Rowan and his special soup. I figured it would be good (and somewhat appropriate) to break the tension.
breaks, politics, retirement plans and inheritance. On that level, the religious side of it drops out, and if it's no longer a religious institution, religious reasonings can no longer be used to regulate it.
In reality, most marriages now fail and people go into them knowing that they can back out, that they can get divorces or mistresses or money or all at the end of their trial period. There is very little care for "under the eyes of God" or "till death do we part", but it IS a way of insuring that your money is inherited the way you want it to be, that FAMILIES receive tax-breaks rather than punishments for staying solid units. Marriage is a way of getting a form of legally recognized solidarity. Insurance for your partner, and also assurance that your partner is genuine. It's a contract.
On a religious front, churches are where it should be banned - if a Catholic church feels that same-sex marriage is a sin in the eyes of God, than a Catholic church bloody well shouldn't marry same-sex couples. Of course, if people were being true to their religion, and not just seeking a pretty place to get married, then Catholics wouldn't have that problem, because no TRUE Catholic would ever contemplate getting married to a same-sex partner. "Same-sex unions", if they truly gave the same rights, should certainly exist, but at the moment there is a stigma to getting partnered that way, and I feel that someone who gets partnered by a justice of the peace in a court of law should get the same rights and respect (and even pomp and ceremony) as someone who is married by a preacher in a stained-glass cathedral. I think Bush is even stating (though very quietly) that the law ought to set aside provisions for "unions". but the key is the WORD "marriage". There's so much baggage with that term. If a church won't marry a same-sex couple, fine. But Bush, as president of the United States, has no right to define American religious policy, and the law has no right to regulate based simply on the principle of religion.
As for comparing same-sex couples to having sex with children - the idea here is that you've got two consenting adults in one circumstance, and in the other - well, kids can consent to all sorts of things, but we've agreed somewhere along the line that the "age of consent" is 18. I don't know that anyone argues with that except 13-17 year-olds. We've agreed that kids under the age of 18 don't necessarily know what's good for them, and that kids under the age of consent are almost effectively the property of their parents. So comparing same-sex marriage to pedophilia I don't think is really right. It's like saying. "well, people have sex when their MARRIED, so why can't you just rape'm?" - they are two totally different things, with the key being CONSENT.
The comparison between homosexuality and pedophilia is something that is really highlighted in mass media, and is one of the more idiotic (and harmful) perpetuations of negative publicity on the homosexual Lifestyle. I don't think the two should be compared at all. Sex with a same-sex consenting adult and sex with an underage partner is not at all synonymous, and whether or not this is being