The problem with that, Mike, (as Brenda alluded to below) is that marriage is fundamentally a CIVIC institution and not a religious one. Atheists believe in marriage too and want their marriage recognized–not simply by their fellow atheistic sectarians but by society as a whole.

As for taking away the right to marriage from everyone and replacing them with titles of domestic partnerships–that’s just backward.

There some “marriages” that need to be restricted because of negative social effects. Incest and polygamy fall into those categories. Gay marriage does not. Show me the research that most polygamous unions are not correlated with higher levels of female subjugation and emotional abuse and they’ll be next in line to be given the right.

I am straight but I would like to take a guess at how homosexual marriage is consumated. I think men fuck each other up the ass while women eat each other out. For the record I am against same sex marriage on the grounds that marriage is a Christian sacrament and we have no business interfering with religious matters. Give them civil unions but don’t change the definition of marriage. Same sex couples should receive the same benefits that married couples receive and each state should have a mechanism to prove that they are loving couples and intend to be in a civil union. Civil unions should also be an option for opposite sex couples that do not believe in the Christian God.

Yes, ultimately the very notion of trying to incentivize certain behaviors through things like the tax code (e.g., by giving tax benefits to married persons not available to single individuals) is just pure folly. Probably the government should have little if any business trying to incentivize ANY behaviors. Just punish criminal behavior and leave everything else up to the people.

Well, we can dream at least.

For whatever it’s worth–probably little–I can say without any hesitation that I feel that my heterosexual relationships with women are no different than the relationships between homosexual men. If, that is, by “different” you mean different in terms of the *validity* of the sexual, mental, and emotional connections. Of course, every relationship is different–some are deep and meaningful, some are not. But sexual orientation has nothing to do with that.

You seem so sure homosexual relationships are different (in some non-trivial way) from heterosexual ones. What makes you such an expert on homosexual relationships anyway?

Art that is exactly right its simple and it works while you might argue that there is some difference there should be NO legal difference. Thats why I love my readers…yall are smart. let the church get mired up in the whole marriage thing, our government has much more important issues at hand.

@artwilliams
You hit the nail right on the head. Only problem is, your solution is brilliant, and simple, therefore the politicians wont touch it with a ten foot pole.