My point was that the words, 'marry' and 'matrimony' have been reserved and protected by copywrite and can't be used to define a contract between two people of the same sex. The state is not at liberty to infringe on the copywrite by changing the definition of those words. Nor is the church. That's why I suggested they invent a new word to describe their contract.
If the state wants to use the same logic as it did to recognize (not grant) the rights of freed slaves with the 14th Amendment, I suppose they can do something similar to free up and recognize the gay community's claim for a contractual union without actually calling it 'marriage' or 'matrimony.'
The trick question circulating from homosexual apologists is, 'How will allowing homosexuals to marry harm heterosexual marriage(s)?' To address this twisted query one must understand what marriage is, as an institution within society and thus a crucial institution for civilization. This writer is convinced that homosexuality is deviant behavior ... little more than twenty years ago, it was defined as aberrant behavior in clinical Psychology texts.
To open a vital institution to even more degeneracy than is already corroding the institution because of tacit acceptance for adultery, spousal and child abuse, and rampant divorce with 'no fault' is to deliver a final death blow to the institution most tasked with the safety and nurturing of our children ... and the maturation of our young adults. When one looks at the ancillary factors of the institution of marriage --as when divorce, custody, and child support monies are contemplated by courts/judges-- it is evident that opening the institution to membership of more deviancy does nothing to improve the institution and in deed does much to degrade the sanctity of the institution. To understand why, one needs to look at what homosexuality represents ... and I don't mean to focus upon the deviant acts.
While there is a hormonal influence traceable in a very rare percentage of homosexual behavior, the behavior is a complex mix of onset hormonal fires and choice in behavior patterns. But how to explain the homosexuals who actually turn their lives around and away from the debasement of homosexual behaviors? You can tell a homo-activist by their insistence that this is not a genuine turnaround.
As human beings are exposed to notions of God and salvation, there is a very real tug of war between the 'adamic nature' we're all born with and the longing to commune with God, to be pleasing to Him not abhorrent to Him. I think this desire to relate to/with God the Creator is generated because of the human spirit within our human soul. All life has a soul of life, but as far as we know only the human animal has a spirit, and that unique 'thing' was designed to need God's spark within it to truly be alive in spirit as opposed to dead in spirit.
As the homosexual community seeks society's full affirmation for their deviant behavior, they cannot resolve the inner whispers in their human spirit ... they cannot mollify that which Holy God calls them to, simply by forcing through their activism the acceptance and protection within this society or any society. If one believes God speaks to us through scripture, it is clear that God abhors, detests, loathes homosexual behavior.
Much of the activism of homosexuals is misdirected rage against God's still small voice calling them to reject the behavioral urges, in favor of spiritual growth. Deviancy in sexual matters (whether adultery, or homosexual behavior, or addiction to pornography ...) is an immaturity in sexual development, where sexual and social development run into the 'diety' needs of the maturing human being with a spirit that will not be at peace until a relationship with the Creator is begun. It is the source of so many homosexuals that rage against Christianity. It is the source of their demand to have marriage rights. It is also the source of the demand to be accepted within a church community, as if they are 'just like everyone else'. They are not like everyone else, unless everyone else is slave to outright defiance over what God has called abomination!
A recent net exchange on the topic included the following cogent thought from a reasonable poster: "He [God] wanted us to love him freely. Homosexual life is no life at all." As the poster explained later, in so many words, when our behavior impedes our free association with Him [God], we are in a state of unrequited spiritual love, deep spiritual longing if you will, thus such a state in bodily life is not 'aliveness', spiritually. I'm reminded of where Jesus said 'Let the dead bury the dead'.
It is innate in so many to want to respond to God's still small voice by doing their own saving, being good enough to 'warrant' God's affirmation of them, not relenting to allow Him to grace them with eternal life in Him. As Cain railed at God when told to bring a specific offering, 'I can bring what I have produced by my own efforts and it will be good enough.' But it never was.
Achieving the 'right to marry, protected by the state' will not bring the Grace of God upon the unions of these deviants seeking affirmation ... or any deviants or their deviant behaviors for that matter. Adulterers will not inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. Why should homosexuals assume they will, merely because they might have state protection while corroding even further that which God instituted? God instituted marriage for the purpose of man cleaving unto his wife and thus away from the worldly. God calls homosexuality an abomination. An institution under assault from so many corrosive forces already will not endure the further injection of deviancy into the structure.
From a secular perspective, the approval by the state for degenerates to take full advantage of institutions already corroded by over-liberalization may affirm the degenerates, but it nullifies the ability of the institution to function as a foundational good for the society and its children by overtly exposing both the young and the maturing individuals to degeneracy as if an acceptable behavior pattern.
Maybe churches can't be forced to conduct them now. But some day, a gay couple is going to demand that the Catholic diocese in some ultra-liberal part of the country allow them to receive the Sacrament of Marriage from a priest in a traditional Church ceremony. The Church will refuse, the gay couple will go crying to the media, and the liberal state legislature, anxious to prove their tolerance and their political correctness, will vote to revoke the diocese's tax-exempt status until they become more "progressive" in their thinking.
The inevitable lawsuit will make its way to the US Supreme Court over the course of a couple years, and all during this time there will be constant media attacks on the Church, with lots of push polls being taken that "demonstrate" that the American people overwhelmingly support making the Church perform gay marriages. Over the couse of this time, many of the more liberal churches will have caved to the threat and will have allowed themselves to be intimidated into abandoning their Scriptures and doctrine.
The Supreme Court will inevitably rule that the state has a "compelling interest" in guaranteeing fair treatment to all citizens that overrides the Church's Constitutional protections under the First Amendment. This is a given, because to liberals, "freedom of religion" is a one-way street - it means that all aspects of religion are to be banished from public life, unless it's expedient for liberals to invoke them (as in the case of gay marriage). But the government, of course, has no limits in telling churches how to run their affairs and establish their doctrine.