Gay marriage should never be recognize by the state because...

[MikeH]

[DriXnaK]

Religions can't even agree on a single god... they don't agree on marriages... at least the state can be consistent and fair to all instead of religions only being fair to those that follow their version of religion. Governments should be the final word on marriages, not a whole different bunch of superstitious cults that can't agree on anything except to discriminate against those that don't agree with them.

First of all, using the word consistent and fair in the same line as state/government is laughable. A cursory glance at history will tell you that that has never been the case, and probably won't be ever since you are still relying on humans to make the decision which, in the end, will always be swayed by some bias. You also completely forget that marriage was created by religion in the first place.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

In any case I think you got it backwards. It's the church that has no business in marriage. A marriage is a simple contract between two people with additional benefits for children. A religious marriage is null and void (apart from having a nice ceremony if you wish so), at least where I live.

Church's business is whatever the church decides. Since joining a church is, or at least should be, a consentual act, the decision to join a given church means, presuambly, an alignment of common interests.

The bigger question is does one believe that the governement has a interest in promoting marriage. Some argue that society is well served by the promotion of marriage and moreover the stabilizing influence it has for society at large as well as development of the next generation. Thus governments role in licensing and promoting marriage is warranted.

I think that arguement is interesting but offers lots of slippery slope potentials.

[MikeH]

You also completely forget that marriage was created by religion in the first place.

Er. No. Marriage as a concept, as in joining two people as life mates, is much older than any currently existing religion. Marriage like social structures certainly existed before communication evolved far enough for religion.

[rah]

Marriage as a mutually agreed upon contract or Marriage with the woman being a form of chattel. The later is probably older than religion, but he former is not that old.

[DriXnaK]

Well, ok, I'll give you that marriage probably precedes religion. That being said, when we think of marriage today we think of a church and all the things that go with it. It's pretty much tied to religion at this point. I don't really care one way or another since I'm an atheist that hates government. I prefer if government stays out of the lives of people, and that includes marriage. The less government does and the less of a role it has in society, the better.

[MOBIUS]

Religions can't even agree on a single god... they don't agree on marriages... at least the state can be consistent and fair to all instead of religions only being fair to those that follow their version of religion. Governments should be the final word on marriages, not a whole different bunch of superstitious cults that can't agree on anything except to discriminate against those that don't agree with them.

Amen to that!

[germanos]

Church's business is whatever the church decides.

Offcourse

The bigger question is does one believe that the governement has a interest in promoting marriage. Some argue that society is well served by the promotion of marriage and moreover the stabilizing influence it has for society at large as well as development of the next generation. Thus governments role in licensing and promoting marriage is warranted.

Exactly. That's why I said that the chuch can marry anything they want, but that it's the legal (read: sanctioned by the government) contract that is what actually matters.

That being said, when we think of marriage today we think of a church and all the things that go with it. It's pretty much tied to religion at this point.

No its not. Perhaps where you live it still is, but that's hardly a reason to accept it as a fact of life. Broaden your horizons a little.

[MikeH]

When I got married there was no religion involved in any way.

[DriXnaK]

Broaden my horizons? Sorry, but in the US the perception is that marriage is still tied to religion. No matter what you say, that isn't going to change anytime soon.

[rah]

While normally I want government involved as little as possible, they're the only ones that can really enforce any obligations resulting from a marriage. (religious excommunication doesn't impress me and it seems annulments aren't that expensive to buy) Without any enforcement, it has no real meaning, so government has to be involved. And while I'm always suspicious of governments, I'm more willing to believe that it would be more fairly administrated by them then by religious authorities.

[Elok]

Until children get involved, marriage is (legally) a fairly straightforward set of privileges: hospital visitation, inheritance, filing taxes jointly, probably a number of other odds and ends. I can't think of any reason why those privileges need to be tied together, or tied to a sexual relationship, by law. If a straight guy and his straight roommate who've been friends since first grade want to do all of those things, or some of them but not others, hey, I'm fine with that. A la carte, except possibly some restrictions on the tax thing to avoid abuses (ten people filing jointly could get sticky).

