Thoughts on the Issue of Gay Marriage

During dinner tonight, my boyfriend and I were talking about California passing Prop 8. I’m a staunch liberal, and bisexual. He’s a moderate and was raised in a very strictly religious and conservative family. His family is Independent Baptist and he went to a bible college for two years before being caught making out with his girlfriend, which he was expelled for.

Anyways, we were talking about the whole issue of gay marriage. From his experience with the Christian community, he believes that the reason why we have such a problem getting the majority of the population to go along with gay marriage is because of the word marriage. To many Christians, marriage is a religious institution that should only be between a man and a woman. So how do we get around this without having the whole separate but equal problem?

I believe that instead of pushing for equal marriage rights for homosexual couples, what we should do instead is push for the abolition of the state sponsored marriage. If a couple wants to get married, let them go to a church. If a couple wants to join together legally, let them get a civil union. Transfer all the rights that the state sponsored marriage currently has over to civil unions.

I think if we tried to push this, it would help immensely with getting equal rights in partnership for homosexual couples. Christians would not feel like their sacred institution of marriage was being violated, and homosexual couples would get the same rights as heterosexual couples.

What do you all think?

Disclaimer: This post was written by a Feministing Community user and does not necessarily reflect the views of any Feministing columnist, editor, or executive director.

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