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So if someone's sterile, without possibility of conception, say, with a hysterectomy, then they can't get married?

I think you ought to think things through a little harder first.

That doesn't work at all. What if the wife has had a historectomy? Childbearing is impossible.

It is impossible for two men or two women to have true sexual intercourse.

Have you ever read the book "Study in Words" by C. S. Lewis? He writes about how the enemies of precision commit what he calls 'verbicide' - killing a word that has precision by making a word mean more than it has meant thereby robbing society of clearer thinking and rationality.

Hence the effort to make the word marriage mean something that can happen between two men (or two women) is an effort to destroy the precise meaning of the word and make sure that no word is used to replace it.

For example - once marriage is defined legally to incorporate agreements between men to have some kind of sexual contract with each other what word do we use to refer to the sexual contract between a man and a woman?

Now what happens is we use adjectives in front of a word that didn't need adjectives before - now we will have to say 'heterosexual marriage" and use two words where before we only needed one word.

If the courts rule that sexual agreements between men ought to be considered 'marriage' then we need to push for a new word for the union between a man and a woman. Lets call that kind of sexual agreement 'heterounion" and then create the word "homounion" instead of using the word marriage at all. Now we could push in the law for "heterounions" to have more rights than "homounions" because the society recognizes that such unions encourage a crossing over from one side of humanity to the other a reaching out to more deeply understand the other half of humanity. Hence the society can call "homounions" something less desireable for society and less to be encouraged.

I think you ought to think things through a little harder first.
So are you saying that people who are known to be biologically infertile

I think you ought to think things through a little harder first.

I did. You're the one adding the complexity. Personal medical history or age is not the point or the issue. The point is: Does a male and female have the potential to produce offspring? The production of offspring and their care is the reason for marriage. That offspring may or may not be produced is not the point of the standard.

What? Is that qualification so difficult? Does it really offend you? Do want a law that reads like a legal brief? A tome of 900 pages? I don't get some of you people. You don't like gay marriage and would like a durable legal standard to prevent it and at the same time uphold the institution of marriage and you want a law that has so many exceptions that it is rendered meaningless.