The dominos keep on teetering and toplling

For some, God has an important place in their marriage. For me, God (Yahweh or any other god) is totally irrelevant. It's a personal perspective. God(s) have indeed historically had a great deal to do with the lives of individuals; but over the years, many people have come to see them as increasingly irrelevant. I did not get married to please a god, nor did I seek his blessing, nor do I consider myself as being in a contract with anyone other than my spouse.

I can understand the religiously minded feeling that they are being pressured to accept an "agenda," and I can understand their resistance to it; but they too are pushing their own "agenda." I think that all churches should have the right to refuse to allow any ceremony within that church; if that ceremony that conflicts with the beliefs of the members of that church. But I think that each church's power to dictate to others should end at the doors of that church. I'm all for protecting Christians' right to worship as they see fit; but the rights of any individual or organization should be looked at critically when they begin to infringe upon the rights of others.

Our government is not a Christian institution, and the laws of that government should not be guided by Christian ideas and mores. The rule of law should provide for equal treatment for all. It seems to me that most lesbians and gays are simply asking for equality. I think they are due that. All of this talk of "Marriage" verses "Civil Union" seems to me to be nothing more than semantics; and smacks mightily of the "equal but separate" idea that was used for so long in this country to keep non-whites as second class citizens.

 

Not that I am stepping up to accept the label of "bleeding heart," but I fail to see how past injustices committed by a society, and that society's institutions, can be used to justify a current injustice. One would assume, often incorrectly, that those once persecuted would more readily defend others who suffer injustice and persecution.

 

As much as part of this seems genuine, I never use Wikipedia as a source as most of it is just input from whomever wants to input it. It is easily distorted and misused.

 

This is true. And I can support polygamy for those who choose it, but for the life of me, cannot even imagine having more than one wife. I don't need that much estrogen in my life.

 

No, the concept I was trying to transmit, obviously poorly, unequivocally didn't come through. There was a fundamental I assumed most people, especially you Chell, recognized but it clearly was a poor assumption. I'll make one modest attempt to clarity. Try this...

When two people join in a marriage relationship, and I'll use that term very loosely here but will tighten it up in a moment, there are for most people three distinct dimensions to that.
1. The business relationship - the merging of finances, joint property ownership, shared liability, etc.
2. The social relationship - the rules (generally unwritten) for how to live together, sex, toilet seat up or down - all that stuff
3. The theological relationship - (yeah, I understand for some people this is irrelevant)

The original construct of marriage was concerned with relationships 2 and driven by relationship 3 and societal norms, but as society developed, relationship 1 came into more significance and government started infecting it.

Normal contract law is foundational for dealing with business relationships, such as if two people start a business, buy a house together, buy a fishing boat together. The problem I was pointing out is that government has created rules and policy that are NOT blind to relationships 2 and 3 (those are the two dimensions that churches or other non-government institutions should deal with and are actually the "marriage" in a more strict, original sense of the word.) The existence or non-existence of relationships 2 and 3 (i.e. "marriage") should be irrelevant to the governmental especially the federal government. Only the aspect of normal contract law as would be applicable to any business relationship such as two gals opening a hardware store should apply from the governments perspective. That actually and specifically means that government and normal contract law deal with the business dimensions of the relationship, not sharia or whatever. What was meant by letting the churches deal with the marriage part, is the tight original dimensions of relationships 2 and 3. The problem today is because the government failed to create policy and law that were blind to relationships 2 and 3, understandably the LGBT community now wants to the government to redefine those and much of society is saying hell no. Most are missing the point that rather than forcing the LGBT definition of the social and theological relationships down everyone else's throats, the right answer is to make relationships 2 and 3 irrelevant to the government. I do agree it will never happen and this conflict will never go away, in good measure because the government has created a situation that tends to preclude a live and let live situation.

AT

 

We are mainly in agreement, except that I would argue that there are those being persecuted and suffering injustice. I would argue that civil rights apply to all people, no matter what state they live in. Our country is a republic, not a loose confederation of disparate states. It should not be legal for the populations of certain states to decide that discrimination is okay; and to tell those persecuted by that discrimination to simply "Get out if you don't like it." There are times, such as in the civil rights issues of the sixties, that it is appropriate for the federal government to become involved. Hopefully, none of us here would say that it would have been fine for Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama to have continued in their discrimination against the black population in the schools and voting booths.

I don't think that any of us would argue that it would be okay for a particular state to refuse marriage to people of African descent, or of Asian descent; or to impose an IQ test upon those who wish to marry (though it might not be a bad idea); or to determine eligibility to wed by someone's hair color, or other aesthetics. Similarly, I don't think that it is okay for a particular state to discriminate against someone because of their sexual orientation.

I am right there with you in defending any religious congregation from the injustice of having a concept forced down their throat that conflicts with their basic religious dogma and doctrine. If they aren't hurting children and innocents, what goes on behind the doors of their church should be the members' business and that of no one else.

I think that rather than churches, and religious individuals, fighting to oppose gay marriage; they should be fighting to establish the rights of their church to operate as a private club - admittance by membership only, and that membership granted by secret ballot of the church members. It has worked for three hundred years, at least, for Masonic organizations in this country. All it takes is one black ball in the ballot box to refuse membership, no questions asked. Churches should have at least the same privileges as other private clubs.