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Because Church and State are seperate, gay marriage should be controlled by the church. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with being gay, but marriage started off as a religious sacrament, thus, it should be up to the church to choose, amirite?
Marriage is a legal contract. You can have a religious ceremony or not, it doesn't change the legality of the marriage and while church's should be able to choose whether or not they will preform a same sex marriage ceremony they should not have anything to do with making laws concerning marriage.
Exactly, if gays want to get married, go to a state where it's legal, but churches shouldn't have to recognize gay marriage if it's against their beliefs.
No one is trying to force a church to recognize gay marriage. Heck, there's still churches that don't recognize interracial marriages and no one seems to care.
Also, marriage started off as a legal contract to form bonds between two families.
"Gay marriage does nothing to harm society so it should be completely legal when performed by a judge, however, churches shouldn't have to recognize or perform it if it is against their religion"
I think this is worded better
So I guess the legal bonds were way before religion started? I doubt that
Conflicts between families, the desire for more property/land and many other things lead to the need of a legal contract between families. A father would give his daughter to a man to marry in exchange for material things, thus forming a bond between the two families. Though such marriages were seen as to be sanctioned by a god, they were not marriages founded in religion.
I see where you're coming from however, you can not say that this is how marriage started throughout the whole world. This is how it started in one region but not in all. For instance that of native Americans or Africans.
This is wrong on so many levels. For starters, Christians aren't the only religious people that marry.
Where did I say anything about Christians?
So church refers to...?
I see what you mean, but I was referring to any religious organization that can marry a couple.
Marriage is a legal status as well as a religious ceremony, and is therefore technically part of the state.
Read my response to Pikabeaus comment
Yes, that sounds much better. I could agree with that.
Argument avoided