Gay marriage is NO BIG DEAL. why should it even be debated in the first place?

[Bacdafucup]

the government has no business basing laws on religious beliefs. Talk about equal protection of the law.

There is no 3000 year tradition of marriage in the United States. Tradition is a bad defense for continuing to do something wrong. Early biblical followers sacrificed animals. Maybe we should do that, there is a longer tradition.

To really make sense of it all we have to look at what marriage in the US really is. Since the US does not have an official religion all legal marriages are civil marriages. A civil marriage grants the parties certain rights and responsibilities. All marriages granted by states are "civil unions". Why is it appropriate to discriminate against some people by cheapening their relationship because you do not agree with their lifestyle? Remember, these arguments against same-sex marriages were also used to prevent blacks from marrying. Let’s not get in to the next people will be marring dogs or sisters bs.

Religious marriage is appropriately regulated by the church. They can either accept or reject same-sex marriage all they want.

Many will also state that same sex marriages should not be allowed because the marriage cannot produce children. Should the state then prevent infertile couples from marrying? You can't have it both ways, you either need to limit marriage to those couples that are going to reproduce or allow any two consenting adults to marry.

We are not talking about granting any one “special rights�. Allowing same-sex marriage does not take anything away from anyone. The fact that some believe that it offends the majority does not change that it is the right thing to do. At one time letting blacks get married offended the majority. Luckily we learned to be better human beings and got past the hate.

[Marjorie S]

I agree with you. If you don't believe in gay marriage, don't get one. But don't tell people how to live their lives and who to love. it's sick.

[Patrick B]

I love the argument that we'd have to redefine the word "MARRIAGE" and that we shouldn't have to.

We've redefined marriage many times over the years so why is it a big deal to redefine it again? We don't even really need to, because one of the definitions of the word means "the merger between 2 or more consenting parties". Gay marriage fits that description.

These same people who whine about the definition changing will use Irony to mean coincedence. They'll mangle the defintion of plenty of other words in the english language, but get up in arms when it comes to a single word that damages their petty arguments.

Let gays get married and be as miserable as the rest of us.

[Michael C]

Just because you don't think it is a big deal doesn't mean that it's not a big deal to others.

Marriage is one of those funny areas because it has both religious and civil components. You can not say religious marriage is "appropriately regulated by the church" because the government has their fingers in it and may start to demand that churches perform gay marriage even if they do not believe in it. Don't think it would happen? Both history (civil rights movement) and current events say they will.

[TAT]

You are preaching. And there are churches who have been sued for refusing to marry a gay couple. I think that gay marriage is no different than allowing polygamists to marry or the members of NAMBLA to marry the young boys they are with. All we are talking about is redefining the word marriage. If we are going to do that for gays, we should do that for everyone.

[Charles]

Because it is a big deal.