On the question of marriage

I am not going to dance around the issue, I have been thinking about this since the Prop. 8 people on both sides got nasty. I am sorry but you did. ALL OF YOU!!! You have flung insults and hatred at each other in a way that is disturbing. So I actually sat down and thought about it, and I found the problem. I say this as someone who has preformed marriages and felt the beauty and power of bringing people together. The problem is marriage is a sacred institution.

That is where the problem lies in its sacredness. See we are supposed to have a separation of Church and State in this country. The reason we have this is our founding fathers knew that what was sacred to one person wouldn’t necessarily be sacred to the next, even with in the different families of Christianity. They were wise. To use Marriage as an example The Catholics do not with in their church recognize a Mormon marriage or vise versa. I am not saying they should, I am in fact supporting their right to NOT. This is where gay marriage becomes an immediate problem. Most Christian churches (whether you agree or like it) DO NOT condone homosexuality. (Those same Churches also don’t condone any sex outside of marriage, as well as a lot of other things I don’t personally have a problem with). NO Church should be forced to recognize a marriage that to them is wrong. It’s a sacred thing, and therefore a thing of the church not the state. NO marriage should be recognized by the state, none of them.

“Um Bradleyman are you not overlooking a whole bunch of rights given to those who are married that are really cool and we need to protect?” I hear you ask oh small group of readers. Yes we do and we need to give them to ANY two people who wan t to make a home together for them selves and their off spring, biological or adopted. When I say “any” above I do not limit my comment to homosexual union ether. Yes they would be included, but I have in my life known couples who have gotten married fro the “tax breaks”. That is a contract not the sacred union of marriage. Since the 70’s at least there have been married couples who were “swingers” they openly have sex with people out side the bounds of their marriage. Most Christian and Jewish churches I know of would NOT consider this to be a true marriage. Both the “tax break” and the “swinging” couples are not “proper” marriages but they ARE legal. If they are then it is discrimination to not allow gays to be married. However most churches would consider both of those to be broken marriages. From a legal stand point ANY two people should be able to have ALL of these rights, whether or not they love each other, regardless of sex, or relationship to each other. A pair of cousins who both have children and who would NEVER have sex with each other but want to raise their kids together should have this right. An old man who wants to help out a young person with a child by extending his medical coverage to that person should have this right. ANY TWO PEOPLE who want to have community property and all of that should have that right. I am just not sure it should be called “marriage”.

Let’s call it “Civil Union” or “CU” for the sake of argument. I think that any properly documented marriage should automatically be considered a CU. Generally speaking people choosing to unite their love are MORE committed then any of the examples at the end of the last paragraph. Those who choose to do it in their church of choice are doing so with in a community that will most likely support them. That said from the perspective of the state it should be just another CU. I am not denying that a marriage is more sacred then a simple CU. I am saying that the state has NO business in things sacred. The state has no right to make those choices.

I believe marriage is sacred. I do not believe the state has the right to tell me or any one what is sacred or not, so the state has no right to tell me or any one else what marriage is. Any two adults should be able to enter in to a state recognized CU. Any one of those blessed by a religion is a marriage with in that religion. To handle this ANY other way is to violate someone’s rights.