re: #325 Throbert McGee

IMO, part of the reason that the rhetoric about same-sex marriage can get so overheated on the gay side is that a lot of activists tend to approach the issue as if it were the same problem as trying to decriminalize sodomy. For that matter, in the older ranks of gay activists, there are still plenty of people who cut their political teeth protesting against police harassment of gay bars.

They are, in short, still mentally stuck in the mode of “fighting for our right to be left alone by the gummint,” which simply isn’t applicable to the current marriage debate.

You have a good point.

If I may, let me throw this in: There are many, many people who have an objection, primarily for religious reasons, to the term “marriage” being applied to same sex couples, but who have no objection WHATSOEVER to some sort of process or system of of contractual civil unions for same-sex couples. As a civil matter, this is what marriage comes to - a contractual union.

I’m one of those people. And imo, the solution would be to take the “state” out of the marriage business entirely. Couples wanting a civil union would apply to the state for that; and as a separate process, couples who additionally want their union sanctioned by their faith’s marriage ceremony and requirements, would get married in their church.