Keep Marriage Religious: Make civil unions for everyone gay or not-gay.

Keep marriage religious; everyone gets civil unions.

Time Magazine has opined a “gay-marriage solution” of their own today.  How do we appease both sides of this battle.  Simple, end marriage itself as a legal term.  Though the idea may seem shocking to some, it does have its strong points.  No longer would there be any legal definition of “marriage” because marriage would be between you, your spouse, and your church.  Government entities would only recognize “civil unions” which wouldn’t have any affiliation with a church or faith.  Not satisfied?  Well, there’s got to be some middle ground.  

I’ve seen this idea put forth before, but it wasn’t in the media.

Yes, she’s atheist.  And no, I don’t think she’s married, I don’t think she’s even 18.  But does she and Time Magazine make a good point.  Yes!

Two professors offer up their opinion as to why marriage should be taken out of government control.  Douglas W. Kmiec, one of the professors and a supporter of Prop 8, gives his reasons,

“While new terminology for all may at first seem awkward — mostly in greeting-card shops — [it] dovetails with the court’s important responsibility to reaffirm the unfettered freedom of all faiths to extend the nomenclature of marriage as their traditions allow,”

It’s been argued by many gay-marriage opponents that it isn’t the partnership they are against, it’s the term “marriage.”  Time Magazine suggests that if such legislature did come up, which would remove the term marriage from legal definition, that we,

may find that the folks who cling hardest to the word “marriage” are the gay couples themselves.

This might be true, and it’s seems to be missing the point.  If the word “marriage” is removed as a legal definition then any church can choose to define said “marriages” however they’d like.  So, while we’d hardly expect Evangelical churches to begin sanctifying gay “marriages”, we would almost certainly see a rise in churches that did allow for the partnership of gay couples and therefore would perform a marriage ceremony for all people.  For those of us that aren’t religious, gay and straight alike, if church doesn’t play an active role in our lives in general, then why would we need to apply it to our marriage?  

Since I’m not religious (in case Godless American didn’t tip you off) then I couldn’t care less if my marriage was called a “marriage” or a civil union.  I know what’s important and my wife knows what’s important and goddamn anyone that thinks love can’t exist without the word “marriage.”  

Why do some gay couples fight so hard for the right to use the word marriage?  Because many of them are religious, even if your simple minded religion doesn’t acknowledge their love, and because they want equality.  If we all had civil unions instead of “marriages” then we’d all be equal, “marriage” would stay in the church or faith based lexicon, and religious folks could then argue with each other over their religious freedom to call gay couples “married.”  An added bonus is that this would effectively end the Prop. 8 debate, and further debates about gay marriage.  Keep it in the church, so the rest of us can have some peace and quiet and no one would have to use that overtly ignorant motto, “It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”  

Hey, God works in mysterious ways sometimes, right?  And when I say “mysterious” I mean, “gay.”  And when I say, “God,” I mean “your average human being in whom God is actually modeled after.”

 

See, being a "fairy" is God-like.