Gay Marriage

Here is a brief article from http://www.wabaptists.org/voto.htm that sums up some of my own feelings on the subject. I think he could be a little more articulate but the main points are certainly there.

Some Thoughts on Marriage and Domestic Partnership
Comment by Chris Boisvert

I recently participated in a rather unorthodox wedding. The wedding was in Las Vegas and had a Star Trek theme. Everyone in the wedding party wore a Star Trek Star Fleet uniform. There were cast members dressed as Klingon, Ferengi and Andorian characters. The minister even wore a uniform. The fun nature of the wedding wasn't meant to detract from the serious nature of marriage or the commitment of the two people who were taking the steps to share their lives. There will be a church wedding in the Philippines in December, but U.S. law requires a civil marriage on American soil for it to be legal since the bride is not a U.S. citizen. It was decided by the couple that this would be a fun and exciting way to deal with the civil requirement.
Many nations make the distinction between the civil marriage of two people and the religions ceremony of a wedding. Yet in the United States where we talk of the separation of church and state, the two are linked in the mind of many people. I wholeheartedly support same sex marriage, yet I do not believe that religious bodies should or ever would be required by the state to perform such ceremonies. Yet, if we truly believed in the separation of church and state in this country, we should be able to better see that the legal and religious aspects of what bonds two people together are separate.California recently enacted the a change to the tax law that allows same sex domestic partners within the state to have equal tax benefits to married heterosexual couples. In California, same sex couples wishing to marry still not do so. That distinction goes to Massachusetts alone. Yet, like Vermont, another California has moved to the cusp with the latest additions to the rights extended to domestic partners. I believe that the focus should be on rights of equality at this time, rather than need to for those rights to be wrapped up in a bundle called marriage. I feel that more can be accomplished this way than to insist that the only way we can be equal is with the label "marriage."