I disagree. Marriage is a basic civil right that should be attainable by all Americans if they choose. For those who are uncomfortable with gay marriage check out our short produced to educate & defuse the controversy. It has a way of opening closed minds & provides some sanity on the issue: www.OUTTAKEonline.com
I disagree that mariage is a basic civil right. It's an institutional construct, like voting or driving and the government has every right to restrict access to that construct in any way they see fit. That's why people have to obtain a marriage license...so the government can make sure they fit the established criteria. What gays are asking for is that the criteria be changed. I get that, but let's not pretend this is belongs in the Bill of Rights as 'unalienable'.
As Dyre correctly points out, the government should have never got into the marriage business and then we wouldn't be having this discussion.
I favor civil unions as a compromise. It creates more relationships where people are responsible for each other and gives us a chance to see how gay relationships progress. (There are probably a lot of issues that wil pop up that we can't forsee.) if things go well, maybe marriage will work.
Charlotte marriage isn't a civil right. Check the Constitution. At the time Marriage was a religious institution and the founding fathers and their contemporaries would have found laws defining marriage as a violation of the separation of church and state. Marriage laws were enacted during the mid twentieth century as a way to stop interracial marriage and raise revenue. The latter worked so well that eventually marriage laws were adopted by every state.
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