Shii Posted:

No, I understand that. Would you disagree with the statement that culture is heavily influenced by the dominant religion of that region?

I’m trying to come up with compromises that satisfy both parties; the fact is that a very large number of people in this country see marriage as religious, and will staunchly refuse and oppose every measure to let gays marry.

To my knowledge, gays want equal representation as far as taxes go and whatnot; that’s their primary argument for why gay marriage should be allowed. If that’s the real case, then declaring the legal side of marriage a Civil Union and giving them the equal rights they want should take care of that, while letting the staunchly opposed still retain the sanctity of their ritual.

I would say that religions are heavily influenced by the dominant culture.

I know that there are many who oppose gay marriage on religious grounds, but the fact is that we don’t let particular religious sects or even the dominant religion dictate other civil policies, and they certainly shouldn’t have as much sway as they do with marriage.

And as for letting religious people maintain the sanctity of their ritual — there are religious gays and lesbians, too. So they can’t get a religious marriage in the churches they belong to because other churches oppose it? This makes no sense. And for those who aren’t religious anyway — they’re not trying to get married in churches and be sanctified by religious officials anyway. What is the problem with calling all these unions marriages? IMO it is no different than saying that interracial couples shouldn’t be marrying (or should call their marriages something else) because some religious groups oppose it.