Mawwage! That bwessed awaingement.

Yes, "The Princess Bride" is a favorite movie of mine.

But on to the meat of this entry. Something that's been going around for a while on Facebroke really summed up what I think about marriage.

If you want to get down to brass tacks, my wife and I are not "married". Due to issues with visitation and her ex-husband's creepy Oompah-Loompah vibes about his children staying in a house with two people who are "living in sin" (yet he now lives with a woman who he has not yet married and his children) we were forced to get a quick Justice of the Peace jobber at the county courthouse. Unlike our first marriages, this go around was a marriage license and some county clerk to read off a standard form and a signature on the dotted line. 

No religious personage officiated our marriage, it was totally a civil affair. A "Civil Union" if you'd like.

But, this is still considered a "Marriage" in the eyes of Local, County, State, and Federal Government. We have the right of survivorship, she is listed as a beneficiary on my insurance as my wife, we can file "married" on our Income Taxes, no one asks us if it was a full church do when we introduce ourselves as each other's spouse.

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck...it's a fucking duck. And in the case of marriage, everyone agrees that we are married.

So what is the modern definition of a marriage? Marriage as it stands today in this country is a civil union that is officiated by someone whom the state recognizes as being able to sign the paperwork and officiate over the ceremony. This can, but is not required to be a religious personage. 

So gay marriage. What's all the fuss about? What's the objection?

• Religion? You never hear on the news about how the Pope is pressuring the governments of the world to ban marriage to atheists, pagans, secular deists, and the like so it can't be about that.
• Love? Marriage is used by many as an easy entry into the US and often the immigrant pays good money for someone to put up with them as a spouse until permanent legal status is obtained. So it ain't love.
• Child-rearing? Wife has long since had her last child long before she met me. She can not have any more. Elderly couples get married long past their childbearing years. People who are infertile get married all the time so it's not about reproduction. 

When you cut to the chase, Marriage (as the civil union that can be but does not necessarily be ratified by a religious personage) is simply an arrangement purely to afford extra services and benefits to people who claim life-long commitment to each other in a court of law.

Sounds a lot more like a legal contract doesn't it?

As the blurb wandering its way around Facebroke says...

That contract should not be limited to any particular gender any more than any other. If two men or two women can start a business together or buy a car together, why should a contract that allows them to share benefits or share insurance be any different? Once you strip away the distracting and unrelated questions of sexual practices and religious beliefs, leaving only the civic and legal agreement that is a marriage license, you quickly realize that there is no sensible argument against allowing same-sex marriages.

And another fun issue is the whole "Sanctity of Marriage" bullshit. Why do I call it bullshit? Isn't something to strive for? To keep the religious aspect of marriage pure? To keep it the way that it was in the Bible?

Well if that's the goal of organized religion...it suffered an EPIC FAIL worthy of the icanhascheezburger network's Fail Blog page. We have...

• Charlie Sheen and his "Porn Family" he wanted to create.
• Britney Spears and her 55 hour marriage
• Kim Kardashian and her 10 Million Dollar wedding that only lasted 72 days. That's just 12 days longer than my $30 World of Warcraft 60-day game time card.
• Larry King and his 8 divorces. Whatever happened to "Til Death do us part"? Having been through a divorce myself, I'm not trying to be a hypocrite. But eight times? Might want to be a bit more careful in picking a potential mate there.
• Jessie James, Tiger Woods, Newt Gingrich, Bill Clinton, and the "far to numerous to mention here" people who could not keep their peckers in their pants.

So really? Is allowing two guys or two gals to marry really going to add another black eye to the already battered and abused institution that is marriage? Really? Is it? By allowing it are we really going to have Nazi's riding on Dinosaurs causing the end of the world? 

So what's my take on the whole thing? Personally I do not want to see the rights of religion used as toilet paper in this debate. As much as I rant on about how a number of religious organizations out there want to see it banned forever, I do not want to force same sex marriage onto them.

Religion should be free in this country. If a church does not want same sex marriage, they should not be forced to perform the ceremony. They should have the right to say "We believe this way and that way does not include Adam and Steve!".

Fine. What would then happen is that there would be a major shifting in religions. People who are for equal rights for everyone will head to the churches that believe likewise and the people who are intolerant of such things will head to the churches that are equally intolerant. 

I'm groovy with that and I think that if that were the compromise that eventually occurs, most homosexuals and people who are "Straight but not narrow" (I love that phrase) would have no problem with it and would move on to more pressing matters in their lives.