The thing that gets to me second-most about the anti-gay-marriage arguments (after the sheer bastard totalitarian psychopathic bigoted selfrighteous assholery) is that it presumes, even presupposes, that marriage is a religious institution.
It isn't. That's why we *have* civil marriages. No one has to get married in a church. For...how long now? A century? More? We've been just as able to get married solely by the state as not. In fact, you can have all the church wedding you want, but without that lovely, state-sponsored marriage license it means nothing. The precedent, legally speaking, is that the church has no vote on what the state calls marriage.
Why does this bother me? It may have something to do with the fact that my parents were not married in a church, or a synagogue, or a mosque, or any other religious building. It may have something to do with the fact that no religious person (except my uncle) was even there, much less officiating. It may have something to do with the fact that my mother is Christian while my father is Jewish. It may have something to do with the fact that my mother's mother is Lutheran while her father is Catholic. It may, just maybe, have something to do with the fact that, if we start defining a valid marriage by what conservative religious groups approve of, I and my mother will both be illegitimate really damn fast.
It definitely has something to do with the fact that my family definitely believes in our right to marry whoever the hell we want.
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Date: 2006-11-05 08:52 pm (UTC)The thing that gets to me second-most about the anti-gay-marriage arguments (after the sheer bastard totalitarian psychopathic bigoted selfrighteous assholery) is that it presumes, even presupposes, that marriage is a religious institution.
It isn't. That's why we *have* civil marriages. No one has to get married in a church. For...how long now? A century? More? We've been just as able to get married solely by the state as not. In fact, you can have all the church wedding you want, but without that lovely, state-sponsored marriage license it means nothing. The precedent, legally speaking, is that the church has no vote on what the state calls marriage.
Why does this bother me? It may have something to do with the fact that my parents were not married in a church, or a synagogue, or a mosque, or any other religious building. It may have something to do with the fact that no religious person (except my uncle) was even there, much less officiating. It may have something to do with the fact that my mother is Christian while my father is Jewish. It may have something to do with the fact that my mother's mother is Lutheran while her father is Catholic. It may, just maybe, have something to do with the fact that, if we start defining a valid marriage by what conservative religious groups approve of, I and my mother will both be illegitimate really damn fast.
It definitely has something to do with the fact that my family definitely believes in our right to marry whoever the hell we want.