I know, it's really quite sad. How is what two people do personally gonna affect anyone else?

That's fine, we have a right to them, but you don't have a right to enforce your morality on everyone else.

No idea. It's not my place to tell a couple not to get married. What they do does not affect my life.

If only more people would take that attitude, and live and let live. Life would be a lot different, and better.

there you go again... and when did i do that?

Don't mean to insuinate you do, but people who are against stuff like this.

i'm against it, but that doesn't mean that i think you are wrong... it is just an opinion, opinions have no right or wrongs, they are just opinions... but not everyone thinks that way...but i respect peoples opinions, but not when they start with the name calling and other remarks

Do you feel you can tell them that they can't marry cause you don't like it? Yes or no?

i can vote like everyone else...on the flip side, can you justify telling me what to believe or not to believe? you have the the right to tell me what i can believe?

No, I can't tell you what to believe, you will believe what you want. I may explain why I think you're in error, but I can't tell you you have to believe me.

Having said that though, I'm not the one trying or wishing to pass laws discriminating against another person or group of people. Your free to believe as you want, but when you want to step on someone else's rights as people in so doing, you cross a line.

I do think incidentally some views are wrong, not everyone can be right.

like i said, it's a matter of opinion... i don't think anyone is being discriminated against, gays have every right i have, even more... no one is trying to pass a law that is discriminatory, the laws are already in place, they are trying to repeal an existing law... there are 2 or more sides to every issue, and one side wins, and the others loses. and anytime something like this is changed, someones toes gets stepped on... you seem to forget that right and wrong is different for everyone, thats why these "battles" will always be around

Yes right and wrong are different for everyone, and really that's why law should stay out of it in the first place, let people do as they wish, and leave it at that. Personally others should just mind their business so long as they aren't being personally affected by whatever it is the other is doing, or if someone is in danger by it.

We've sort of become a nation of busy bodies honestly. So what if gays want to marry, it isn't gonna wreck your relationships is it? Let them alone. Take responsibility for you, and don't worry so much about they might do.

true, but that is up to the elected officials that make the laws... maybe try voting better people in office that agree with you more

That'll never really happen though, the voting process doesn't work, it's just a show, it doesn't mean much in the end. Really I'd rather have a smaller government anyway, and not something where majority rules, it really doesn't work.

Nah, that's not what I'm saying.

I'm saying that if a couple wants to get married in the LEGAL sense, they have to be joined in a Civil Union. If the couple wants to be married in the RELIGIOUS sense, they go to a church and get married. Marriage would carry nothing but religious meaning and therefore wouldn't carry any legal status. Just like getting Baptized has no legal status. Nothing would stop gays from being married in a church that was willing to perform same sex marriages.

Gays would get the protections under the law that they desire and churches would be protected from lawsuits if they refused to marry gays. Thus Gays get the right to enter civil unions and churches maintain their freedom of religion.

EDIT: Since the Constitution grants the Federal Government the right to form contracts, Gay Civil Unions would be legal throughout the country. Since Marriage would be purely a religious ceremony, no states would be allowed to legislate who could get married.

Baptism and Marriage are not anywhere near the same thing though. In one case, you are choosing to enter a particular group, so of course it wouldn't have a legal status attached. In the other, you're just choosing to share your life with another person. Why should the church have to be involved in that?

This proposal breaks traditional marriage down into two steps.

1) Marriage - Religious ceremony with no legal standing.
2) Civil Unions - Legal contact with no Religious status.

Those two steps would apply to EVERYONE. Not just gays.

You cannot force a Church to marry homosexual couples, it violates their civil rights and their right to Freedom of Religion. You may not know this, but a church has the right to refuse a wedding to a hetero couple, so homosexual couples will be no different. It's not a violation of their civil rights for a priest to refuse to marry them. You might not agree with that decision, but that doesn't mean you have the right to force them to violate their religious beliefs.

This was my suggestion a couple years ago but I discovered it would not solve the problem.

There are many religious groups and congregations that accept homosexualy. In such religious groups, same-sex marriage would be normal. In other words same-sex couples could still married, they would just have to find a clergy member of their chosen faith to officiate in the marriage.

You can't make it illegal for clergy membert to perform 'marriage' between same-sex couples. The fact that cilvil unions would exist in this scenario, would not stop clergy from preformaing rites of marriage.

And the opposite side is that clergy COULD marry a same-sex couple because the law cannot interfere.

That means there would be no reason to have both a civil union and a marriage.