re: #225 PT Barnum

I used to share that view, and I have not moved very far from this, but I think that it is fine for society to proclaim an ideal (whether the society in general fosters strong marriages and families is of course another argument, made well by Schmuley Boteach). I used to think that all marriages should be simply civil contracts, and that a church could perform whatever sanctification it wanted to whomever it wanted. What has changed my mind partially is the experience of the boy scouts, I don’t think a church could get away with declining to perform same sex sanctifications if the state did not differentiate without having to defend itself against hate prosecutions. So the state can actually provide a service to society by keeping the definition of marriage as is, but instituting a strong civil union compact, seems to me.