This Whole Gay Marriage Issue

I've listened to the debate for what seems like years now. Infact, I specifically remember making comments to friends or writing down notes back in my senior year of highschool/freshman year of college about how Gay Marriage was going to become a hot button issue over the next few years. Think back five years ago, it was rarely talked about by law makers, the papers and media or by the public. Much has changed. Now whenever I hear the arguments from all sides, I think that one of the main issues and problems governing the language of the debate is really the semantics of it all. Here are my thoughts on the idea in general, and a few side points created by the discussion of such a topic.

First, the way I understand it is that, (and I may be totally incorrect with this) when a man and woman receive their marriage license or certificate when they are married in a church, that legal authority comes from the state. I believe the priest or whomever says "and by the power vested in me by the state of (state)" which to me signifies that there are two levels to this traditional marriage arrangement. There is the legal state binding and the religious recognition by the church. The former is what guarantees a couples' rights - i.e. taxes, financial, death benefits and all of the things dealing with that nature. The latter makes it officially recognised by whatever church married the man and woman. What if a man and woman were married by a priest who did not have the state authority to wed them. They would be married, but this marriage would not be recognised by the state and thus these two people would not be titled to the benefits listed above under couples' rights. So now, what happens when two atheists want to be "married?" Certainly they don't go shopping around for the right church and their religious christian leader. Many opt for a JP - get "married" by a judge. So these two atheists, man and woman, now have all of those couples' benefits but don't have religiously recognised marriage, they have a civil union. The couple married by a priest with state power to officially wed them had a civil union underlying their rights and a marriage recognised by their church. The couple married by the priest with no state marriage authority does thus not have any civil union "contract." Follow me so far? There was a reason for going through that mess of the way I see things in its present form.

I do not believe the state as an entity can distinguish and decide which two people can and can't get "married" or rather in the proper technical terms (because this is what I think the problem is) the state can't decide who is elegible to be civilly unionised. There has been this big push by religious and social conservatives to make constitutional amednments and the state and federal level to "ban gay marriage." Now, I don't know why they need an amendment to do such a thing. Rather than going through a long and controversial political process, why not just refuse to marry/wed and refuse to recognise the marriage of any gay couple? I certainly don't agree with their stance, but I realise they have the right to do such a thing. This gay couple would then go and get a civil union from a JP and have all legally binding privaleges that any straight couple has. The only difference between these two "marriages" are that one has been recognised and performed by a church. If the gay couple can find a church and minister or whatever leader to perform a ceremony, then by all means. I would object for the same reasons any attempt by the government (I assume from pressure by liberal and pro-gay groups) to force leaders of the church to religiously recognise a civil union performed by a judge to a gay couple as the same thing as what they have done under traditional church marriage to a straigh couple. Or even to perform gay "marriages" against their will. This way religious leaders can't get on their soap box and talk about how gays getting married is "destroying the sanctity of marriage" because it isn't a marriage, it's a civil union. And if you have disagreements when one religious leader wants to recognise it and another doesn't, for Pete's sake fight about it internally. Don't make it a national issue and waste politicians' time when they have real work to do.

What I just typed out is probably poorly written and hard to understand. But when we get into talking about amendments to the constitution in specific reference to religious ceremonies, we immediately fall down a slippery slope that leads to theocracy. Again, to make my point again (and hopefully as clear as I can) it's all about what people are calling it. Marriage is the religious term, a civil union is a non-religious term. They will effectively be the same thing; it is about receiving equal rights and benefits. It is about keeping up the wall between church and state. The church should have no say when it comes to state sponsored rights, especially when they (the church) wants to discriminate on the basis of sexuality.