Gay Marriage Debate

You are describing civil unions. Legal marriage is just religous baggage.

Yes, different jurisdictions treat marriage differently.> There is no reason why laws should give special privileges to marriages over other forms of relationships.I tend to agree, but that's a normative question and doesn't change the legal facts we have to deal with.(At least not directly. Laws are made by people, and if enough people or the right people care for laws to be different, laws can be changed.)

The idea is to get some of the government benefits of marriage without the overhead, i.e. the ability to make medical decisions and potentially lower tax rates depending on income situations.Past generations of my family were prohibited from marriage because of race. It took a lot of rethinking of what marriage was for them to be granted those rights, ditto for LGBT people who just got those rights a few years ago in the US. There's still no reason why the current definition of marriage

However, there are many legal matters that are deeply affected by marital status (whether or not you want to call it differently). Many of those rights/benefits are there for good reasons, e.g. child custody, decision-making in medical matters, etc. You can call marriage something different but you'd end up with a legal relationship that looked an awful lot like marriage. Personally, I don't think having a civil union that's different from a religious marriage (with no legal

You don't seem to understand: they can be rational and maintain that a relationship between two people categorically incapable of producing children together biologically, two people of the same sex, can’t be a marriage.It's ignorant, places way too much emphasis on sex rather than committment and love, and is justified by stupid ideas like marriage being "reserved" for heterosexual couples for the purpose of procreation, but it's rational. It also leads to sep

No it is equal. Everyone can marry according to the definition of what a marriage is (was). It is just that some people have preferences that don't align with that. But it is no different than if someone polygamous want to marry several women. Their preference don't align with what marriage is defined as, but they have exactly the same rights.

That's about marriage, not state-regulated marriage. You are being intellectually dishonest.

The funny thing is that people who want to get rid of marriage as a legal concept seem to pipe up almost exclusively in discussions about gay marriage.Why do you think this idea is relevant here? It's only relevant if you want to argue that gay marriages shouldn't be legally recognized because no marriages should be legally recognized.You mention that you're married yourself. If you really wanted the state not to be involved, you could just have conducted a non-legally-recog

Yes. Separation between church and state (and wealth and mass media and journalism and politics)Civil marriage and some wills should be replaced with a property and next of kin registered document. This way, any number and type of people can formally-declare what they want to do with property and health, financial, and total power of attorney. Insurance companies and other service products can then determine who is eligible to share benefits based on if someone is listed as a partner or benef

Marriage is a legal institution in the United States. If you call for discriminatory access to a legal asset, you should be ready for the scrutiny.Had the shoe been on the other foot and we were funding a proposition to limit the recognition of Christian marriage, Christians would call it an opposition to their existence too. And rightfully so! The backlash makes sense on a logical, emotional and authoritative level. I don't see how you could possibly interpret it otherwise.