You know what, re-reading my post - I think my point might be lost. I don’t want to mince words here.
I am a conservative who supports traditional marriage. I dont like what the “gaystapo” is doing at all. I don’t think it’s good for society for these shrill activists to be hijacking the concept of marriage and I certainly do not like how this sort of thing affects the impressions of children. They have enough to be confused about these days without all this madness. I also don’t understand how Ireland and the Catholic Church plans on enforcing this, either (I was raised Catholic, btw).
So having said that, I think my strongest feeling here is a desire to “punish” the government for their failure at “defending” marriage and I think that is my impetus for suggesting we do away government recognition of “marriage” altogether and just call it something else. I realize that this is probably a tough call, perhaps unrealistic, but the notion that a couple states are diving into this concept makes me think it might be a necessary option. The government is completely out to lunch, and we all know this, but seeing what happened in Ireland (a place I’ve been to and truly enjoyed), doesn’t exactly exude confidence in the direction things are going... I’m sure I’m not alone here, but I just want to make all these points clear. Thanks for reading .
I agree with you. Create some kind of legal institution administered by the state, but don’t call it marriage. I remember years ago there was a proposal to do something like this, and it wasn’t necessarily related to people being a “couple” in the sexual sense, but simply legal benefits for a household (could be two adult siblings, for example, or a grown child and an elderly parent living together, or just about anything else). It would simply relate to taxes, inheritance and decision making rights, etc.
Marriage is something that should belong to the churches. If gays want to have their own mock “weddings,” I’m sure they can come up with a format and find some obliging organization to do it for them - after the civil arrangement has been entered into. This means they have no leverage over the churches, since the state civil process is giving them the legal status they want, and anything religious or even ceremonial then is purely under the control of the church or other entity providing it.
Get the state out of marriage, and the gays lose the club they are beating us with.