is all based on super sketchy assumptions about optimal settings for raising a child. but if you want us to grant that married mother+father is significantly greater than any alternative, then i think you can grant that married gay parents would be preferable to single parent, foster home, or unmarried gay parents
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