One Man's Thoughts On Gay Marriage

This morning I received the following post. Anyone who wishes to post their thoughts on Proposition 8 or to notify others of ways in which they can help the cause, please email me at reidbump@gmail.com and I will make sure to post it here. Thanks.

How you define marriage has a lot to do with where the misunderstanding on this issue originates. Is it simply a legal contract between two people or does the state recognize it as a simple means of defining allowable joint ownerships, deductions, liability, ad infinitum?

I propose that marriage was not originally intended simply as a legal contract. It has been around longer than law itself, regardless of which culture you take as an example. The reasons we have for wanting to protect it for what it truly was intended as go much deeper than a simple civil rights discussion. Modern ideas and political pressures should not be used to trample under a religious rite, which, to many, represents far more than a method of obtaining civil rights. It is a covenant. A sacred three-way covenant in which only a man, woman and God can enter into. That the state additionally recognizes it as contract between two people is complimentary but not all-encompassing.

I have and have had many gay friends who seek equal rights and recognition of their unions. I fully sympathize with their predicament - many things are unreasonably difficult and unfair as the law currently stands. I honor and support their rights and endeavors to obtain equal rights and will continue to support them in that cause. Though I fundamentally disagree on a religious level with those practices I personally believe they should be afforded every right and privilege the law currently provides me and my wife as a married couple. I do not, however, believe that marriage is the applicable method for obtaining that recognition. That it is a recognized method is true, but it should be reserved for religious rites between a man and a woman. Alternatives should be provided in the form of civil unions, be they of whatever sexual persuasion they may be.

Again, as I have told some of my closest gay friends: While I may not agree with their personal decisions in this regard, I want only the best for them in their homes as I have been afforded in mine. Legal recognition of gay marriage is not the answer, however. Marriage is a religious covenant between man, woman, and God which happens to be recognized by the state. It does not have to be the only such union recognized by the state. Compromise is the answer here, not changing the definition of a religious institution.

If true equality without the fear of segregation is required, call everything recognized under the state "civil union" or some other such PC term. Marriage would then be a secondary, religious bond. As an LDS member, I already see it as such. I was married and then I signed a contract recognized by the state. The marriage would have, in my opinion, been valid with or without the state's blessing.