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?

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

Does the imagination count as a source?

@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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

But the term 'marriage' was created by religion.

Marriage was created by religion

@ crazy girl
You said keep the tradition in calling it marriage, yet tradition is one of the main points against gay marriage.

But you could still say you're marrying her.

But if they're equal (and not separate) why does it matter?

I just said equal and /not/ separate. They'd be called the same thing, so why does it matter?

Even if it was a secular invention or of a religious origin, the church still claims the government can't cross the boundary into certain matters that remain under the church's jurisdiction i.e. marriage.... So, it really doesn't matter so much where it actually originated from because the church will always say that it's sacred, and founded by God etc. whether it really was or not... And i said in my comment "has always been held as a sacred and holy institution by the church."

Let's just say all Christians were literalists(which the majority are not), so they believe that marriage was given by God to Adam and Eve. This is their opinion and in a country where 80 percent of the population is Christian, they should be allowed to express these views. And since there isn't necessarily any scientific evidence that disproves that God really did create Adam and Eve as the first humans, whose to say it wasn't true? Anyway, what I'm getting at is that under the views of christians and atheist, the origin of marriage varies

But calling it a civil union wouldn't limit anyone's rights, either.

Atheists/government cant claim it as their own, nor can Christians (technically)
So since nobody REALLY own marriage or founded marriage or whatever, why not just separate religious marriage from a formal, civil union?

The church doesn't have to recognize every marriage that the state does. Legalizing gay marriage does not force anyone who disagrees with it to perform the ceremony.

But even where it becomes law you still can't get religiously married and civil union sounds better for as a government term.

The difference is that using the word "marriage" is a tradition that doesn't hurt anyone or limit their rights.

Marriage was a secular invention; why would any religion have the right to define it? Marriage is just as much a legal institution as a religious one, so the government can say that anyone can marry anyone else, but not that the ceremony must be performed in a religious space or by a religious person.

What you said: "there isn't necessarily any scientific evidence that disproves that God really did create Adam and Eve as the first humans..."

What you should have said: "There isn't necessarily any scientific evidence that disproves that God really did create the universe."

We have proven evolution, and how the Earth was formed. We don't know what caused the big bang.

Right.
People always say that there should be a separation between church and state (GREAT!) --in order to support the fact that the church doesn't have the right to force their views of marriage upon all the citizens, homosexuals, athesists christian, etc; and that the job of legally defining marriage should be left to the government without the influence of the church.

But I've always thought the converse: If the church has to stay out of the business of the government and vice versa, shouldn't that mean the state can't just step in and change the definition of marriage, which is has always been held as a sacred and holy institution by the church.

The argument works both ways. So in order to avoid the argument of who has the rights( or ownership) of the institution of marriage, either the church or government, wouldn't it just make sense to separate the two into religious marriage and a legally recognized, more formal union?
A religious marriage would basically still be the same thing, except it would just be called a civil union. And a civil union would be the same thing as marriage, just called something else, as to not harm the christian teaching of marriage.

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

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.

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

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.

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."

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

NOT EVERY MARRIAGE, oh god dumbass. Maybe you, anonymous, should read the damn argument before YOU start retorting.

RELIGIOUS PEOPLE can marry, but NON-RELIGIOUS people can civil union. Maybe you should read my fucking post before you go spewing off.

no, every legal marriage would be a civil union. it makes more sense for a government term anyway. and you can't force churches to marry gays.

@spareseconds OP never said that a non-religious person can't call their civil union marriage. They can call it whatever the fuck they want.

I don't even get what you're saying if I was off.

But the government would be calling it a civil union. If this post said that every "union" was the same and it didn't necessarily have to be called anything and that people can decide their own name for it, then I'll agree. If there was no government name for two people "unioning" then there would be no separation and no issue. But if you're going to have the same process called one thing by one group and another by another group, it's unnecessary segregation.

But the government would NEED a name to recognize it as. What would you propose it would be?

Doesn't matter. The same name recognized by the same government. If the government doesn't recognize religious marriage as a different name than regular marriage, then it's ok with me. Maybe I did misread the post, sorry about that. My point is the government shouldn't call one set of marriages a different name because it's pointless. If religious people want to call their union a marriage within their own home, that's fine. I took this post to mean that non-religious people would have a different name for their union, which I found unnecessary. Sorry for overreacting.

Reread the post. That's not what OP said. OP said that EVERY marriage is called a civil union. Because then fundamentalists can stop complaining. Religions call the union what they want to. Before you go on a rant, double check what you're fucking retorting. They might just be on your side.

There always has to be one of you, doesn't there?

Why not? It's a thought provoking post that can actually get debates going. I think it's better than a lot of the potds lately.

It sparks a discussion and can actually be quite stimulating. I don't understand why people always expect the POTD to be something witty and/or funny. A debatable topic can be just as good.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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