Quote:
Originally Posted by BenL
Whoa! What Pablo suggested is the actuality in most of Western Europe ... except for the word "marriage." In most of those countries, a couple gets legally married at the city or town hall or registry office. They then proceed to have a religious ceremony if they wish. If they don't have a church service, they're still just as married in the eyes of the law.
Of course, what's in play here is the word "marriage."
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And I really wish we were more like them. As it is, you talk to just about any European and find out that they speak fluent English and another language or two. They are
educated. Are we? Not quite like they are. However, they do have an advantage: the country next door is a stone's throw away. They have to be bilingual to do business. It's part of the deal. Us? We're so big a country we think we can do without the rest of the world. And how stupid is that?
The powerful United States of America? More like the United States of Ignorance. I'm not hung up on the word marriage as much as I am fighting for the full recognition of rights in the set-up as it is. And when gay couples have to sue in court to get what the law says they already have (in NJ for instance), then something is really really wrong.
This boy is not going to go around begging for people to recognize his civil union.
Lastly: Europe doesn't go to church. By and large, their houses of worshop are tourist destinations. We, as a country, have a much larger attendance record. Faith is very much a part of our lives. And I don't see that changing.
Here's the good thing as I see it: working for full marriage rights is all about people in the pews realizing that God loves gay people. That gay people are not monsters and are indeed blessed as much as anyone else is blessed.
Either we are all children of God or we are not! In this, our country, where we have the right to have faith (and not have faith), we are demanding nothing less than the right to be married just like any idiot who gets drunk in Vegas and falls into a chapel. Why should his union be 'blessed' with full marriage rights, and the long-suffering gay couple not?
It's not about the morality of the person getting married. It's about us all being the same in the eyes of God AND the law.
That's our system. Ain't it grand?
PS- Plablo, I apologize for the caps. They are like yelling. And your post really got me going. Pax.