What is your justification for making them illegal??

The state does not control the church and the church does not control the state. The influence is applied from one to the other through the citizen. The citizen is not the all important check currently but it keeps a balance. As with most of the poli…..

There’s absolutely nothing in the Constitution, one way or the other, concerning marriage. Therefore, to me, this is an issue best left to the people of each State – there’s that 10th Amendment again! However, we have long-standing common law that a marriage in one state must be recognized by other states, which makes this issue in fact quite thorny.

The government has a vested interest in promoting marriage between a man and a woman. Marriage between a man and a woman, as a civic institution, promotes civilization. I and most people believe that is clear and settled. Others may disagree, I suppose, and you’re welcome to. Seems to me it’s been proven that the stability provided to society by one-man-one-woman marriage has been proven for thousands of years. Stability for society, stability for the community, stability for the man and the woman, and most importantly, stability for the children that most of those couples raise. No other form of “marriage” can make that claim.

Two gays can be married in a Church today. The government will not recognize it; but they can. In fact, there are churches out there, I believe, where you can marry your pet. A polygamist marriage can be accomplished religiously, I believe. In the eyes of the law, however, they are just people shacking up in the same house, or only one man and one woman in the grouping can officially be married, and the other one (or two or three) might as well just be kinky hangers-around.

You can make gay marriage a federal issue ONLY if you adopt the view that it is a civil rights issue. That is the only way it can happen. I (and I’m gay) do not subscribe to that.

Liberals believe that any change is a good change so long as no harm is perceived up front. If you don’t see any harm from it, why not go ahead and do it?

Conservatives believe that a change is welcome only if a definite good is perceived up front. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. If you can’t see a definite benefit, then don’t make the change.

Based on all of the above, and my view of myself as a conservative, I’m not in favor of gay marriage. Go and live your life happily.

I have heard it said they don’t have the same rights. I am apparantly ignorant here, which rights might those be here in the State of Kaleefrnia?

MacG

That fact that they are not sexually attracted to the opposite sex is immaterial. The cannot insist on redefining a fundamental institution to make it something completely different from what it has ever been simply to accommodate their deviation.

But if the government chooses to recognize one marriage and not the other (as long as it is between two consenting citizens, non-polygomous, non-incest, doesn’t constitute statuatory rape) it is a violation of separation of church and state and is unconstitutional in my opinion.”

I’m not sure I follow this argument. Isn’t it a violation of the separation of church and state for the government to exclude incestuous and polygamous marriages since they are also proscribed by the major religions?

(If you want to cite Islam as an exception, couldn’t you take the state’s preference for non-polygamous marriage to be an unconstitutional slap at the Religion of Peace?)