http://www.livescience.com/animals/060612_polar_bears.html

Hope your day(s) improve.

Churches haven’t been in the ‘marriage’ business for a long time. “By the power invested in me by the [insert name of government]…”

Churches perform marriage ceremonies, celebrate marriages and ask God to bless marriages but unless the state says you’re married (in North America anyway), you’re not married. (Unless you live in a former English Colony that acknowledges a ‘common law marriage’ where the ‘you break it, you bought it’ rule applies to men and women.

In Canada, where ‘gay’ marriage is possible, the law exempts Churches from being forced to officiate at marriages that are contrary to its religious teaching. The Catholic Church would not, for instance, be forced to bless the same-sex union of Adam and Steve, even though Adam and Steve are in love, god-fearing, and practicing Catholics. Justices of the Peace are required, as licensed under the government, to marry everyone – they can’t refuse to marry a gay couple since JPs are considered to be a secular office.

The so-called sacredness of marriage is undermined by divorce (legal), remarriage (legal), marriage outside of religion (secular and legal), the marriage of Michael Jackson and another person (creepy and legal). The time-honored character of one-man/one-woman marriage is contradicted by a quick reading of the bible and a quicker reading of history: a man and a thousand women (King Solomon), etc.

Marriage has, in fact, been influenced by changes in history as people and societies adjust marriage to suit their needs and changing circumstances. Some marriages are love-less, others sex-less, others are a religious duty, others are emotionally compelled, others are business contracts.

Marriage differs from culture to culture and from age to age. There is nothing uniform about it.

The ‘slippery slope’ argument (once we start marrying boys to boys and girls to girls we’ll shortly be making man and goat into husband and wife – although, it’s unclear who would play the traditional roles in that relationship) actually has a bit of truth since it challenges assumptions around marriage and forces us to be clearer about what we think and why we think it (why can’t he marry his sister, why can’t a woman have many concurrent husbands, etc).

This slippery slope doesn’t seem to have resulted, in suffrage, to the granting of voting rights to goats or robots, but I will admit that its possible that the ‘one goat-one vote’ movement might be right around the corner.

Canada has had same-sex marriages for close to two-years. And, except for the cannibalism that’s starting to sweep the nation, nothing much has changed for the worse.

Vancouver, BC

the definition of marriage was made secular the minute justices of the peace began performing ceremonies. That had absolutely NOTHING to do with gay marriage and everything to do with people who simply werent religious wanting the legal protections of marriage.

If I, as a nonreligious heterosexual person, can get married by a justice of the peace, how would it be any different if I were a nonreligious homosexual person?

I’ve thought we should differentiate Marriage (with a capitol M) from marriage (with a lower case m). One could have religious meaning and the other legal and civil. Its not a gay/straight thing ..I’d go for the non religious lower case version.

Great post!

Now on to my relevant comment (I’m not an English major so you’ll have to bare with my grammar and spelling… Word can only hold my hand so much):

To the folks that equate loyalty to the right and religion and patriotism.

Bull. I’m a soldier; I’ve been to lots of dark dangerous places to protect this country and its interests. I do it to protect our way of life, and one of the primary components of this is freedom. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the freedom to be an asshole as long as no one gets hurt in the process. And BTW, Fish is dead on IMHO.

RE: Gay marriage.

It’s a stupid legal somatic debate. Marriage or Domestic Union, or what ever; gays in long term unions should have protections under the law. Many of them live basically traditional role sets with a bread winner and a home maker, so I think provisions to protect the interests of the partner in the inferior position are every bit as justified as they are for folks in a traditional marriage. Infact the only reason I can think of to get upset, a la mpattill, is out of religious concern… but hello, separation of church and state much?!

Also, Magnum rocked; great theme music, cool cars, guns! And pretty well written for what it is.

Sorry can’t say I’m too upset about the polar bears… I am however concerned about the root cause… the warming of the polar regions… VERY scary.