Juan Cole agrees with me about Hillary...
...and I agree with him about civil contracts, as much as it hurts me to say that (although that is essentially what I have been personally advocating all along)...
It seem like such a shame to compromise on this issue, but when it comes down to it, I find myself truly believing that marriage is property of the church and that legal documents should be universally refered to as civil unions/contracts. The bottom line is that this strategy allows gay couples the same rights presently offered to straight couples, and shouldn't freak out the ever-more-powerful Religious Right.
My only question is this: what about the states that just passed gay marriage bans, especially MI and OH, where the bans actually restrict rights formerly held by some citizens?
Since Jack Kennedy was shot in 1963, all successful Democratic presidential candidates have been southerners: Johnson, Carter, Clinton.
This is because image and marketing matter more in US presidential elections than substance, and white male southerners just mostly are only going to vote for one of their own.
My family has roots in Virginia and I apologize about this, but Virginia is just not going to vote for Hillary Clinton in 2008, unless Bush has so driven the country into the ground that Americans want anything but a Republican.
The Democrats need to find a southern governor with a southern accent who is a Baptist.
...
For instance, a lot of Democrats would like to see gay marriage or at least civil gay unions passed into law. This is a matter of equity, since gay partners can't even get into a hospital to see an ill partner because hospitals limit visits to close family.
This issue scares the bejesus out of the red states.
But if Democrats were sly, there is a way out. The Baptist southern presidential candidate should start a campaign to get the goddamn Federal government out of the marriage business. It has to be framed that way. Marriage should be a faith-based institution and we should turn it over to the churches. If someone doesn't want to be married in a church, then the Federal government can offer them a legal civil contract (this is a better name for it than civil union). That's not a marriage and the candidate could solemnly observe that they are taking their salvation in their own hands if they go that route, but that is their business. But marriage is sacred and the churches should be in charge of it.
It seem like such a shame to compromise on this issue, but when it comes down to it, I find myself truly believing that marriage is property of the church and that legal documents should be universally refered to as civil unions/contracts. The bottom line is that this strategy allows gay couples the same rights presently offered to straight couples, and shouldn't freak out the ever-more-powerful Religious Right.
My only question is this: what about the states that just passed gay marriage bans, especially MI and OH, where the bans actually restrict rights formerly held by some citizens?
posted by david | 11/04/2004 04:08:00 PM
3 Comments:
Marriage does not belong to the church. It has been around long before Christianity. For example, Jesus's parents were married. Even beyond that, though, marraige has existed far longer than religion. Religion has just happened to Co-opt it for a while. Allowing religion to monoplozie this would be a travesty.
Yes and no. I did not mean the Church specifically, but tell me that even before Christianity existed it wasn't the job of religion to begin (and end) marriages... Correct me if i'm wrong, and this is just a guess, but I'd guess that Mary and Joseph were married by a priest of the Jewish faith.
So excuse me when I say church, but I'm pretty sure that there are not so many orthodox jews voting against gay marriage (and even if they all were, I don't think there are enough to determine the strength of an initiative at the polls anywhere in this country)
and also, i forgot to mention that I really doubt that the idea of marriage existed before religion... but you could still prove me wrong...
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