The World According To Alan

It is true that many laws have a religious root, but they still must have secular value or you do not have "freedom of religion". You can't, because you're specifically coding a set of religious views into the law. If you want to do anything more than *pretend* to have a free society, your laws are based on keeping people from interfering with other people's rights to do as they choose and no more. There's a great quote: "Your right to swing your arm ends at my nose."

A clear example of this is how the Mormons were arm-twisted into giving up polygamy to get Utah into the union. Clearly limiting marriage to a single man and a single women violates their freedom of religion.

Peyote is part of many Native American religious ceremonies: anti-drug laws violate their freedom of religion (though occasionally waivers are granted in their case, it still limits their freedom).

The Defence[sic] of Marriage Act and any future attempts at a consitutional amendment to define marriage, are only legitimate acts of protecting us from 'bench legislation' and the ability of one or more states to enact law for all fifty states.

Such actions are nothing more than attempts to codify historical discrimination. Period. You can rationalize it all you want, but that's what they do: protect state's rights to discriminate. You just as well add in to it a ban on marrying between races.

By recommending that marriage laws be "civil unions", I am *not* recommending a "separate but equal" situation --- I think that legally *all* unions be "civil unions" --- same sex or not. I think this would dramatically simplify the debate.

While it's true that there are non-religious people who are homophobic, when you ask them why, it boils down into two camps: "It's unnatural" and "It's immoral". The latter is primarily religion based, and the former is simply untrue. Homosexuality occurs throughout nature. Though, frankly, that's irrelevant. We claim to live in a free society. Freedom means absolutely nothing unless you apply it to things you don't approve of: the freedom to be or do only what others approve of is no freedom at all.

The best way to approach the gay marriage debate, in my opinion, is on a civil rights platform. By introducing "civil unions" into the picture, we would basically be creating "separate but equal" laws. That's ridiculous. What's the main difference between civil unions and actual marriage? What are folks really saying when they say one's ok, but not the other?

I was listening to NPR the other day (morning shock radio mostly gets on my nerves) and I heard a very sincere and direct pastor say something to the effect of " I support the rights of gay people to live their lives the way they want, and have nothing against them. I just believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman."

Now, I respect the way he feels. I happen to have a few beliefs myself that a lot of folks would disagree with. But what folks don't realize is how they are actually limiting the overall realm of civil rights when they make these statements. I'm sure this guy is a nice enough fella and I'd probably enjoy a nice conversation with him. But what he's essentially saying is, "I've got nothing against you. I just don't want you to be able to have the same freedoms I do." A little harsh interpretation maybe, but true.

Over a hundred years ago, popular opinion said that women weren't smart enough to vote. Fifty years ago, people of color weren't allowed to vote, and interracial marriage was not only frowned upon, in some places, it was outright illegal.

This is merely another step in our societal evolution. The "definition of marriage" is not the issue, folks. And just because history has not "sanctioned" gays before, doesn't mean that we shouldn't address it now.

And I really want someone to explain to me the differences between civil unions and "traditional marriage" in a way that doesn't make it sound like newfangled Jim Crow laws. If you're going to give someone the legal right to do almost everything but be legally married, why create a separate category at all?

I find that your basic premis, that denying homosexual marriage is a form of religious persecution, is false.

Many laws of the land, both in the Unites States and abroad, are 'rooted' in religious belief. Laws against theft, murder, perjury and a host of other illegal acts have their ealiest mention in the texts of most ancient religions. To say if a law has its roots in religion, that any attempt to enforce it is religious persecution would go contrary to all of recorded human history.

Religion, in and of itself, is no violation of the concept of 'seperation of church and state'. In another post your went further to state that freedom of religion also implies freedom from religion. This is an example of reading more into the constitution than it actually states. It was at the very heart of the founding fathers that this country was rooted in its relationship with the creator. Their writings are more than adequate to support this possition. There only goal in preserving religious freedom was to guarentee that all people could worship in the manner of their choosing, without any hinderance from the government. For that reason the government could have no involvement with promoting one religion over another. It never meant to exclude religious expression of the people from its place in society and even in government, as evidenced by the inclusin of religious phrasing in our fonding documents.

It should also be pointed out that homosexual acts have been deemed illegal in nations even more secular than ours. It is illegal in the PRC and was in the former Soviet Union. Both governmens ignored the religious implications and included the law as a matter in line with historical norms.

To my knowledge, prior to the 20th century, there has never been a government or society that openly sanctioned homosexual unions. At best it was allowed or tolerated as a private act to be exersized in secret. There has never been a sanctioning of homosexual rights nor has there been an expansion of the definition of marriage to include homosexual relationships.

I agree that the constitutional amendments should not be used to make new legislation, however, it should be used to preserve the right of the people to pass legislation when the courts begin passing their own, unsubstantiated legislation from the bench. The definaition of marriage has historically refered to the legal or religious union of a man and a womam. It is the courts who are attempting to redefine the term marriage to apply to those who it has never applied to before, something that cleary exceeds the scope of their proscribed authority. The Defence of Marriage Act and any future attempts at a consitutional amendment to define marriage, are only legitimate acts of protecting us from 'bench legislation' and the ability of one or more states to enact law for all fifty states.

The idea that oppossition to gay marriage is a phenomenon of Rebublicans and the religious right is both misleading and wrong. There are many Democrats as well as agnostics and atheists that oppose gay marriage.

Having said all this, I do believe that it would be in the state's interest to create a form of civil union that would bestow on gays the same legal rights of married couple. However; make no mistake. These relationships would not be mariages, but rather, legally recognized unions allowed to same-sex couples as well as any heterosexual couple who chooses to unite themselves without the need for traditional marriage.