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About a year ago there was another conservative (don't remember the name) that had an interesting idea, let the government totally scrap the term "Marriage" from its books and replace all marriages with civil unions, let the religions use the term marriage (then they can have their special club and the traditional term defined however they want) and everyone else can use the civil union term for "official" governement use (taxation and the such).

I always found it interesting that the folks that want to desperetly hang on to the marriage term and have civil unions for gay/lesbian couples always said that they (gays etc) should be happy with the concession and let well enough alone but never answered the question of if they would be happy with a civil union instead of a marriage themselves.

Get the government out of the business of marrying people and religion in general, they have no place there except for taxation reasons (currently you need a marriage license anyway from the gov't so this should represent minimal overhead) and it really shouldn't matter to them what the economic unit is called.

"civil union term for "official" governement use (taxation and the such)."
BIG PROBLEM. If you give any two people who want to form a "civil union" the benefits of marriage tax brackets, you will basically be eliminating the protection that our tax code gives to married couples. There is nothing in the language of "civil union" to discourage 2 straight roomates from forming one for tax reasons. that's the question the gay marriage/civil union crowd can't seem toanswer.

Stephen Harper proposes reserving marriage for a man and a woman but allowing other partnerships - such as civil unions - to be created for gays and lesbians. Its a middle ground and it affirms society's understanding of marriage while allowing a minority to make a life as a couple in a civilized society. The law is a teacher. And the Canadian Government seems to believe in an all or nothing solution. There is no need to throw out the baby with the bath water. No other country has abolished traditional marriage. If the Canadian people could vote on the subject, they would not do so either. Consider Harper's following proposal as indicative of conservative thought today:

Our proposal is that the law should continue to recognize the traditional definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others, but at the same time we would propose that other forms of union, however structured, by appropriate provincial legislation, whether called registered partnerships, domestic partnerships, civil unions or whatever, should be entitled to the same legal rights, privileges and obligations as marriage.

And what is wrong with this? Nothing perhaps, except to extremists whose real goal is less to seek equality than in their determination to subvert the consensus that helps keep a society alive. They are the enemy within.

Denny Crane: "There are two places to find the truth. First God and then Fox News."