According to CNN:
“I believe marriage is between a man and a woman, and I think we ought to codify that one way or another,” Bush told reporters at a White House news conference. “And we’ve got lawyers looking at the best way to do that.”
The president has taken a courageous stand in favor of traditional marriage at a moment in American history when the courts are conspiring with anti-family extremists to undermine our nation’s most vital institution,” said the Rev. Louis Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition.
I’m just about ready for another Civil War. And you know what side I’ll be on.
Bush’s cronies (in contrast to Crones, to whom he REALLY should listen), are heading us straight toward another Dark Age. Their agenda is clear: limit the rights and privileges of gays, minorities, the poor, the uneducated; the disabled; use words like “conspiring” and “undermine” (which are exactly the opposite of what we who believe in the spirit of the Constitution are doing); set up anyone with views that differ from the neocons as the devils: gays, liberals, non-Christians (except maybe Jews, since they believe in at least half of the Bible)…..
Why hasn’t anyone more erudite and articulate than I am begun to define Bush as the supposedly prophesied “anti-Christ” who distorts and manipulates true Christian teachings in order to woo susceptible believers into laying the foundation of their own destruction. It’s so obvious to me who the Devil Incarnate is these days. But then, again, what do I know. I do rituals at the ocean’s edge and make online amulets.
I guess next, they burn people like me at the stake. Heh.
Kalilily Time
Just an old lady talking to herself
Yeah, you better watch your step little Missy! If these horrible ideas he’s spouting into a microphone out in public are any indication, can you just imagine what the hell he’s doing behind closed doors?
It wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn he’s got posse’s out, rounding up all the info he can on people like us, for later entertainment. He’s a boob. He sucks. He’s dangerous. He’s a danger to himself, to this country and its people.
The obvious solution to all of this, which we will never pursue, is to get the State out of the business of recognizing marriage altogether. Marriage is meant for the world of faith and religion. If the State wants to recognize the legal status of a couple, that’s a job for civil unions. We’ll have people with marriages and civil unions, marriages without civil unions, and civil unions without marriages. What the bloody Hell are we doing using the full legal force of the State to buttress and define a religious institution anyway?
Well, the problem is really one that is more a matter of civil law than religious blessings. The issues involve how to ensure that each partner in a couple has legal rights to be on health insurance policies, to get spousal benefits (pensions, social security, health care decisions)etc. The law (government) has to recognize the “marriage” as legal no matter whether it was performed by clergy or a judge in order for each partner to have spousal rights. Churches can refuse to marry gay couples if they want, but the “state” needs to accept the fact that it’s a binding legal relationship with all of the legal responsibilities and privileges thereof.
Uh…did I miss the frickin’ Dark Ages or something? Since *when* has the act of marriage ever been *committed* to anything much more than legalities? People say they’re in love–forever–all the time! A marriage “license” is required to make it “legal.” Proof positive, on the dotted line.
And until very recently in our human evolution, there weren’t many “romantic” marriages, based on two people falling in love, of their own volition. If I am remembering my history classes correctly, marriage among the poor was largely committed due to the size of dowery one could produce. Among the wealthy and royal it was for power, land acquisition and as preventative insurance between warring nations. And always, the woman was the “property” of the man–hence: Legality = legal = LAW.
The church getting in on it was largely window dressing, to gain money for their coffers, not to mention the very valuable gaining of political favor from the local hierarchy in a time when the church needed that validation and money to stay open for business. The romantic, religious-sanctioned ceremony, instilled with the sign and symbol we see today is a fairly recent spectacle.
I think all anyone is trying to say in this entire, global disussion is that, if the law insists on making us be legal by not guaranteeing my right to my husband’s retirement check after shacking up with him for four months, or banning me from the use of his govt. Blue Cross benefits after living together for 10 years (which they did by the way, until we got married,) gay couples want the same assurances and are willing to take the plunge, sign on the dotted line, commit; they WANT to commit to each other, make it legal, to be afforded the same benefits as all married couples do, and who is anybody else to say they can’t do that, in a country that boasts over a 50% divorce rate?
What difference does it make whether churches “bless” the union or not? There’s always another church down the road that will, if that is important to the couple. It’s the legal ramifications that are coming under fire here, the government’s inability to recognize love when they see it. The only way they can get their Christian right fundamentalist belief system infused into the psyches of Americans is to ban gay weddings. Period.