"Unfortunately, marriage has transformed into a religious institution and has infected civil law. Churches have gotten involved and created a wedge issue that is allowed to discriminate where it otherwise could not."

Marriage IS a religious institution. The State never should have been involved in the first place. I always laugh when I hear someone talk about how same-sex marriage threatens the "sanctity" of marriage. Yeah, right. Like giving fishing licenses to gay fishermen threatens the sanctity of fishing.

Your post suggests a solution that I have been pushing since the first time I became aware of this issue: Since religious marriage is illegal in all fifty states unless it's "sanctified" by the State, the GLBT community should be marrying in droves--in sympathetic churches. At some point, some State official will file criminal charges against the churches involved and it's off to the Supreme Court.

All reasonable people I've spoken with, on left and right (and some unreasonable ones!), have held this position for years. Indeed, I think it might be the one thing everyone in my politically diverse family can agree on. Weirdly, no politician will touch it with a ten-foot-pole.

The key is to peel away the word marriage entirely. The GLBT community and the religious community are drawing a line in the sand that should not exist... All marriages should be considered civil unions under state and federal law.

The problem is that while this really is a beautiful idea, practically it is simply a non-solution. It cannot be done. You would have to pass individual laws removing laws concerning "marriage" from the books and instituting new laws concerning "civil unions", in all 50 states. Such an effort would surely meet with as much, if not more, resistance than a simple effort to pass a law granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and would face far greater procedural hurdles. Oh, and you'd have to pass the changeovers in the various states more or less all at the same time, because as long as there exists a state where "marriage" counts for more than "civil union" then people nationwide are going to prefer to be married vs civil unioned.

The "line in the sand" you refer to is a line which is drawn in existing law. There exists an institution of civil marriage in America. There does not exist a consistent or marriage-equal institution of "civil unions"-- even if such a thing is someday possible, it does not exist now.

The suggestion above is made that it would be possible to just write a federal law that "find/replaces" marriages with civil unions. I have little legal knowledge, but I am fairly certain this is not possible unless this were passed as a constitutional amendment. Passing a constitutional amendment would come with its own massive difficulties.

Suggestions that "marriage should be a religious institution and nothing more", meanwhile, seem a little odd to me, because this seems to imply atheists can't or shouldn't be married? Or am I missing something?

Kudos for cutting to the core of the gay marriage issue, i.e., the injection of religious views into civil law on marriage. The junction of the two has, I think, led to confusion and most of the controversy. Gay marriage advocates are not suggesting that the Catholic Church, Mormon Church or Southern Baptist Church (among others) should change their teaching on marriage. What gay marriage advocates are arguing is that religious groups have no right to insert their own definitions of marraige, based on the religious dogma of their respective churches, into how marriage is defined in civil law, which is what they are doing. In effect, the organized religions that are opposed to same-sex marriage are trying to force the theological/moral teaching of their churches onto everyone in society. Religious groups will argue that "no society has sanctioned same-sex marraige" or that "society has traditionally defined marriage as between one man and one woman." However, these statements are more a reflection of their own narrow religious viewpoint than factually based. For example, a vibrant tradition of same-sex marriage, complete with social customs and religious rites, existed for centuries in Fujian province in southern China according to the Ming dynasty writers, Shen Defu and Li Yu. The Greek historians Herodotus and Lucian, writing five centuries apart, described a long-standing tradition of same-sex unions among Scythian warriors, called blood-brothers, which involved formal rituals and vows. Lucian's account of a description of such unions by a Scythian warrior leaves no doubt about the sexual nature of the relationships. The sagas of the ancient Norse speak of a similar blood-brothers tradition among those fierce warriors, which also included vows and a specified ritual to formalize the unions. There is even a saga, “The Blood-Brothers’ Saga” which tells the story of one such union. The Roman writers Martial and Juvenal both mention formal same-sex marriages in their works. Anthoplogists have documented traditions of formalized same-sex unions among tribal peoples in South America (the Nabirwara of Brazil) and the Southwest Pacific (New Guinea Asmat, to cite just one example). Rather than being a universally held view of human societies, the hostility to same-sex love and same-sex unions is a phenomenon peculiar to the Judeo-Christian tradition.

