August 22nd, 2008 marriage and separation

Many who advocate civil unions for gay couples argue that it is a practical way of granting equal rights to gays without ruining the ‘sanctity’ of marriage as that between one man and one woman. Some even argue that marriage is fundamentally a religious institution. Buy wait- there is a problem here.

First, if civil union couples have the same legal rights as that of married couples, then what is actually the difference between the two? Tradition? Religious distinctions? But the government does not have the constitutional right to be engaged in either of these issues.

If marriage is a religious institution, why is the state handing out marriage licenses? This would be a violation of the separation of church and state. And separating marriage and civil unions by name only for matters of tradition? This is just as bad as ‘separate but equal’.

If we as a society recognize marriage as an institution that the church has a say in, then the state should only issue civil union licenses, even to straight couples. But as long as the government sanctions ‘marriages’ for straight couples, it must do so for gay couples as well.

Without real legal differences between marriage and civil unions, granting one to straight couples while another to gay couples would be unconstitutional, while distinguishing the two with real differences in legal benefits would be discriminatory.