It’s not a real marriage until the garter is thrown and it looks so silly for either Walter or Edgar to throw one.

Race and sexual preference are two seperate issues and I find it a mockery that homosexuals make efforts to ride on the coat-tails of the civil rights movement which was for blacks and ethnic minorities.

There are other reasons why democratic governments should not support homosexual marraige that have little to do with religious thought. It can open up a whole can of worms.

LOL…

Let the tirades begin as to be expected.

It was refreshing to read your writing. I am a true liberal, believing in the right for all to marry regardless of skin color, faith or even gender. One of the main reasons I have strayed away from religion is that so many religious people (whatever their preference) seem to take it upon themselves to enforce their beliefs on me. Unfortunately for Logus, I refuse to throw a tirade. It actually seems that phrases like “mockery” and “ride on the coat tails” seems closer to a tirade than my values allow. I’m sure that in the day, the Lovings objectors used the term “can of worms” as well. I don’t seem to see any moral disintegration in our society that was caused by two people in love wanting to legalize their marriage in 1958. Hopefully in another 50 years, you’ll see the light.

I usually get lumped with the liberals in this space, and I don’t really consider myself liberal. Oh well. My perspective is that from a church/state perspective we need to separate the legal aspect of marriage from the religious aspect. Consider that when a Minister, Priest, Imam, or Rabbi performs a marriage he or she is acting as an agent of the state: something that should be of concern to the religious people. My proposal, then:

First, create a legal definition that would grant “marital privileges” to any pair of adults who would choose to enter into the contract. This would do things like grant automatic survivor rights, the ‘marriage penalty’ on taxation, automatic assumption of contracts, and so on. This would be a legal, not social or moral thing.

Second, let the religious groups hammer out within their own doors whom they will or will not marry. They are free, under the free exercise clause of the first amendment, to do whatever they like. If church “A” wants to marry only whites to whites, then so be it. If church “B” wants to bless polygamous groups, that’s ok too. The fact, in the second case, that the polygamous would be in violation of the law is a separate issue.

hs,

The situation you describe already exists, and has been around since Day One. Atheists have always had the option to get their marriage certificate down at city hall, with or without any kind of secular ceremony there, and they’ve never been required to get any ceremony done in a church. Religious people have also always been allowed to get their marriage certificate at city hall and to have a marriage ceremony in the church of their choice. This is because the civil marriage certificate is a separate and distinct concept from a religious ceremony. There was nothing in the Constitution or our set of laws limiting a civil marriage certificate only to heterosexuals until Bill Clinton was pressured into signing the Defense of Marriage Act. As I understand it, the conservatives had enough votes to veto Clinton, so he being a politician decided to vote for it, even though he did not agree with it. So we basically went 200+ years with civil marriage for all and then the conservatives decided to overturn all that. Some day the Supreme Court will agree that gays and lesbians should also have the right to civil marriage, and DOMA will be overturned.

Let this serve as a warning to all who would engage in holy matrimony and neglect the restrictions enumerated in the Scriptures. The Lovings violated the tenet of marrying outside of their race. And where are they now? Dead! Okay… that didn’t work; let me try this… I recall a beer commercial (we’ll call it “Blitz”) that advertised itself as the “Marriage of Fine Hops… and Fine Brewing.” If hops and brewing can get married, why can’t Jeff and George? No? Okay, last shot… Can we keep in mind that not all couples who wish to share in the advantages enjoyed by spouses are necessarily homosexual? Think “Aunt Martha” and “Aunt Abby” in “Arsenic And Old Lace.” They were certainly a couple, but they would’ve been denied access to certain health, insurance, survivor, and taxation benefits endowed upon other couples. Is there no room in our society to accommodate the needs of Martha and Abby, call it marriage, civil union, an aardvark, or a 57′ Buick? Am I, at least beyond the infield yet?

It’s always amusing to me to see people fight for rights of gays to marry, but they won’t lift a finger for the rights of other consenting adults marrying. I don’t see any of them demonstrating to protect the rights of polygymists to marry (not all of them involve underage girls).

Nor do I see them fighting to repeal laws against incest either, which also can involve consenting adults.

johnrohan,

Polygamy should be legal in churches that choose to recognize them (assuming all parties are of the legal age of consent), but allowing it for civil marriage certificates would not accomplish anything. They would not get additional rights for insurance, hospital visitation, etc. in our legal system compared to monogamist marriages. And incest fails the requirement of having BOTH parties be of the legal age of consent.

To Sej: how so? If a brother and sister are adults of legal age, then why can’t they marry? If gays have these rights, why not us all?

In fact, polygamy and brother-sister marriage both have precedent in the Bible and Western History while gay marriage does not.

Homosexuals are not riding anyone’s coat-tails! The point of comparing the Loving’s is simple…in a time when it was not accepted there were two adults who loved each other and wanted the same rights that white americans had. They were denied because it wasn’t “the norm” for two different people to mix, marry and have kids.

Homosexual marriage arguments are the same as the Loving’s. When two consenting adults wish to be married and recognized as a couple they should be allowed to. If you don’t like it, too damn bad. Go back to burning crosses and marching in white sheets…you may as well if you are going to be as ignorant towards homosexuals as our grandparents were to African Americans!

History will look back on the decisions of homophobes with shame like we look back now on the discrimination of African Americans. You are bigots, plain and simple. Stop hiding behind the bible and using it when you want to.