Bi-Polar Bear wrote:CoastalRat wrote:I must be missing something here. I am under the impression that gays have the exact same rights as everyone else in this country. What they want is to change the law to give them additional rights.
Like McG, I think more support will be given to gay unions if provisions are made to differentiate between marriages (a religious rite) and civil unions (a secular rite).
I have been married 5 times....twice in a church...twice by a JP...once by a magistrate......all the marriages save one ended in divorce....like 50% of every marriage...I am not unusual.....where does the sacred religious rite part come in?
BPB, let me better explain my thinking. Forget about the sad state of most marriages today. Too many people, IMO, get married for the wrong reasons and with very little thought (thanks in part to no fault divorces, but that is another issue).
Currently, civic and religious marriages are recognized by all parties as legal unions, both by the church and by governments for legal reasons. My thought is to differentiate the ceremonies so that churches, for religious reasons, have no legal compulsion to recognize civil unions if said unions violate church doctrine (as gay unions would).
I think much of the fear of gay unions by christians is that the government, wielding tax exempt status as a weapon, will force churches to recognize gay unions as legit. To me, this appears to be a reasonable fear. Creating gay unions as a seperate entity outside of marriage to recognize the rights of the two partners in regard to the others property et al would be more palatable to many more christians than what is being attempted now.