Just to throw out my opinion on the whole gay marriage thing, and wondering where the rating will fall…

When it is boiled down to the basics, the entire topic is about legal (read government) benefits. Stay with me here a bit. Any couple, gay or straight, can buy a wedding cake, rent a hall, find a willing priest, recite their vows before the god of their choosing, hire a DJ, and dance the night away before heading off on a honeymoon.

And for all whom it should matter (the couple and their god), they ARE married.

It then runs into the legal issues: government recognition of the automatic benefits marriage confers. Survivor benefits, life-or-death medical decisions, tax benefits, etc. And that is where I get hung up. A contract could be written up, filed away, and pre-distributed by a gay couple defining the EXACT power-of-attorney powers each has over the others, more or less enacting a legal “marriage”.

So the only thing that leaves standing that could not be legally duplicated (unless I’m way off base on a few) would be the tax benefits of marriage.

But somehow, if the government were to level the field and remove all of the automatic benefits of marriage (including taxes) and force every couple, gay or straight, to have that legal document drawn up and filed to confer the benefits, I’m not sure the gay community would be happy with that type of equal rights. And thus, I ask myself, does this roll around to a type of forced “approval” of the gay lifestyle? Rather an intolerant world view, if that is what it finally boils down to.

Oddly enough, that’s why I’m hesitant to be for gay marriage. I’ve wanted to get this off my chest for quite a while, and I guess the topic was just here at the right time. Damn near could have made my own blog post about that (had I had a blog).

Thanks, Charles.