I have contended from the beginning this is the case.

Jake, your arguments are well thought-out and civil, and I really appreciate that. In this case, though, I think we need to acknowledge the legal sense of marriage because that’s what the debate is all about. I’m afraid that by legally declaring a homosexual union as a marriage, my church will lose some of its legal rights when it refuses to agree. It’s already happened in Massachusetts – a church lost their legal tax-exempt status on a pavilion they owned when they wouldn’t let a gay couple (who didn’t belong to the church) rent it for a wedding. Catholic charities lost their right to operate an adoption agency because they refused to acknowledge a gay couple’s legal right to adopt.

The government of France, which is historically vehement about the separation of church and state to the point that they don’t let Muslim girls wear headscarves in public schools, decided to ban homosexual marriages. Why? Were they imposing a religion on someone else? Certainly not. They decided that civil unions were plenty for gay couples. But they would not go so far as to call them marriages because that would make a legal imposition on the rights of children. It was protect the civil right of children to be raised by a mother and father wherever possible (as stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948) that they declared that adult lifestyle choices are not a valid reason to change the legal and societal definition of marriage. (An English translation of the report, in pdf form, can be found here.

This is not an issue of religions wanting to deny anyone rights. It’s an issue of religions seeing the dire need to protect their own.

The thing to remember is that marriage is a public issue, not a private issue. By saying that two people are “married,” we are not defining their relationship with each other so much as we are defining their relationship with the state and with other people. Thus, to be “married” means, in practical terms, that the state can intervene to enforce the terms of the commitment made with each other privately, and that other people will recognize the two people as being committed, on some level, to each other. It is possible to be informally committed to each other privately without going through the formalities of marriage (indeed, many cohabiting couples do just that), but marriage puts a formal, public face on that commitment and adds a legal enforcement mechanism.

Because “marriage” is a public institution, then for it to have any meaning, we have to agree as a society on the definition. In other words, there has to be a standard that we all agree on. Thus, as a Mormon, I can accept that people are married and committed to each other even if that marriage is not solemnized in the temple. I don’t see it as the same as a temple marriage, but it is still a marriage.

The problem, as I see it, is that the LGBT community is trying to use marriage as a tool to get the wider community to accept their standards of morality. If we, as a society, redefine marriage according to the homosexual standard, will that standard be used against us? Will churches that teach that homosexual behavior is immoral be forced to perform gay marriages on their properties? Will they be forced to adopt children to gay couples? Will they be forced, ultimately, to abandon their moral teachings in order to comply with the “equal rights” of the LGBT community?

Are “gay rights” compatible with religious freedom? I worry that they aren’t, and worry that the gay rights movement is, at its core, an attack on religious freedom. That would certainly explain the fanatical zeal with which some in the LGBT community approach this issue.

Regardless, the more I study and think about this issue, the less I am convinced that it is fundamentally a civil rights issue. In some ways, it’s turning into a holy war.

Like you, I’m not satisfied with the way we throw the term “marriage” around today. There is hypocrisy in the way we use the term. Let’s not turn it into a weapon to attack religious freedoms.

That said, there is a more fundamental issue at play here. Marriage in the United States has historically been a religious practice, but at some point it was acknowledged as a legal status. This was a breach of separation of church and state and we are now facing the consequences. By the government acknowledging marriage as something more than a religious practice, the term marriage began to represent two distinct ideas: there is the traditional religious interpretation and a more symbolic, non-religious interpretation. This is truly a case of doublespeak and until society acknowledges it, we risk legislating back and forth on the more controversial, yet related, issue of gay marriage.

It would be easy if society could just choose one definition and go with it. Suppose for a moment that there actually was separation of church and state here. Governments need a way to acknowledge family units at least for tax purposes, so there would be a legally recognized status that resembles the non-religious definition of marriage. Then the religious concept of marriage would be preserved for religions. The government does not, nor should it, get involved in matters like which genders can receive the priesthood. Similarly, the government would not interfere when a church refuses to marry two people of the same gender. However, there would be an alternative venue independent of religion that would allow the couple to receive the same legal benefits that a committed, heterosexual couple receives. Furthermore, if a same-gender couple wants to get married, they should be allowed to do so at the discretion of their faith. In no way does any of this inhibit the ability of people from any given faith to practice their religion and it grants everyone the rights they deserve.

Unfortunately, society will not go in this direction because people have grown accustomed to the two definitions of marriage. I know many married heterosexual couples, some who follow one definition and some who follow the other. Rightfully so, neither group would approve the government suddenly choosing one definition of marriage over the other. This leaves society in a strange position.

As an agnostic who sees doublespeak in the term ‘marriage’, even I’m left confused. I fully intend to have a life-long commitment to a woman someday. That coincides with the more symbolic definition of marriage that is currently recognized by the government, but it doesn’t account for the other definition. Despite realizing the problem, I will almost certainly get married someday because it is the commonly understood convention for making such a commitment. From a religious standpoint this should be just as infuriating as a same-gender marriage: I do not know whether there is a god, yet I will engage in a practice you associate with god.

If you find that you are not that upset about the prospect of me someday getting married, consider why you do not see this as prejudice. Otherwise, consider why you seem relatively content that the government uses the term marriage in legal context.

Forgive me if any of this seems like a near-sighted attack. I do not intend to make a rock-solid argument against your opinion; I just want to continue the dialog.

Sick sick sick things.

Nice writing, though!