On Nov 4, 2004, at 11:56 AM, Damon Agretto wrote:
I think the term "Marriage" is too loaded a word, and means different things to different people.
Fair enough; but of course when you're talking about bans and such, you get into legal definitions, which trump whether a word is loaded or not. Whatever the emotional ramifications, the *legal* definitions of "marriage" versus "civli union" are different.
For someone like John, I think it would be safe to assume there is a much more religious connontation to it. Since the Catholic Church believes homosexuality is sinful, the idea of gay marriage would be in direct opposition to their beliefs.
Then we're facing a violation of church-state separation.
You can think whatever you want about this, but religious groups have a right to their beliefs.
Absolutely they do, but there are boundaries of acceptable behavior that can and must be applied to churches if they wish to remain active members in civil societies. Religious groups do *not* have a right to bomb abortion clinics or crash-land aircraft into buildings, *regardless* of what they believe.
IOW, religious groups can believe what they want to as long as they aren't messing with others' rights. As soon as they do that they've crossed the line and are as much open to prosecution -- or they should be -- as secular organizations.
To make gay marriage legal then (and, specifically, calling them MARRIAGES), may in some cases compell churches to marry against their beliefs, or at the very least make them feel a key component of their belief system has been hijacked to apply to something they don't believe.
In which case the church in question is free to not perform the wedding. They are not, however, free to tell other churches that the same wedding cannot be performed. Nor are they free to foist their beliefs on the rest of society.
Personally, I think the government should drop the term "marriage" from their side of things, and call ALL such unions Civil Unions and treat them the same.
Fair enough; that or forbid divorce as well as gay marriage, since it's divorce (50% rate!) that's the *real* threat to marriage. ;)
-- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror" http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf
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