Ask500

Those definitions are not true in (at the time of this writing) the commonwealth of Massachusetts as well as the states of Vermont, Iowa, and Connecticut, and in Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Canada, Spain, and South Africa.

Nor are they true in California (where there are plenty of same-sex marriages which will be upheld even after their laws are changed by Prop 8), or New York and Rhode Island, or France and Israel (where same-sex marriages performed elsewhere are recognized).

In these places, the definition of marriage you offer is simply not correct. To say marriage means just one thing is obviously inaccurate.

So all we are doing now is deciding which definition to use for the other places.

What do they want? Maybe you could do the same as what is done here, declare all state sanctioned unions/marriages as legally binding and allow the various religious groups do what they want to do but do not recognize those as legally binding. Religious people (from any religion) get their papers and a little speech in the town offices and then they do the religious ceremonies in the various religious places.

We got married in the town hall, the priest wouldn't marry us in his church, because I refused to promise to bring up our future children in the way of the church. As you can probably understand, to me the whole concept of giving any religious group the power who should or shouldn't be allowed to get married is bordering on stupidity.

On a side note I teach my kids about various religions and to respect each person, regardless of their religion. They can choose to follow a religion when they want and hopefully make an informed decision. I wish religious people would teach their kids the same way.

Come now, Joyce, you can do better than that. I have faith in ya!

I don't care how old it is, we're not discussing the history of marriage, we're talking about here and now. I also don't care if a majority is against it, it's a human rights issue.

You are dodging the question.

Would a civil union be adequate?

If, as a potential solution, it was determined to strip "marriage" from ALL couples and consider them civil unions instead, would you be okay with that?

A lot of what I would like to say to you has already been said by sillynilly, ask001, translate and Jamin, so I won’t repeat too much of that. However much I disagree with “miss California”, I think she is entitled to her own opinions and I suppose they should not matter in this competition. I don’t know if this was the reason why she did not win. Now I live in the Netherlands and this is really a far from my bed show – I did not see the event – so I have to go by the things I read in here. I understand that she only ended up somewhere in the top ten of the popular vote. If that was because of her stance on gay marriage then obviously the vocal minority you mention must be at least be so big that it can shift the result ofthe popular vote...

To all those who oppose same sex marriage I would like to point out a few other things. Firstly that same sex relationships probably predate the human race since homosexuality is a very important group binding and appeasing adaptation in the dwarf chimpanzee or bonobo (our closest relative among the great apes). And although official same sex marriage is new, different types of same sex unions can be found throughout history. (Emperor Nero for instance married a male friend and a male slave). I am proud to say that my country was the first modern nation to legalize same sex marriage 8 years ago, I mention this to emphasize that nobody was harmed by this, no heterosexual values crumpled or anything. On the contrary our society has gained a lot. (And yes the definitions in our dictionaries had to change, as they do with other things that change). The fact that many (not all) churches will not bless gay marriages did not change but at least the state (which should be above religious views) recognizes same sex marriage.

As argued by others, marriage today is about so much more than a blessing in a church. Now in my country unmarried couples can arrange those things with a civil union contract and some other official documents, only it is more cumbersome and probably more costly! In many places this is not an option.

I also see an emotional side to this, it was very well expressed by a banner held by a woman protesting in favor of same sex marriage and it said “I didn’t ask her to civil-union me” – many people simply want to be able to have a marriage ceremony in front of their families and friends and refer to their spouse as husband/wife.

Having said all that, I do not think I would want to marry myself, but I would find it immoral to deny others that possibility and discriminatory to deny it to some. You said miss California defended marriage, I disagree with that, she was only defendeding one exclusive and discriminating definition of it.