Sunday, September 02, 2007

call it what you may, just give me the same rights


This was staring me in the face this morning as I read the Opinion page in this Sundays Cedar Rapids Gazette newspaper. It's under the headline Your View (for some reason View wouldn't copy).
I would have actually expected the number for NO to be much higher in this conservative community.
It just goes to show that we have a long way to go for equal rights.
My personal opinion is that The State has no right giving anyone a license to get married. I believe that it is a religious commitment between two people and the state has no business being involved.
Because of past history, The State of Iowa and every other state in the union decided to take peoples money and issue them a license that meant nothing. As time when by the license did become very important and meaningful because it was given value to claiming property and other government entitlements and rights in court proceedings.
I honesty wonder how people can really believe that a society can discriminate against a group of people and deny them the rights that others have?
People confuse the the religious aspect to marriage with the legal rights of marriage. If you want to be involved in a church that doesn't except gay marriage, so be it. But, don't deny gay people the right to the same benefits that straight people have!
Instead of making laws to restrict marriage between a man and a women. Why not change the whole marriage license to a Domestic Partnership license or what every you want to call it for everyone? I know some of you may think that it is a cop-out and we should be entitled to the same marriage license as everyone else has now. I say let the churches deal with God and who is married and who is going to hell. Church and state should be separated. That way I don't have to be subjected to that religious dogma. I can feel like I have the same value as every straight person in this society as far as my government is concerned!

2 Comments:

Blogger Matt said...

I so totally agree with you.

Let the churches govern whatever they want to call "marriage", but let the government define "domestic partnerships" or whatever it ends up being called. As long as everyone has the same rights, I don't really care what it's called. As Rita Rudner said, "call it a can opener, just give me the ring!".

I know, this isn't a popular view in the gay community. But I like the idea that everyone would have the same legal rights, so straight "marriages" would ALSO be called a "domestic partnership" (or whatever") in a legally binding sense. If anyone wants to get "married" in a church, fine. But the marriage wouldn't be legally binding, only sanctioned by the church. Couples could get one, or the other, or both. Really, that's what's done now - the civil union part of it (with a marriage license) is all that's legally binding. If a couple also wants a church wedding, fine, but not required. Like now, only more fair.

10:45 AM  
Blogger TheBuxStopHere said...

What's with this town? Chain restaurants and conservative views. How can we be so close to Iowa and the DixieLand South all at the same time.

5:05 PM  

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