To begin with I do understand that this issue is touchy as hell for a lot of people. The whole question of marriage has gotten tied up with the issue of equality, which is separate because marriage is largely a religious institution in this country. I will try to approach it with more
tact that I normally do.
I think one of the best things the gay movement could do in this situation would be to differentiate between legal marriage and church marriage. Legal marriage is a status that brings with it certain tax breaks, insurance coverage, legal powers and other tangible and very real benefits. This is what the movement should be pushing for, and all the movement should be pushing for. Under this concept of marriage your spouse is simply a live-in and hopefully permanent roommate with a shared income. There's no reason that gay couples shouldn't be allowed this; the difference between a two-gender legal marriage and single-gender legal marriage is essentially nil, since the state really should not be concerned with whether or not there is sex occuring within the marriage. None of their business. Of course, certain provisions of legal marriage are there for children and those should be given only to couple with children, whether adopted, from previous marriages, or produced withing the marriage.
Church marriage, on the other hand, is a religious institution and decisions about this are not in the hands of the government. Gay couples should not push to have their marriage recognized by the church. It's a losing battle and ultimately unimportant since it does not bring with it any tangible benefits. There are certain recognitions that come with it but these recognitions are less important than those that would be created by the government recognising single gender unions. Pushing the church to recognise same-sex couples is, in the end, no different than churches pushing gay people to become heterosexual. You can't change peoples' minds in topics like this, especially not large and indoctrinated groups of people.
So, in my opinion, gay people should be able to get fully legal state-recognised marriage licenses and churches should be able to decide who they do and do not want to recognise.
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4 comments:
The problem is that every President ever elected - and most all politicians really - feel like they need to hold up this moral Christian front. The chances of the government allowing a legal marriage for homosexuals will occur just after we're finally allowed to remove "under god" from all of our national anthems and documents.
But, you already knew that.
PS, is there a way for us to link our respective blogs?
UR FGT!
I like your veiw point on this . It's very realistic and i also think the only way to get it to work is to not have a religuos leader to decide it for us... is that ever gonna happen? not in our lifetime! i agree with what jess said. :)
This is great info to know.
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