Writer's Block: Church and State

[pegasus2o5]

Of course it is. If "married" is going to be a legal state, with special rights and privileges under the law, then of course the law must define it. No one can legislate how two people feel about one another. That's not physically possible. But that wasn't the question. Calling a marriage valid that the government does not recognize is rather like

Comments

[femme_roses]

Except, that for many marriage is also a spiritual commitment. My wife and I are married in the eyes of our church, our friends, our family. But not our state or our country. We have no rights or protections as a married couple. But for our day to day exsistance, how we base decisions for our life, and with/through the committment we have to each other, we are married.

[pegasus2o5]

And the government cannot interfere in your emotional life together. I'm not disputing that. And if you feel that the legal definition of marriage ought to change, you have every right to that opinion. But the question is, Should the government define marriage? And I think the answer is self-evident. For a government to give select rights and privileges to a select group of people, they must define that group of people. If the government didn't define marriage, it wouldn't exist as a legal state, and so there couldn't be legal rights associated with it.

[evenstarsbreak7]

How is the government to say that a committed same sex couple cannot have the same rights and privileges because the government doesn't recognize what they have between them as a marriage?
Why is their bond worth less than that between a man and a woman?

[pegasus2o5]

I'm not saying it is. My opinion on that is irrelevant. What you're arguing about is the definition of marriage, not the government's right to make that definition. The government defines marriage based on the will of the voters. That's the definition of a democratic government; making laws based on the will of the majority. So far, the majority in most states have not voted to change the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples. Whether they should or not is not the question here; the question is whether the government has the right to make that definition, which to my mind could not be more self-evident. Marriage as a *legal* state of being MUST be defined by the government in order to exist. That's the definition of *legal.* If you disagree with the current definition of marriage, that's your right. But that wasn't the question.