[extropy-chat] Moveon.org

[Adrian Tymes]

--- Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Brent Neal <brentn at freeshell.org> wrote:
> > Of course, the right answer is to get the
> government out of the
> > "marriage" business. Treat it all with a standard
> contract between
> > two (or more) consenting adults. Leave the the
> 'marriage' part to the
> > churches.  Its not even a state's right issue: the
> separation of
> > church and state is one of those things that is
> absolutely inviolable
> > (c.f. Roy Moore).  The government has no authority
> to provide legal
> > status to a religious institution, period.
> 
> This is exactly correct. The problem is that the big
> brass rings that
> the gay couples complain about are primarily in the
> area of govenment
> entitlements. If they were not so insistent on
> getting those bennies,
> I'd believe the argument a bit better. If the gay
> community supported
> your position, they'd publicly say they don't care
> about inheritable
> social security benefits.
> 
> There is a difference between legal marriage and
> lawful marriage. What
> the gay community wants is legal marriage. They can
> already lawfully marry.

I'm a bit surprised none of the couples from San Fran
are suing (or maybe they are, and I haven't heard
about it) to have all government-recognized
"marriages" revoked on the grounds that "marriage", in
the common sense of the word (regardless of how any
lawyer might try to define it) is a fundamentally
religious concept.  The plantiff might hint that a lot
of government lawyers might have meant to say "civil
union", which is explicitly a concept of law.

Not sure if they'd get very far, but I'm surprised
they have not tried.