In the last post, we talked about why gay marriage is an inappropriate Christian option. Now I want to focus on gay marriage as part of a society, and whether or not it has an appropriate place.
So, first off, why does the government say anything about marriage at all?
There are many reasons. Modern social thinking tries to view humans as discrete individuals whose actions, in general, affect no one but themselves. In fact, if your actions happen to affect someone else, this is often considered a bad thing.
But in reality, humans live in relation to each other. Therefore, if the law is to treat people like humans, it has a stake in certain relationships.
The worst argument I have ever heard of for gay marriage is that "if you disagree with same-sex marriage, don't marry someone of the same sex" (warning, explicit language!). The argument is that gay marriage only affects the people getting married. Unfortunately, our society's view of marriage has degenerated so low that people actually buy this argument.
The fact is, in marriage, one of the MAIN POINTS of getting married is precisely so that SOCIETY will treat you DIFFERENTLY. Note that it is society that is the one who is now bound to do something when someone gets married. Primarily, when someone is married, it is encumbant on the society to treat them as a unit, rather than as individuals.
Here are a few examples of the ways in which society's rules change for people who are married. Note that this is just scratching the surface:
In addition, marriage law sets a norm of practice in many areas. Many policies stem from marriage law, including:
So, as you can see, marriage law has VERY LITTLE TO DO with what people do as individuals, and VERY MUCH TO DO with how society is expected to respond to those who are married. Therefore, the argument that "whether or not gay people get married doesn't affect you" is simply false. Marriage is an important societal institution, and as such it very much affects all of us. The decision of how we decide who gets recognized as married is a decision that affects all of us.
If two people want to take part in a religious ceremony that DOESN'T implicate the rest of society, there has never been anything stopping them. I am not aware of any law that prevents a marriage ceremony. However, marriage itself is not like that. It not only requires things from the people getting married to each other, it also requires things from society at large as well.