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I haven't posted in a long while but I thought I'd add my 2 cents.

I really don't see why people are so up-set over this. I mean marriage is just a civil contract between 2 individuals regardless of their sex. A man and a woman exchanging their vows in a church before God and family is the traditional marriage. And I doubt that will change.

What this basically boils down to is the separation of church and state. Marriage law in this country is dictated by man's interpretation of what the bible states is a marriage: one man one woman. If we are to amend the constitution why not say that marriage has to be between a white man and a white woman or black man and black woman only -- no interracial marriages. Men can't marry Asian or Latin woman. And women can't marry Latin men or any other outside their race -- sounds a bit like Hitler but that's the can of worms that will be opened if this goes far enough. And who will suffer? Republicans. Why? Because a larger majority believe that republicans are racist, homophobic bigots. So, if you mandate that marriage is only between a man and woman based on God's law then the constitution will have to state that a legal marriage can only take place in a church -- who's going to win that argument?

The solution is to just let the issue alone. If Adam wants to have a legal, binding civil contract with Steve like John and Mary -- what's the harm? After all, in the eyes of the courts it's just a contract. And those people who wish to marry in a church can still do so, and the world will still turn and the sun will still shine.

It's like the Catholic church saying that a catholic man and woman who aren't married in a catholic church aren't married in the eyes of the church; but the courts say different because they have entered into a civil contract that is legal and binding.

I think the issue would be a lot different if Gay's were demanding to be married in churches. And my stance would be different. But as it stands Gay man and women have the same right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness the same as any other American. Whether you like it or not is your own personal choice.

And for those who will rip me apart and call me names -- don't bother as I'm not so sensitive I can't take a little name calling :-)

"But on the flip side you'd be surprised how many divorcees there are who think it's the other folks who are ruining marriage. Yes, even here on FR."

Flipside yet again are the gay bishops who lecture on social fabric and the need for a greater 'social responsibility'; apparently setting a good example is not part of it, sending your money to the church is.Robert J Ringer in his books talked about the moral line-drawers. Everybody wants to do what they want to do and in our "pro-choice" moral environment, you can concoct whatever set of rules that suits you fine, and damns others. And then there is the line from our local Sammy and Bob talking about the kind of baptists who think "Jesus loves me, he just cant stand you".

Let me make an extended rant on the wider and deeper import of this trend. I am of the 'live and let live' stripe regarding the so-called 'gay lifestyle' and sexual behaviors . Yet something in this ruling feels violative. Why?

In the end, nobody individually is 'ruining' anything, viz. marriage or otherwise. That's how sin works - it begs to be let through the cracks. for the alcohlic, 'just one drink', for others "It's just a (fill in theblanks)". This is an accumulative and collective phenomenon, where the institution is degraded through negative action and built up through positive action. So with marriage too. This latest degradation is a part of a many-decades-long process of destroying the concept of many things, including marriage, as sacred promises held above even strictures of law. Now, if it is legal - it is good; and everything you can do is by definition 'good' since it supresses your 'expression' to be bound by any limits. Result? there is no good nor evil nor distinctions - the goal of cultural socialism is acheived.

And the constant drive by the enablers who want to 'define deviancy down' and force the rest of society to accept some wider and stranger set of rules that must be acceptable to society. Those who dont accept the 'new morality'? They are ostracized. Witness the recent attacks on the boy scouts over not allowing gay scoutmasters. Attempts to broker true 'live and let live' fail, because in this culture war, one side wants dominance not a peace. The organized vanguard of the new morality once wanted 'tolerance', then 'acceptance'; now niether tolerance nor acceptance is given to those who dont agree to the new PC morality of the sexual libertines.

Yet moving to the result of amorality defies human belief. We know in our hearts there is a right and there is a wrong and there is a difference. Even to those who see the world in grays know that there is a dark and a light. Every heroic act is an act of creation, and ennobles who we are as well as our world. And without that nobility, that sense of pursuing the best in what we can do, we feel ourselves cheated even as we cheat the world of our best.

If there are those who claim you can just patch up sexual morality by pretending homosexuality is just heterosexuality with different targets, I say - good luck! I dont think the tattered remnant of sexual morality can be repaired when anything to any other consenting adult is considered acceptable. The Bishop who is the gay Gene offends not merely because he is homosexual, but because he divorced a wife to do it and it living in an arrangement and has done things that all of scripture denotes as sinful. What would he call sinful? What is left? The kids and sheep are safe - for now.

Lost in the shuffle then is morality. Morality is about the duties we owe to ourselves, to eachother and to God. Those duties flow from our habits and habits from our thoughts and intentions. To the Christians of Western culture at one time, the stuff of everyday living was the stuff of sin: Gluttony, envy, greed, lust, pride, etc. Every aspect of these seven deadly sins was about control of our basic impulses - about self-denial.

Nowadays our cafeteria-morality collides with our self-help-rationalism and consumerism to deny sin its place. This is partly a good thing. Guilt aint all its cracked up to be, and the practical and psychic rewards of treating our internal mindstate as basicly healthy but needing "self-improvement" seems better than the path of overbearing sin. Some need to know that God is there when life overwhelms them and they 'hit bottom'. But for others, the 'sin' is not gluttony but being a bit overweight and the penance is aerobics; the 'sin' is not lust, but not having the right pickup lines to succeed. Self-denial? We deny its existence and its utility.

Materialism and rationalism have spun a web that externalizes every problem even while it locks in our internal desires and justifies them as healthy. This is why the narcissistic "Gay Lifestyle" cant be supressed by our culture, which is wholly narcissistic from the fad-conscious to the keeping-up-with-the-jones materialists; it's as if Todd and Gregg just picked a different 'lifestyle choice' off the racks at the mall - who are we to argue, busy making our own choices in the material world that accepts everything and denies nothing? It seems unfair that a culture so attuned to gratifying all sorts of desires would deny the basic impulses of a small subset ( 3% is small in demographic terms, but big enough in the 'narrowcasting' marketing world; big enough for "Gay Tourism" to take off.)

Lost, then, is the morality of self-denial - if we ever had it. (Perhaps it was just the roughness of life that made it seem like a moral strictness. Prosperity makes it easier to be 'good' but so hard to be ascetic.) Some dont lament this change in mores - 'no boundaries' and 'do what you want' is their motto. Some understand the trade-off and see the loss of propriety as a true loss of innocence; they'll want to strike a moderate bargain. Others stand athwart history yelling "stop!". And the last - in my mind the real dangerous ones - are the cultural socialists who tear down the old and build their own morality on the rubble of the old.

I suggest yet another response. Events change. Technologies change. Languages change. Even what works and what doesnt changes. But the human heart and principles that speak to us are timeless. Find the true rock of timeless principles and stand firm on that.

We need if anything to grab ahold of the *intention* of a moral order and not lose sight of it, no matter how much the 'innovation' of cultural socialism tears down traditional mores. If traditional mores fall, much will be lost, but all is not lost. In the end a "neo-traditionalism" can emerge and defeat cultural socialism, as has democratic (neo)-free-market economics defeated Communism. I just wonder if our fate is to be like Europe, pro-death to the point of cultural, social and physical suicide. The choice, death or life, is always timely yet timeless.

(PS. I dont know if the above is gibberish or wisdom, it's just what I feel in my bones right now.)