For those who oppose same sex marriage, it often comes down to a matter of wanting to legislate a religious belief. Many feel this way becasue they cannot seperate personal religious beliefs from legal issues.
My personal opinion is that every religious organization already has the right to perform or not perform, to recognize or not recognize same sex marriages.
But that's not the issue. The issue is one of what the legal definition of marriage should be. The law confers certain privileges on married couples that are not the same for non-married partners. For example, I am not my SO's next of kin, despite being in a long-term intimate relationship with her, so I cannot make medical decisions on her behalf if she were incapacitated, and there are a dozen other things we cannot do that a married couple can.
Marriage, in the legal sense, is a contract, and nobody should be denied the legal protections afforded by the marriage contract on the basis of their sex. Obviously, I'm not unbiased in this, but I do think this is a very reasonable position.
|