The degree to which religion is woven into the arguments of opponents of same-sex marraige is revealed in the argument of a dissenter in the recent Connecticut Supreme Court same-sex marriage decision, Justice Peter T. Zarella. Justice Zarella argued that his opposition is not rooted in religious doctrine, and that "the ancient definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman has its basis in biology, not bigotry.” However, his argument on biology is contradicted by both widespread same-sex pair bonding reported by researchers in the animal world (among such disparate species as Bottlenose dolphins, baboons, and gorillas), and the traditions, mentioned above, among human societies that have recognized formalized same-sex unions in the past. Justice Zarella insists that his dissent is not based on religion, yet he argues “that one man should be joined to one woman . . . is necessary for the propagation of the species,” and that society has bestowed the “privileged status” of marriage solely on heterosexual couples “in order to advance society’s interest in the survival of the human race.” His reasoning, linking the "privileged status" of marraige with procreation bears an uncanny resemblance to the Vatican’s 1975 declaration, in “Persona Humana,” that sexual activity “has its true meaning and moral rectitude only in true marriage,” and that “the moral goodness” of sexual acts must be measured by the objective standard of mutual self-giving "and human procreation.”

Posted by Shudo

I have faith in human ingenuity and creativity. There must be a way to have equality and separation of church and state... some things may be complicated and challenging but there is always a way and I believe it is possible.

There seems to be plenty of ignorance about the nature and history of "marriage" as a social and religious institution.

In most Protestant churches, marriage has never been a sacrament. In other words, it is not a holy rite. For these Protestants, the sacraments are baptism and communion. Mainstream Protestant denominations such as Methodist, Baptist, and Congregational are in this category. Marriage, on the other hand, is viewed primarily as a civil contract. The first "low church" protestants to settle in the American continent, at Plymouth, were so far removed from the notion of "holy matrimony" that they initially refused to even allow a marriage ceremony in their church. Only the fact that they had no other large public buildings suitable persuaded them to allow it.

Now, it's different in "high church" organizations, like the Anglican Protestants and the original Roman Church. And the "sanctification" of marriage, which began with Augustine, was primarily a political and organizational move -- the biblical exegesis on which it rests is thin, indeed.

Much of what is now taken for granted about "marriage" is largely class-based. Up until fairly recent times, a marriage license (issued by the state) cost enough money that most poor people could not afford one -- hence, "common law" marriages were indeed common. The prejudice against "shacking up" is foremost a middle-class prejudice against the poor. Many, if not most, American states have created "common law" marriage statutes that implement prohibitively strict requirements and some states refuse to recognize common law marriage altogether.

I actually believe that gay organizations could get "civil unions" ratified that maintained all the obligations, rights and privileges of "marriage" if they wanted to go that route. They don't. For some people, at least, this conflict is as much about putting a thumb in the eye of the intolerant as it is about actually gaining the rights and privileges of "marriage." Others have fixated on appropriating "marriage" as a mechanism of gaining social approbation. It strikes me that this program is failing on both counts.

And, if you really want to "separate church and state" in this context, the obvious route would seem to be to promote "civil union" in lieu of "marriage." Although, as I wrote, this notion is based on a confused understanding of the actual place of "marriage" in religious practice (and yes, many Christians are equally confused -- most Christian churches which reject gay "marriage" allow gays to receive communion).

Thanks.

mp

Here's a concept: Either marriage is a legal contract or it's a religious rite. If it's legal, then the Church should stay the hell out of it. If is religious, then the State needs to take a hike. So which is it? Because under the Constitution of the United States of America, the respective rites and rights of the Church and the State are separate and specific and the parties not share.