When children do get involved, of course, it's an entirely separate question from marriage law these days anyway. Plenty of people have kids without getting married. Which is another reason why I think civil marriage might as well be abolished: for the most part, it's religious people who get married before getting laid (though not all of them do that, either). Others move in together unmarried, they have kids together unmarried, if they're not religious they plainly don't think there's something sacramental about marriage. So why marry, except for taxes and other privileges which need not be tied to that particular circumstance? Oh, and to keep the bloated, disgusting, you-need-the-fancy-invitations-or-it's-all-wrong wedding industry going.

[Elok]

Oh, but that's not to say that the nonreligious can't have weddings. They can hold them wherever they please, invite a thousand people and a deejay, and change their existing sexual, cohabiting relationship into a sexual, cohabiting relationship that will cost them a ****-ton of money and involve several lawyers if they break up. And they can believe it means whatever they want. But legally, I don't think it ought to mean anything.

EDIT: To be clear, that applies to religious marriages as well: I would have preferred to go with my wife to the government office, fill out a form checking the boxes we wanted, sign it, hand it back and be done with it. None of that "here's your certificate, have your priest, rabbi, JP or whoever sign it and return it." What do they care?

[Ming]

Oh... but that's not to say that the religious can't have weddings. They can hold them wherever they please, invite a thousand people and some religious leader who makes his living leaching off society by promoting one superstition or another that only their followers believe. And they can change their sinful existing sexual, cohabiting relationship into a sexual, cohabiting relationship that will not only cost them a ton of money and involve several lawyers if they break up, and on top of that, even more money to buy an annulment if they are catholic, and they can believe it means whatever they want. But leagly, it doesn't mean anything unless they got a marriage license in the first place and had some body sign it and return it to the state. Just because some nameless God made up by one of the many different relgiions who can't agree on anything supposedly "blessed" the union doesn't really mean anything.

People get married because they love each other and want to spend their lives together and maybe even start a family... some god isn't needed to confirm that or sanction that. It's just a crutch.

To be clear... if a couple needs the crutch of having some superstitious made up deity bless their union to feel like can spend their lives together, fine by me. But it starts with the state, with relgion being the add on. Maybe in the past, when religions were the bigger authority and were dominant in large areas of the globe, it made some sense to have them be record keepers, but now, it doesn't. You can argue that "christians" still are dominant in large areas, but the simple fact is, all christians don't believe the same things, especially when it comes to marriage. It just makes more sense for the governent to the gate keeper. In the US, no single relgiion covers enough of the people... besides the fact that many don't even believe or belong to some superstitious cult.

[Heraclitus]

Ok I'll explain this slowly. Antibiotics ensure people don't die a horrible horrible death or endure major disfigurment from things like sifilis. Hence sexual mores are free to move away from strict control on sex. Hence marriage is weakers since sex can be gained fr

It's the church that has no business in marriage. A marriage is a simple contract between two people with additional benefits for children. A religious marriage is null and void (apart from having a nice ceremony if you wish so), at least where I live.

I already said a religions or personal ceremony should be non-resistant from the state's perspective.

You do realize you are fighting over words right? What harm does it do to let religious people keep the word marriage. Heck I'm not denying the word marriage to atheists or gays either (private ceremony also some Christians see no problem in marrying homosexuals), I'm just asking the contract be called a civil union to let the word be free from state definition.

The reason I want to keep the word is since the word is associated with the old concept which doesn't describe the contract definition that is in use today, just look over human history. Marriage was a reproductive arrangement and economic unit that tied together a man and and a (few?) women or a single woman into a reproductive agreement. You remain chaste so I know my son is min and I'll support you.

Eventually religious symbolism evolved around it, I want to keep the word marriage off the contract (no one is going to sue Atheists if they come up with their own marriage ceremonies or just say they are married after signing a civil contract) not necessarily out of vocabulary precisely because I want to make it easier for people to keep using the word marriage in the sense of the religious fluff that evolved around the thing. Perhaps a new word could be found for the traditional notion of marriage, but why should the old thing be given a new name instead of the new thing?

Also what do you think about letting people customize the marriage? Also why are you limiting the contract to just two people? Such a definition of such a contract is as arbitrary as the American conservative formulation of a thing between a man and a woman.