Recently the state legislature in Maine passed into law a statute granting Gay people the right to marry one another, and subsequently be treated equally under State and Federal laws which have made a habit of granting special favor or treatment to "married people".
Maine held a referendum to vote on the new law, and the mob ruled once again in favor of special pivileges for special classes of citizens, inclusive of nearly every class of people one can think of, but excluding Gay adults. A friend sent me a link to a video he thought had some poignant words to the people of Maine (Maine, I Wish You Could Understand).
The girl's speech is heart felt and the sentiments are nice, but sadly the message "I wish they could understand", is impotent against the primary enemy in this issue: Christianity. Addressing the enemy with such words cannot help win this fight, because religious doctrine is decreed by God and relayed to mankind by a chain of pope's throughout history. The very definition of what is right, according to Christianity, is whatever God says - literally, it is right because God said so - therefore man cannot debate it. A rather clever trick if you can get people to swallow the existence of God and that he speaks to the pope regularly (Saturday evenings I believe, before Sunday mass) to keep his subjects up to date on his demands.
Religion requires people to give up their reason, willingly, in favor of faith (primarily b/c their edicts cannot be proven). There is no point trying to use logic and reason against the faithful, they have something more "enlightened", the decree of God which they "know" only by abandoning reason, closing their eyes, and feeling it. So who are we to "argue" with God's word? In the eyes of these true believers, you are beating your head against a brick wall: logic, reason and any and all discussion mean nothing compared to the whim of their pope.
What is needed is to get religion out of this legal debate entirely - in accordance with that long forgotten tenant, the separation of Church and State. (In fact we need to completely expunge religion from public education, court rooms, the military etc., in other words our government officials should be gagged from promoting their religious beliefs while serving their tax paying constituents). Religious groups should be free to discriminate against any segments of the population they do not wish to marry in their churches. And everyone has a right not to associate with some or all religious groups.
Unfortunately the State is largely to blame for the current mess, by borrowing a historically religious term - marriage - and bringing it into the legislative domain to advance special favors and treatments for the "married". Allowing religious leaders, i.e. priests, to have the legal authority to perform a marriage, recognized by law and the US Tax Code, is the final perversion that has rendered the two seemingly inseparable.
We need a clear distinction between marriage and legal civil union to get religion out of the debate once and for all. Once we have something, call it domestic partnership, that is exclusive to the state governments, and which subsumes all the same privileges and special rules currently administered under the "marriage" umbrella, including Federal Immigration laws and tax codes, then the church will have no further claim on the legal issue. Marriages, or commitment ceremonies, can remain a purely spiritual ceremony - some may not even place in a church. When sanctioned by some religious Church, it can be between whatever two people that group's "God interpreter" decides and in some cases may continue to chain the participants with guilt laden rules regarding adultery and divorce. We can let the various religious groups argue with one another for all of eternity, just don't give them an audience in Washington.
As a purely legal contract between two adults, primarily to govern guardianship implications where children are involved, and bestowed only by the government, a domestic partnership must be open to all tax paying citizens. It is hardly different from businessmen forming legal partnerships or corporations for the legal protections those arrangements carry. Yes, this may take some romance out of the legal side of this decision, as well it should, but it will not infringe upon any couple's freedom to celebrate their spiritual commitment through traditional or non traditional means.
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