When divorce, annulments and celebrity hilarity are all illegal, you will have an argument that marriage is sacred. Marriage, particularly in this country, is a farce, at best. And it's a farce which has enormous legal consequences.
Which says absolutely nothing for the fact that marriage, as an institution, has nothing to do with love or religion and everything to do with property. Everywhere marriage developed and in every fashion, it was essentially as a device to transfer property between generations. It became "sacred" because of its incredible importance to groups of peole to establish family structures which would produce children and provide them with the resources to survive. Love wasn't an issue; god wasn't an issue; sacred wasn't an issue. Creating and supporting children was the issue. Religions used, adapted and reinforced the importance of that social structure by making it sacred. And then finally in the last several hundred years, we decided that maybe we should let people choose their own mates instead of having families arrange marriage for maximum financial benefit.
Our society no longer focuses all of its efforts on ensuring that children exist and survive, because we've gotten exceptionally good both at producing them and at keeping them alive. It is no longer the primary focus of our societal structures and that's reflected by enormous liberalizations in all aspects of society, both public and private. Marriage is in no way a prerequisite either for the creation of a child nor for ensuring its survival. And it hasn't been for a very long time. You and others may personally believe that a child is best raised in a household with a married mother and father who stay faithful to one another their entire lives, but that is neither the norm nor the trend for the last several hundred years.
Western society doesn't stone you for adultery, nor do we kill or shun bastard children. We allow divorce, we allow annulment, and marriage is not simply a union representing the love between two people. It is an incredibly important economic and legal device with far-reaching implications. Marriage, in practicfal terms, represents far more than a "sacred bond" between two people before the eyes of god. I cannot and will not argue with you that if a religion chose not to marry two people of the same sex for purely religious purposes (i.e. sacred bond before the eyes of god, etc.) I would accept that wholeheartedly. You can believe whatever you want to believe. The problem is that not everyone believes that, and marriage as an institution cannot simply be relegated to "it's sacred, gays would contaminate it so they can't do it." That's no longer a functional definition of marriage and hiding behind it merely demonstrates the lack of an argument based on anything other than the faith that it is wrong because your religion tells you it is wrong. Though you have the right to believe that, I do not believe you have the right to impose that belief on millions of other people who disagree.
However, practically, I agree with you. The United States, nominally, is a democracy, and, as it's mentioned nowhere and doesn't fall under any of Congress's enumerated powers, it would seem that gay marriage is a states' rights issue. Every state should be allowed to vote and decide for itself whether or not it recognizes gay marriage. If it does, so be it. If it doesn't, so be it. I think the results of such a vote would surprise you, though.
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