the whole idea of marriage seems retarded to me now. why do you need other people to recognize you're "together" so that you can have sex? just fuck her already. jesus.
I would agree with you, but unfortunately, there are some legal advantages afforded married people which are not available to unmarried couples.
In Germany, where my son married his wife, there are two marriage ceremonies. There is the civil marriage and the "church" wedding a few days later. It makes for a wild several day ongoing celebration.
It seems to me if folks in the U.S. could envision separating the civil marriage from the religious one, it would simplify things somewhat for gay marriages. The civil marriage legally joins two people in a marriage contract which affords them all the benefits of marriage. The church marriage is like the icing on the cake, it is simply a religious celebration of marriage, but has no legal implications.
My wife is Catholic and I am not. Back in the early 60's when we got married, the priest we were working with refused to marry us because we were already living together, thus living in sin in his eyes....go figure. Catholic church doctrine dictates that if someone marries in another church, they can never be remarried in the Catholic church. However, if the couple gets married by a justice of the peace they can later be married in the Catholic church. My honey and I were married by a justice of the peace in Las Vegas, Nevada. A year later, after my going through yet another Catholic conversion class (my term for this process) a Paulist Priest agreed to marry us in the chapel (not the main church). Frankly speaking, I could have cared less about being married in the eyes of the Catholic church, but it was important to my bride.
As a side note, I am not Catholic. I never converted, which I am convinced was the goal of the priests we dealt with back then. Both of our children went to parochial schools for the primary grades and were definitely exposed to the Catholic church. In fact, our son was not only an altar boy, he sang in the church choir and was head of the youth group. He married a Catholic woman and they both still are heavily involved in the church.
On the other hand, our daughter who also had a Catholic wedding with her husband who was raised Catholic, classifies herself as an atheist. Well, she was always a bit of a rebel and definitely daddy's girl.
Anyway the point of my digression is that church doctrine may prohibit gay marriage and that is their right. However, there are valid reasons why all people should be afforded the opportunity to be legally married and this doesn't need to fly in the face of any religious beliefs.