Marriage

As Contact points out, the culture war about gay marriage is really about whether or not marriage is a religious concept or a civil concept.

It has become very clear to me that there is a big problem that is manifesting itself in all different ways: marriage is increasingly a civil proposition in addition to a religious one. And guess what, this post is not even inspired by gay marriage.

As probably anyone who reads this knows, Jeff and I were married civilly, not religiously. In other words, our marriage is not sanctioned by any religious authority, only by the state of Florida (and fortunately for us, since we are straight, the other 49 states too).

When gay marriage first started becoming a hot topic, I immediately thought of Jeff and myself (though obviously we are not gay). What about our marriage? If the word marriage is only supposed to be used for religious unions, do Jeff and I have a civil union instead of a marriage? Are we not supposed to refer to ourselves as married but rather civily united? Is it OK because we are a man and a woman? And if it is OK because we are a man and a woman, how does this not amount to government discrimination against homosexuals?

Although, as she says, the whole thing's not really a gay issue, the question would probably never really be asked if it wasn't for the gay rights question.

A friend of mine owns some gay websites and asked me a while back to write something for them about gay marriage. Not becuase I really know anything about gay stuff specifically but becuase I write and do have some legal education (took a few courses) and am able to read simple court decisions. I never got around to doing anything but did start a marriage blog to use to collect some links and information