Gay marriages... dictated by religious authorities

[MidGe]

I thought long and hard before posting this on this forum. I think it is the most appropriate.

Firstly, I don't think it belongs to politics as I fail to see the issue as a Rep Vs Dem one.

To avoid flames I am not discussing here the religious or sacramental meaning or "marriage". To me that is neither here nor there, somewhat quaint and irrelevent. To paraphrase Marx, why would I want to join a club that doesn't want me. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I just don't get the point about gay marriage being an issue. Marriage in the legal sense is a "legal union" or "legal entity" that has rights and responsibilities like those associated with other legal entities, like private or public or limited companies. Making those rights and responsibilities available to gays, or universally, has no impact at all on the heterosexual ones. It is not taking anything away from them. It simply allows people to enter into that agreement without discrimination. Call it "pairage" if you have an issue with the definition of marriage and change the statute to say that pairage has exactly the same right and responsibilities than marriage. Simple, effective and less discriminatory. Bear in mind that there are many economic and other advantages to this "legal union"! The most imporatnt ones being the effect on the application of inheritance law and the right to make medical decisions on the partner's behalf, if incapacitated, for instance. Those are by no means the only advantages, but it will vary from juridiction to juridiction.

It seems to me that, the way the statutes are currently worded, it would be the same as limiting directorship or shareholdership of some legal entities (companies, for instance) to heterosexuals only. Very clearly discriminatory.

I think that our society seems to be totally blind to the interferences of religious authorities (mullahs, bishops and other so called moral authorities ) into the secular aspects of life.

What prompt this post is the regressive two states decision to reverse gay marriage and the pontificating (what else could he do given his position [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] ) by Benedict XVI on his trip to spain.