Gay marriage or civil unions? There is no difference

Thanks Paradigm. Reading your arguments, it appears we agree in a lot of ways. "Some people have asserted that perhaps the government should never have stuck it's nose in the institution of marriage in the first place, since it's an infringement upon religion, which of course would go against the Establishment Clause of "Separation of Church and State."" I actually am one of those people. Marriage should have never been accepted as a legal term, due to its obvious religious connotations. My point is that if we choose to keep marriage as a legal term, we need to remove those religious and moral connotations by making it officially an asexual right, like any other right we are given as citizens. "I agree that cultural values are not universal. Perhaps then if the government were completely out of the picture, a religious institution could marry whomever they wanted under the tenets of said religion. The problem is that we have diametrically opposed principles at work here. In Christianity we have liberal and conservative churches that have very different interpretations of the bible. This invariably leads to a division. Who then arbitrates if one pastor says that they are married, while another says that they couldn't possibly be married since the bible is clear on what a marriage is. The point is that with the religious argument, it just goes around and around since a broad interpretation is possible." This makes sense... it would be very difficult for churches to determine the validity of a marriage done by another church. So what's the solution to this circular argument problem you detail? To arbitrarily force churches to only accept a certain type of "Marriage"? You said yourself that "there is seldom an outrage when the government allegedly infringes upon religion". Well, it should be very outrageous that the government is binding establishments of religion to one legal definition of "Real Marriage" and forcing the rest to accept secular, non-religious "Civil Unions". "Bestiality, paedophilia, polygamy, incest, etc, are all forms of sexual unions that are prohibited by law (moral outlook). Is it then the government foisting upon us their morals and inexorably undermining our Constitutional rights? The reason I ask is because we are not entitled to marry whatever we want. Marriage is very clearly defined. There is no justification for mangling it, legally, definitionally, or otherwise, just to suit someone's agenda." The problem here is that most of the examples you give above are illegal not because of their immorality, per se, but because they violate other laws that do not relate to marriage. Bestiality is an animal cruelty charge, paedophilia is sexual assault, statutory rape or indecent liberties with a minor. Incest does not deal with the illegal, but the unhealthy- incest leads to inbreeding, which leads to the epidemia of genetic flaws and diseases. Polygamy seems to be the one place, other than homosexuality, where the government has historically forced a definition of marriage onto an unwilling establishment of religion. It is clear to anyone that the government is on shaky constitutional footing in this- look at the recent arrests in the case that occurred on the Texas polygamist ranch... nobody was actually charged with polygamy, only with statutory rape, kidnapping, and indecent liberties. The only reason banning polygamy has not been constitutionally questioned yet is because there are far fewer polygamists than there are, say, homosexuals, and because polygamists are usually also guilty of the crimes listed above. ______________________________________________________________________________ So, to sum up what seems to have been established: 1.) Marriage is a religious concept that has been defined by the state. 2.) Defining marriage this way may be unconstitutional in the first place, because: A.) It forces a definition of a religious concept on unwilling religious establishments and B.) If a particular type of Marriage does not break any other law (i.e. not with minors or the non-consenting) then congress has NO constitutional authority to define it as of yet, only "moral authority". This of course, is not the exact issue we are debating, but it does apply. You asked for my stance on the resolution, what I think should be done. I will supply two alternative scenarios. ______________________________________________________________________________ 1- The government changes the definition of Marriage to a non-denominational one that includes persons of any gender, race or age (assuming above the age of consent, and not incestuous for health reasons). This makes marriage the same thing as a "civil union". ______________________________________________________________________________ 2- The government does away with the concept of a legal definition of marriage entirely, and leaves it to establishments of religion. It instead embraces the idea of a "civil union" that is non-denominational, and includes persons of any gender, etc etc. This makes a "civil union" the same thing as what "marriage" should be, constitutionally. _______________________________________________________________________________ Here is the scenario I am dead set against: _______________________________________________________________________________ 666- The government sets up two institutions- "marriage" and "civil union". They both grant the same legal rights to couples- the only legal difference is that one is for gays and one isn't. Churches who wish to "marry" people are forced to follow the government-mandated definition, and if they decide that they are against that definition, they have to settle for the separate, but equal, "civil union". _______________________________________________________________________________ The question is, what is the point of setting up two institutions that are exactly the same in all cases EXCEPT that persons of the same gender can only participate in one? Well, what was the point of setting up separate drinking fountains, lunch counters and bus seats that were equal in all ways EXCEPT that blacks could only make use of one? The reason is the same. Conservative Christians, Muslims and even Jews are all as protective of their way of life in this case as Southern Whites were of theirs. And therefore, the result will be the same. The separate institutions would NEVER truly be equal in the moral sense, and prejudice and phobia towards the homosexual community would persist and increase. This is why I believe that if we want regulation of marriage to be constitutional, we must eliminate all differences between it and the concept of civil unions, until... "Gay marriage or civil unions? There is no difference." Hope this clears my position up a bit :)