Posted on 08/04/2012 7:06:57 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Civil marriage is at once a deeply personal commitment to another human being and a highly public celebration of the ideals of mutuality, companionship, intimacy, fidelity, and family … Because it fulfills yearnings for security, safe haven, and connection that express our common humanity, civil marriage is an esteemed institution, and the decision whether and whom to marry is among life’s momentous acts of self-definition.”
The words above come from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision that made the state the first to authorize gay marriage. They are also part of a longer passage read last month at the Newport, Rhode Island, wedding ceremony of Gretchen Sisson and founding Facebook employee Andrew McCollum, who were among a growing number of straight couples turning to Goodridge v. Department of Public Health for a definition of matrimony that advances a philosophical, resonant, secular rationale for their heterosexual union.
The journey of Goodridge from law books to wedding programs likely began shortly after the case was resolved. In this first phase, couples included the ruling in their weddings to make an ideological statement. Conservatives had responded to the outcome in Massachusetts by placing anti-gay-marriage referenda on over a dozen state ballots. In the Kvetch forum of the now-defunct website Indiebride, lefty brides mulled “a way to include guests who were gay and couldn’t get married and show respect for them,” recalls Nina Callaway, who started as About.com’s weddings expert around the time. “It was about sending a message.” Someone suggested reading from the majority opinion by Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall, the most bracing passages of which—such as one assessing what it means for some citizens to go “without the right to marry”—did not wear their political objective lightly.
But other parts of Marshall’s opinion offered no such defiance. With a little deftediting
(Excerpt) Read more at nymag.com ...
Civil marriage means nothing except that the Government accepts it as a marriage.
Establish two diferent marriages, The Civil and the one by God. Any Church that engages in same sex marriage is merely going against the Bible and the marriage is meaningless.
Yes, yes, yes.
Except - take the word "marriage" out of what the government does. Civil "union," okay. Not marriage. Marriage is a spiritual joining, connected with a church or a spiritual tradition or spiritual ceremony - not government. Period.
Then, let anyone "marry" anyone under their faith. So you're not just married - you're married under the Catholic Church, or the Unitarian Church, or the Jewish faith, or the Hindu faith.
But civil union is government, as an administrative function.
You know what this does? It not only ends the gay marriage argument - it returns marriage to its proper place in society: before God, rather than before government.
That's why it can't be resolved as it is - it's being argued wrongly by BOTH sides.
Good points. The marriage debate is not about marriage. It is about destroying the power of faith and the church. These will then be replaced by a secular progressive order in which the state alone will be worshiped. For an example look to the Episcopal Church. For decades the Gays preached tolerance. Once they gained power they crushed anyone who opposed them. A similar fate awaits our country.
” Marriage belongs to Church’s . The Government got into the marriage business to make a buck on licenses.”
I think you would find that it started with Henry VIII wanting to get a divorce. But it really got popular with the eugenics movement.
Leave it to the homo-Nazis to make even a wedding a political event.
There's an interesting oxymoron ... Can it be a "marriage" if it has only a secular dimension? Isn't that just another name for "contract?"
You're right on this Judge - 'tolerance' wasn't a belief system with them, it was a tool to use against us. Once they got the power, they tossed the tool.
I fear we've all been played for fools. The good thing about this Chich'fil'A thing, is it forced leftists to show us their true colors. They don't care about prejudice based on creed - they care about 'advantage' for their side. It's an eye-opener...
How would Sasha Issenberg write about the ‘love’ shared by a man and 50 potential ‘immigrants’ to the United States who all ‘love’ each other...
There was a time when people wouldn’t let blacks vote - and that was wrong so THEREFORE when people don’t like a man wanting to marry 50 men who want to be citizens of the United States, it’s a ‘Civil Rights’ issue, right?
Only haters could deny that ‘love’ right?
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