Well, who's going to stand up for traditional rights and values?
Since same-sex marriage has been around in one form or another for thousands of years, does that count as a "traditional value"?
In my idealized world, same-sex civil unions would become legal, and "marriage" would be relegated to the churches to decide who's elegible.
You know that I agree with you that the government should be in the business of civil marriage, not religious marriage, but what legitimate state interest is there in setting churches as the authority over who can call themselves "married" and who can't?
I'm all for churches having freedom of conscience to decide who
they'll marry, and who they won't, but if the legal structures of marriage are divorced from the term, I don't see a legitimate state interest in preventing people from simply calling themselves "married."
I don't know, maybe we're talking about the same thing. I don't think that I need a church to tell me whether or not I can be married or not; only whether or not
they'll marry me. If not, fuck 'em. I'm calling myself married to my wife anyway. Who's to stop me?