Christian Deception on Marriage Equality

Christians are deliberately and dishonestly confusing the debate about marriage equality. Marriage is both a religious institution and a secular institution. The religious side is the duty of the clergy to define for each religion. Bigotry is constitutionally protected there. No one is proposing any changes to it.

Marriage is also a set of laws. Deciding what they should be is the business of all citizens, including non-Christians. These laws have nothing at all to do with god, the spirit or religion, but with mundane secular things such as wills, tax exemptions, divorces, child custody, visitation rights, insurance, pensions…

It is unfortunate that we use the same word for both. Perhaps we should call religious marriage matrimony and legal marriage a civil union and abandon the ambiguous word marriage when drafting laws.

In any case, there is no need for a special legal term for same sex unions. To use one would imply second class status. Obviously, there will be a term in popular speech, but there should not be a legal distinction. The sole point of having a separate term in law would be to treat gays unequally either now or in future. Using the exact same term for both heads off that treachery. (Remember how the blacks were screwed repeatedly with the lie of separate but equal.)

The religious bigots treat gays us untouchables. They believe gays are unclean and that even permitting them to use the word marriage for their declared unions would make the bigots ritually unclean. Happily, the older generations of bigots are rapidly dying off and being replaced by generations who believe in equality. There is no doubt about the outcome of this civil rights battle, just how long it will take. It is completely wrong of the law to aid and abet bigots in harming gays. It should be protecting gays from them instead.

Politically, the easiest way to settle this dispute would to take the ambiguous and emotionally-laden word marriage completely out of the text of the laws. People would, of course, still be free to use the word in any way they pleased in ordinary speech. The Christians resist even this because what they are actually fighting for is the continued right to persecute their historic scapegoat — gay people. They are fighting to use the law to help them bully non-believers.

With the supreme court decision in the USA, it is all over but the shouting (e.g. Kim Davis). Oddly though, in many states, discrimination against gays in hotels, housing, employment, adoption, wedding cake and pizza sales etc. is still legal.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)