The defence of marriage issue: my take

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I've said it before and I'll say it again - mainly the later because I think we have enough diversity to have a potentially good discussion on it.

I think its fair to say that the issue with the coverage of marriage is not that its being prohibitively exclusive but rather that its far overextended. I mean that in the sense that its roles and definitions have been held and clarified by the religious for millennium. My argument is that rather than extending marriage to same sex I believe that 'marriage' should be given back to the religious as we don't live in the same type of society and different groups have different needs.

I've been criticized for this opinion but I think that's only been because its been misread. While I do believe that the government - for the protection of children and legal issues with custody - will always need to be involved in the 'union' business, I don't think 'marriage' should be the only term or 'valid' ceremony out there. Think of it this way - the deeply religious have big festivities, beautiful churches to celebrate them in, often its a pastor who at least one of the couple has seen most of their lives. I think its a shame actually that people who aren't particularly religious or, with the emerging issue now, are stuck with less for the fact that they're shoved through the same system under the same umbrella and simply tolerated rather than honored. That and, all being very human and all having emotional needs, I think everyone needs to have epic means of expression.

Regarding the marriage issue in the last decade or more, IMO, what we're really looking at is a society where demographics are changing, beliefs on reality are changing, groups are settling out and optimizing, to try to and staple them all together - most under a set of ideals that aren't even necessarily theirs, doesn't stack.

My solution is this: there should be at least three institutions. Marriage for the religious, perhaps something slightly different for the nonreligious, and I firmly believe that the gay community should have something that has a name that they give it, a ceremony or set of customs that fits their highest ideals, and it should be something that they define.

All unions would be under the same legal umbrella with the same legal protections - differing mainly in specialized names and customs.

An additional point - one of the big blunders I believe that has been made in the last 100 years is, in the process of separating religion from the public sphere more, we've also discarded community and ritual. I understand that a lot of that has been perhaps to distance ourselves from anything that even feels like it could draw us back to the former but - as human beings, we're ritualistic. Ritual gives us happiness. Community gives us happiness.

What I believe this gives everyone - the religious, being people who mean good by and large, can have the purity they want brought back to their institution. Groups who'd rather have significantly more touching and meaningful ceremonies as well as expressions of bond can do that. That and - we could have the added benefit of not rolling our eyes while political pundits have to discuss their take on the marriage issue and constantly have to defend one side or the other of what's on further examination really a false dichotomy.

So what are your thoughts? Do you think society could be ready for this kind of change in the next fifty to one-hundred years or are we still too primitive?

Seems okay. Especially if some churches are more accepting of homosexuals and marry them anyway.

I think The United Church of Christ and some Episcopal churches are more accepting and may marry same sex people.

I think marriage should be between two consenting adults. Many critics of gay marriage ask where do we draw the line, should a marriage between a man and a dog be permitted for example and other arbitrary arguments.

Traditionally marriage is between a man and a woman right? Well that is probably the healthiest definition to perpetuate the species. Males and females generally breed in the animal kingdom and raise healthy little animals that repeat the process.

Is humanity ready to redefine what marriage is? Well maybe. I can still see the legal definition of marriage is between two consenting adults, when you boil it down that's what traditional marriage is anyway. Men and women don't arbitrarily get married, they have to both decide to accept the union, why not then consenting gay couples?

Right, perhaps same sex believers, what about same sex or opposite sex atheists?

that is a good opinion but are you saying we should do this before our largely christian society and male+female traditionalists who prefer a marriage ceremony in a church setting by a priest falls below 70% of the population? 60%? 50%? Should we make the move to that in anticipation of it based on the trends? Or is just your ideal, lived out in its appropriate time when it has a majority receptive audience (probably preferably during this lifetime)?

I'm just saying - I think people are still too freaked out about each other's intentions, whether its listening to the other side on here, watching the news, or hearing lots of opinions out there in general its scary just how paranoid people are over the conservatism vs. liberalism and vice a verse issue.

Actually, it was the early Protestants who had called for marriage to be a civil ceremony, in order to demystify the institution as a means to further dilute Catholicism's power over the secular world.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

This is essentially the French approach, and it has a lot of merit, provided:

1) The religious institution creates no legal rights of any kind. If "marriage" is the exclusive province of religious congregations, then each congregation is free to define it as openly or restrictively as they like, and the ritual confers no rights or privileges outside that congregation.

2) The civil institution cannot separate opposite sex and same sex couples. It is well established in law that "separate but equal" is not tolerable. If opposite sex couples register a "civil union" to become entitled to the various privileges that come with that status, then opposite sex couples must have access to exactly the same "civil union" with exactly the same privileges.

Will that always be an issue of discrimination though? I get that we're all afraid of racists, rednecks, and 'phobes' of any type grabbing the reigns and turning it into Jim Crow but this particular piece seems very specifically historical.

At the same time I would agree on this much - if there were any further separations from marriage and civil union they would likely need to be endorsed and requested by the particular groups involved rather than be pushed at them from the top down.

I don't think there should be a multi-tier system. But ultimately it's about what voters will bear and today gay marriage is rapidly becoming acceptable. Once the older generation dies, it's over. The young are for it.

I think we largely already have a multi-tiered system.

Some people get married in a church or a temple, some people get married by a judge or a justice of the peace.

There is already demarcation between faith and the law.

Not in my state(not sure about the others) but a common law marriage would probably be pretty easy to argue for if you went through a ceremony, and that would involve the law.

There is only one legal relationship of "marriage," though. And so long as members of the clergy are delegated the authority to create a legal relationship between two people you are going to have the conflict arise.

Explains those judges getting kicked out of office in Iowa.

Really, it isn't gaining as much acceptance as you think, in fact the pro-gay marriage groups have actually gotten to the point where they are fighting to silence their critics.


Furthermore, the primary issue many people take with "gay marriage" is the fact you call it marriage. There wouldn't be half the protests if people you called it a 'civil union.'

The polling trends are clear. A majority on gallup now support gay marriage.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/147662/first ... riage.aspx

But 70% of the 18-34 demographic do. Only 39% of those over 55.

That train only runs one way.

Yeah that seems like a fairly decent solution.....I honestly do not even find the idea of traditional marrige all that appealing, but people should have the right to it if they so choose.

But yes I think there could be various types of marrige type set ups that all receive the same legal rights or whatever, like I belive homosexuals should be able to have a civil union or whatever they would like to call it and have it treated the same as a traditional marrige as far as the legal status....I also think they should be able to adopt for instance as I see no reason why a homosexual couple could not provide a loving home for a child.