A Modest Suggestion to End the Gay Marriage Debate
The topic of gay marriage seems to be a very important topic these days. There are many people on both sides of the discussion. Unfortunately their isn’t a lot of love in this discussion, which is ironic considering the topic. There really is no need to explain the debate here, as I am sure everyone who is reading this article knows what the dispute is about.
To be honest, there is a very simple answer to the whole argument. It is rooted in a fundamentally flawed approach to how marriage is handled by the government to begin with.
Marriage, as approached by the government, is a contractual agreement by two person for economic and social gains. There may be added terms such as being faithful on a sexual level or an expectation to have children and to raise those children together; but the primary purpose for a civil marriage is economic and social benefits.
- Image via Wikipedia
The problem with this approach is that marriage has existed significantly longer than our society has existed and has for all of history been recognized as a religious covenant between people. Now depending on the religion, this could be two people, or even three or more. It could be a man and a woman, or two people of the same gender. Catholicism for instance only allows a person to be married to one other person and they must be the opposite gender. Click here to see more on a Catholic stance on homosexuality.
So where is the solution? I did say I had a simple solution did I not? Homosexual couples want to be treated like everyone else. And quite a few religious institutions want to protect what marriage means to them.
The solution is to get rid of the idea of a civil “marriage” entirely. Not that the contract should be allowed to be made, but that all civil “marriages” be dubbed as civil unions. Whether homosexual or heterosexual there should only be civil unions on the part of the government. Leave the marriage to the religious institutions. There are said institutions that marry homosexual couples. Leave it to the individual religion to decide whether they want to permit homosexual marriages. Leave it out of the government and everyone will be much happier.
What are your views or solutions to this debate?
I had a friend tell me that the easiest solution to homosexuality is to keep definitions in tact. What she meant by that was marriage meant between a man and a woman. To be honest. I think I can settle for civil union. As long as I can legally love my boyfriend, I will be very happy.
My Christian faith has lead me to be infavour of altering the Marriage Act of 1960 and Family Court acts to include non-hetrosexual marriages. The Howard Liberal Government alter it to exclude non-hetrosexual marriages.
However, your proposal has the problem of the Australian constitution. To rid Australia of civil marriages you would be require to change the Australian constitution. The name ‘civil unions’ was a state attempt to get around section 51 of the Australian constitution. Your proposal would require the re-branding of marriage as civil unions. My Baptist roots would lead me to oppose some special privillage of Church base civil unions to have the tradition labels only. The state should not privillage a particular religion.
i’m not totally against gay marriage, coz gay persons need to be happy to _
i think that gay marriage should be allowed in certain states but not in other states -:”