[PUG] Marriage should not exist in the USA
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Yeah, wtf... those religious people can get married, too... how does anyone else's marriage have anything whatsoever to do with them? it doesn't.
Religions have the right to believe whatever they want. If they want to believe that homosexuals aren't born that way, that they are sinful and should change their behavior and can be cured, that's their right to believe that. It is also their right as a religious institution to refuse to marry two homosexuals because that goes against their belief system.
Insisting that we are giving legal rights for the act of marriage, which is religious, allows religion to take the government and put it on their terms. As a religion any belief I have regarding marriage can be implicated on all individuals- even people who are not members of my church, people who are athiests, jewish, what have you- because I have the reigns of my institution's marriage practices and because I have government endorsement and rights that come with that I get to decide who can or cannot get married.
Even worse is the fact that a marriage is considered to be mostly Christian, and it's impossible anyway to give all churches equal rights when it comes to marriage while still giving them the ability to practice their freedom of religion, because laws made by the government apply to everyone, so if the Jewish community pushed out that everyone who gets married needs to be eating Kosher during the ceremony then that in effect could become a law for all people, including Christians, and we can't revoke their right to do that because marriage is part of the government and to refuse to endow that belief and that requirement is not allowing people to practice their freedom of religion.
So there is no way for religious marriage to be endorsed by the government without consequences via making everyone perform marriage by one churches standards---and there is also no way to detonate that marriage is not religious in any means, because the term itself is religious and taking the term and re-inventing it would also violated religious people's rights to practice their version of 'marriage'.
That is why the most logical thing to do is to allow churches to have marriage and give legal rights to the government 'civil union' and put the case closed.
You're basing so much of supposition and intrinsically conceptual definitions that it falls apart under its own weight. A person's "rights" do not extend to anyone but them... therefore, a religious person has the "right" to believe what they believe including that marriage is a religious institution... but it does not extend to denying someone else the "right" to believe that marriage is a union between to people based on THEIR own belief structures. No one's marriage has anything to do with anyone else's marriage.
meanwhile, a civilization (say, the us), has a right to say 'we are willing to recognize certain cooperative structures for certain benefits' ... corporations, for example, and legal civil unions. We define these by x, y, and z if you wish to qualify for the benefits therein and are willing to contractually obligate yourself to the consequences therein.) This is and must be conceptually distinct from any religious and/or cultural definitions of marriage, but need not be mutually exclusive with either. That way freedoms are maintained while legal benefits can be properly refereed.
A few of the founders were deists, but most considered themselves Christians. (Even those who likely were Deists were not likely to admit it publicly, as Deists were held in contempt by a large segment of the common people.) The majority (or at least plurality) were Anglicans, but there were notable Methodists, Quakers, and Unitarians among them.
While the Torah and Talmud do have requirements for making Jewish marriages official, Rabbis have traditionally considered committed cohabitation to be equivalent to marriage for gentiles. Early Christian authorities state clearly that marriage for Christians is the same as marriage for non Christians in the same culture, with the only differing custom being that the couple were supposed to pray to ask God for permission first instead of only asking their earthly parents. There were no Christian marriage ceremonies then.
I forget the exact details, but I remember hearing a presentation once dealing with the Roman concept of marriage, which claimed there were actually 3 seperate institutionalized forms of marriage. At least one of them originally required that the wife be a slave rather than a free woman, but that requirement was eventually dropped as that form of marriage was a prerequisite for a certain prestigious kind of priesthood and the wives of men aspiring to the position did not like the idea. I forget whether it was for all 3 forms or only the most common kind, but under Roman law a divorce was as simple as writing one's partner a note declaring the relationship over. A literate partner could leave his or her spouse very easily. The divorce rate in ancient Rome is estimated to have been at least 80%.
The institution of marriage, at least of the sort that required ceremonies and contracts and imparted any special rights, was invented by the Catholic Church in the High Middle Ages. For the majority of the history of the church, marriage was not considered a sacrament but a very personal covenant between 2 individuals. The first Christian wedding ceremonies consisted of a traveling bishop holding a service to recognize and bless the relationships of every couple in the town who had since his last visit committed to a relationship and begun cohabitation. It was common for everyone to have their "wedding" on Easter, although the marriage was considered to have begun before that.
In England, Common Law marriage remained the norm long after other European countries had created a more familiar sort of institutionalized marriage. At the time our nation was founded Common Law Marriage was the norm here as well. Few if any of our Founding Fathers ever had a wedding.
While the Torah and Talmud do have requirements for making Jewish marriages official, Rabbis have traditionally considered committed cohabitation to be equivalent to marriage for gentiles. Early Christian authorities state clearly that marriage for Christians is the same as marriage for non Christians in the same culture, with the only differing custom being that the couple were supposed to pray to ask God for permission first instead of only asking their earthly parents. There were no Christian marriage ceremonies then.
I forget the exact details, but I remember hearing a presentation once dealing with the Roman concept of marriage, which claimed there were actually 3 seperate institutionalized forms of marriage. At least one of them originally required that the wife be a slave rather than a free woman, but that requirement was eventually dropped as that form of marriage was a prerequisite for a certain prestigious kind of priesthood and the wives of men aspiring to the position did not like the idea. I forget whether it was for all 3 forms or only the most common kind, but under Roman law a divorce was as simple as writing one's partner a note declaring the relationship over. A literate partner could leave his or her spouse very easily. The divorce rate in ancient Rome is estimated to have been at least 80%.
The institution of marriage, at least of the sort that required ceremonies and contracts and imparted any special rights, was invented by the Catholic Church in the High Middle Ages. For the majority of the history of the church, marriage was not considered a sacrament but a very personal covenant between 2 individuals. The first Christian wedding ceremonies consisted of a traveling bishop holding a service to recognize and bless the relationships of every couple in the town who had since his last visit committed to a relationship and begun cohabitation. It was common for everyone to have their "wedding" on Easter, although the marriage was considered to have begun before that.
In England, Common Law marriage remained the norm long after other European countries had created a more familiar sort of institutionalized marriage. At the time our nation was founded Common Law Marriage was the norm here as well. Few if any of our Founding Fathers ever had a wedding.
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I disagree. Why don't you back up your position on this, instead of just declaring it undeniable?
Marriage is not a religious concept at all. There were "marriages" throughout the Roman empire between people of the same sex, of course they had silly laws like the younger same sex partner had to be the one penetrated etc. Now a days, some religious denominations accept and recognize gay marriages, and a lot of the laws against homosexuality were primarily imposed by the Abrahamic religions. Religion does not necessarily have to religious, in that case Atheists, people who cannot reproduce should not be legally allow to marry either, that's just silly. I would not mind getting rid of "marriage" altogether, but to state it is solidly only religious is not valid. In that case, let churches who allow gay weddings to have their ceremonies, nobody is forcing the others to do the same.