Marriage is a concept that has always been both civil and religious.  It is not a judeo-christian insittution (solely), societies throughout the world have recognized it (with surprisingly little variation other than polygamy).  The reason the state has to be involved are property and custody issues. 

So I would make clear the state’s role is to register such unions and deal with property, custody, and other limited legal rights issues such unions entail. 

Any sacramental aspect of the union comes from religious institutions and your own belief system.  The state plays no role in that. 

I select option 2. If government can decide which marriages are legitimate, they can also choose the illegitimate, and not to one’s own taste.  Purview of religion only. Let civil contracts remain civil contracts, and let each religion define marriage as it sees fit.

Ladd, that is true.  And they used to do so all the time when it came to race.  We have moved beyond that. 

I do not have a problem with voters in a state deciding who can or cannot marry beyond the general and traditional one man-one woman definition.  Provided that defining is done by voted in legislative reps or voters, not judges.   Utah is not going to vote in polygamy again.  Some states will vote in gay marriage.  A lot of states will not.    I do not see much risk of voters ever supporting making incest or beastiality a form of marriage–but maybe San Francisco’s municipal government will one day surprise us. 

But we need to make it clear that government’s involvement is limited and pertains to legal rights, not to religious faith. 

When atheists marry then they are doing so solely for the limited legal rights and remedies it affords.  Correct?  Purely a utilitarian thing. 

Because if you love one antoher you can always hook up and not need a silly marriage license. 

I prefer option 2, for the same reason of being concerned the State will decide which marriages are illegitimate, or delegitimized. If folks want to honor the separation of church and state, do away with marriage and divorce altogether. No sense getting a church involved in providing top-cover for the state’s money-making schemes.

I’m shocked! That stalwart, independently-financed ”conservative,” David Frum has now come out in favor of gay marriage: http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/06/27/frum.gay.marriage/.

In that article, Frum rationalizes his new position: “Why? The short answer is that the case against same-sex marriage . . .  has not passed its test. Since 1997, same-sex marriage has evolved from talk to fact. If people like me had been right, we should have seen the American family become radically more unstable over the subsequent decade and a half.”

So, Frum takes one (more recent) strategy from the left’s ongoing 80-year old “progressive” cultural agenda (i.e., cultural-Marxism) and he reasons that if that one variable has not, by itself, profoundly altered family patterns for all of American society in the last ten years, it is therefore not an issue.

The six states that allow same sex marriages mostly did so within the last two years.

Frum adds, “while American family stability has continued to deteriorate — it has deteriorated much more slowly than it did in the 1970s and 1980s before same-sex marriage was ever seriously thought of.” That’s very reassuring, Frum. Any chance that what was happening in the 1970s and 80s is connected to the current gay marriage movement? 

 For more than the first half of the country’s history, what we now refer to as common law marriages were routinely recognized, especially in matters of inheritance, because rural marriages often weren’t documented. 

 In our country, the state didn’t get involved in issuing licenses until the democrats in the south tried to use them to keep blacks and whites from marrying.
For the most part, this is a tax to cover the ability to easily transfer entitlements and property without a will.

I am pretty sure there are gays who take vows before God and/or State without taking them seriously.   And those who take them very seriously. 

But Frum might not be intellectual enough for Brooks – i.e., Frum might not iron his pants the right way, or he might wear tacky shoes.   

Ten/fifteen years ago Joe no one thought ‘gay marriage’ would happen.

While Utah may not reinsitute polygamy, New York, Massachusetts, California, and their blue-minded Bolshes will.  After that, age of consent goes.  After that….

Once you open the logic floodgates, the logic will be carried to it’s logical conclusion.  The justifications being used will be used to legalize more and more depravity.

Scalia was right.

I don’t like the outcome in NY, but am relieved with how it was done.  The legislators at the state level should be making these decisions, not the courts. 

I also agree with #2.  I government out of marriage period.  There, we are all equal.

The agenda is to force you to affirm that homosexuality is not merely acceptable but superior to your Christian beliefs.

Let’s begin by banning 16 year old Christian virgins marrying 50 year old creeps.

unfortunately he flubbed the quote. the actual quote is ”
Please! This is supposed to be a happy occasion. Let’s not bicker and argue over who killed who.” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071853/quotes?qt=qt0470574

Bob,
FYI – “prefixing marriage” is NOT the same thing as “prearranged marriage.” Just sayin’ buddy.

There is a pagan resurgence going on these days, and they’re not all flibbertigibbet New Age “Wiccans”, either. A fair number of them are serious about their polytheistic practices – and this is just the Anglos. The Hindus are another deal altogether.

@133041942252ac498d7898be09842e14:disqus Read up on what the gay rights crowd has done to the Methodists in Ocean Grove, NJ and then tell me that they are not working vigilantly to demolish religion.