+388 You think every marriage (gay or straight) should just be called a civil union (when it comes to the government) and religions can call the union whatever the fuck they want, amirite?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Or it could stay called a marriage and everyone else in society can call it whatever the fuck they want.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Yeah, but it's just because anyone who opposes gay marriage because "marriage is a religious thing between a man and a woman" (which i disagree with) wouldn't have anything to argue.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Marriage was not created by religion, so religious people should have no say in what the government calls it.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Marriage was created by religion

by Anonymous 12 years ago

You just want to argue, don't you? What proof do you have of that?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

@iamawalrus: No, marriage was around long before any Abrahamic religion. It was initially used as a form of payment between two families. A woman was given to a man as his "property." Religion certainly developed marriage with their ceremonies and traditions, but they had no part in the creation of it.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

But the term 'marriage' was created by religion.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

From where are you taking that? Do you have a source?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Does the imagination count as a source?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Even if the term "marriage" was created by religion, that would only prove the point of this post further. Religious people can still have the right of defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman if they want to, while still allowing same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples before the law.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Oh I agree with the post. And I support marriage equality in general.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Even if religion DID invent marriage, which it didn't, it wouldn't matter. Modern marriage, or civil union or whatever you want to call it, isn't always a religious thing anymore. Two secular people can get married with no connection to religion at all.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

This is a really good idea. Part of the problem with politics today is that people forget the separation of church and state because the state uses the same terms the church does for different concepts. Religious marriage and legal marriage are completely different things.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I really wish there were more sensible people like you who understood this argument.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I would much rather say that I married the love of my life than I civil union'd the love of my life.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

But that's okay for you. It's just that the government shouldn't be giving out religious titles. Leave that to the church.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Civil unions don't have anywhere near the same amount of benefits as marriage.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Yeah, but if this were to happen, the benefits of what is now marriage would be the same as a civil union.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Yes, but that would be changing the definition of a word, and that's one of the anti-gay marriage group's arguments.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I think it should be called marriage, just not in a religious case. No church should be forced or required by law to marry gay couples if it goes against their values. But I think it should be referred to as marriage; marriage isn't solely a religious concept.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

50 years from now, all these religious crazies are gonna look like the people who didn't allow women the right to vote. They'll look at us as "that period" where irrational descrimination still lingered despite all the accomplishments of gender and racial tolerance. We're gonna be percieved as how we see the present KKK today.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

OR, (and I'm just throwing this out there), MAYBE we could all get the fuck over ourselves and stop denying people rights based on their sexual orientation and then EVERYONE could get married! Sounds like a pretty awesome idea, too bad the church doesn't like it. If only we had some sort of seperation between the church and the state, that would sure make things alot more fair. Yeah, that would be nice. Oh well.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

But if people feel that "marriage" is a religious word, we're violating the separation of church and state by using that term. I'm saying EVERYONE's "marriage" is called a civil union, and they can call it whatever.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

If we're going to make marriage and civil unions the same thing, why call it all a civil union rather than a marriage? Perhaps this is just my perception, but it seems like "marriage" has a more positive connotation than "civil union," because civil unions are mostly for people who can't get married. I'm sorry if I sound really ignorant.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

No, you're right. Right now, that's the connotation of civil union. But if everyone had the official title be civil union, it wouldn't be a problem anymore.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

But it also wouldn't be a problem if everyone had the official title of marriage. Rather than say, "no one is allowed to have a marriage anymore, you can only have a civil union," we could say, "no one has to have a civil union anymore, we all get to have marriages."

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I think changing the name would take away some of the importance of it, whether it started religiously or not. Also, I don't understand why people get so mad over there being traditions that started out religiously. In the pledge of allegiance, it DOES say "one Nation under God.." so I don't care if you have the same beliefs or not but you have to realize that we DO have a religious back ground so, yes, it would make sense for there to be religious traditions. If you are really that upset about it maybe you shouldn't live somewhere where you can't say the pledge of allegiance and actually agree with it. Please dont get too offended though, just stating my opinion like everyone else.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

But that has only been in our pledge for the best fifty years or so. That doesn't make it our "religious background".

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Maybe but that is still quite a while, and it is still a part of our history.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

But "quite a while" doesn't make it good. "Part of our history" doesn't either. Just because slavery was around for a long time doesn't make it just.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Also, a lot of people who disagree with the words "under God" omit them from the pledge of allegiance. When saying it with the group, they will say everything but those two words, and it doesn't make them any less patriotic. I believe there's a movement to have those words taken out entirely.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Okay well you guys can vote down my comments as much as you want but my whole point is that no matter what, there were and are still a lot of religiously-based laws and traditions in America and even if you don't agree with them, you have to at least acknowledge the fact that theyre there and at one point it time the majority of the people that lived here didnt have anything against them. You should be able to accept the fact that our country has been religiously-based in the past and stop trying to act like our leaders had no clue what they were doing.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

a) It wasn't a Christian-based past, which is the main group against this b) Society evolves. They used to have slaves. That doesn't make it correct to own a slave.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Yes but that also doesn't mean that everything in the past is wrong. There were some bad things but that does not make everything bad.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

But your logic was because it was in the past, it was good.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

No my logic was we should trust that the people who made those decisions back then knew what they were doing and at the time it was the right decision and the majority of the people here agreed. You might not agree with it now but people did back then.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I think the problem is that we still uphold laws that were founded religiously, for no better reason than tradition. People aren't so much upset that these laws were made, as they are upset that they are still in existence when they've become outdated and the majority of people no longer supports them. Does that answer your question?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Why don't they just legalize same sex marriages? It doesn't harm anyone and it doesn't bother anyone, why are they against it over there?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Well the best explanation I can get out of anyone is "because ew"

by Anonymous 12 years ago