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Originally Posted by dellwear
Marriage isn't just a religious thing though Damion, it allows couples benefits that unmarried people just can't get. The sooner its all sorted out the better.
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'Marriage' is at least two things in our society today. In part, it is a binding legal contract under which two people form a partnership that brings certain legal privileges and responsibilities. But there are all kinds of legal partnership that have a similar effect and none of them is known as 'marriage'. That term arises from the religious aspect of it, which stresses both the spiritual and physical side of the union - two bodies, one male, one female, literally joined together to make a whole (in Christianity at least).
This is why there are always religious objections when the subject of 'gay marriage' comes up - according to the Christian notion of what marriage is, it is simply not possible for two people of the same sex to be married. Our society has now (sadly IMO) gone beyond being Christian, or religious at all in any traditional sense, so it is a little anachronistic to allow legal privileges to one group of people but not another. What is required is a legal framework that allows same-sex civil partnerships but which does not attempt to dress itself up in quasi-religious terminology.