End ^) See you

That might be a valid argument IF your assumption was correct. But last time I looked marriage was still a highly coveted and widely practiced religous cerimony/designation. Which renders your basic premise invalid.

Interesting. Perhaps my position, as a lefty, is similar to yours. I wanted to throw it by you.

I think marriage is a religious institution, and thereby should fall under the first amendment, and the state should not have anything to do with it. The state has nothing to do with the sacrament of “baptism”, why should it have anything to do with marriage?

However, I think that “civil unions”, could be recognized by the state, for social, demographic, tax, etc purposes. That is, I think it is largely a contractual relationship, which two people engage in, mostly for the purposes of sharing assets. Whatever reason the two engage in this contractual relationship (for love, family, children, etc.) doesn’t matter. Marriage as a “contractual relationship” is pretty much how marriage was understood in the Enlightenment, the very intellectual age of this nation’s founding.

So, states could recognize civil unions, and individuals (and/or churches) can call them “marriages” and have ceremonies in whatever church they so choose; but the designation “marriage” simply refers to a religiously recognized relationship. To call this contractual relationship “marriage” necessarily gives it a religious tone, which is outside the domain of the state. Basically, the state should stay out of marriages all together.

I have no problem with gay civil unions, and a contractual state recognized “civil union” should not be defined by race, gender, etc. The Constitution isn’t about guaranteeing the “right use of words” (it is not a dictionary) such as “marriage”, its about protecting the rights of the people from the tyranny of the state. To insert “marriage” into the constitution is to insert religion into it.

So what do you think?