I’ve been following the issue for over a decade. Discussed it with a lot of proponents of SS marriage. None of them seem to be able to articulate exactly what "complications" are disabling.

Again, I admit that there are advantages to being married. There are also disadvantages, as most people who have gone through a divorce can assure you.

Yes, you have to affirmatively think about what you want to accomplish as a SS couple, and take affirmative steps to do so. But it isn’t generally rocket science.

If you wish to offer specifics of what you think I’m missing, that might be helpful. But merely asserting that I need to look "harder" isn’t much of an argument.

There are other protections that automatically accrue to marriage which are so basic people don’t even think about them.

I don’t see anything about the status quo before the CA ruling that speaks to me of injustice. I can see where some people would prefer change, but that alone doesn’t imply injustice. "Basic fairness" is really a subjective assertion, and not well defined for most people.

Homosexuals and same-sex couples in general have all the basic property rights. They may lose some default inheritance rules, which they can overcome with a will. They also may not be eligible for some special tax treatments. But either the govt can offer special goodies, such as special tax breaks, to some groups, or they can’t. Let’s resolve that before worrying about specific groups. People that own their homes without a mortgage, or rent a home, might prefer some "basic fairness" in income tax laws.

Hospital visitation is the canard that frequently comes up. For over a decade, CA has had a law that guaranteed same-sex domestic partners the same access in hospitals that married couples receive. I’ve heard of other states passing such laws. But I’ve never heard of a law (and maybe some exist and I’m just ignorant of them) that guarantees married couples hospital visitation. Indeed, when I looked into it a decade ago, nobody ever heard of such a law. So much for a "basic right" that is tied to marriage. Most hospitals allow visitation for adult patients, depending on the medical situation, of whomever the patient wants to allow.

Folks with no emotional or sexual attraction can jointly own property. And in many states ownership and credit are frequently distinct for even married couples. Hardly any basic rights being denied. Just circumstances that some folks don’t like.

Protestantism was and remains the dominant strain of Christianity in the United States, even though Catholics have been here from the beginning and many fought for the Revolution, some of them quite heroically (Casimir Pulaski and the Marquis de LaFayette being notable examples). Still, while Protestantism was a crucial influence on multiple levels, culturally and otherwise, it’s key to understanding these issues to realize something that’s happened in the last few generations: particularly in certain parts of the country, "Protestantism" has frequently become a sort of amorphous blob of no-particular-creed Bible-Centric Christians who generally believe that if you’re not-Catholic you’re Protestant. It’s not clear to me that these folks even should be calling themselves Protestant, but I guess if they want to use that label they can. Let me explain why this is important, because it’s something a lot of people don’t grasp:

Probably the most dominant strain of Protestantism in America during the time of the Revolution was Episcopalianism, which for all practical purposes, especially at that time, can be viewed as "Catholic Lite." They maintained the hierarchy of bishops and the priesthood, in apostolic succession traced all the way back to the first Archbishop of Canterbury (Augustine). George Washington, James Monroe, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, and many other founders were raised Episcopalians although some of them drifted toward Deism or its very close cousin, Unitarianism (i.e. anti-Trinitarianism that completely flies in the face of the beliefs of most Protestants).

Washington’s views are not clear but when he did go to Church he almost always went to Episcopalian services, just for example. The State Church of Virginia (and some of the other early states) was Episcopalian.

Indeed, one of the major forces behind the crafting of the 1st amendment was efforts by Southern Baptists, particularly in places like Virginia, who wanted to make sure that their religious liberty would not be hampered by Episcopalianism under the new Constitution. Those same exact Southern Baptists who were so instrumental in giving us the 1st Amendment also eventually gave us Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, as well as Jesse Jackson and Martin Luther King.

Although I’m not fond of this particular Bible translation (the NIV) it is wildly popular amongst that minority of the world’s Protestants who are known variously as "fundamentalists" or "evangelical" (or what I think of as "Bible-Only"), and it is very easy to read and accurate on issues like this, so I have here a quote from it that should be useful:

"Romans chapter 13: 1 Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. 4 For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. 6 This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. 7 Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor."

This and other parts of the Bible was used by many early Americans on the anti-Revolutionary side to assert that rebellion against His Majesty George III was rebellion against God. Indeed, unlike the Roman authorities at the time that St. Paul wrote that passage, George III was a Christian, crowned by a bishop, who maintained the title "Defender of the (Christian) Faith."

Some of the quotes mined from the founders about God and the Revolution came from efforts by the rebels to assure their fellow Christians that the fight was legitimate. This context is key to understanding the occasional passages you’ll find from the likes of Jefferson, Washington, and others: political necessity forced some of them to turn to religious matters when they would have preferred to ignore the issue. The Christian faith was being used against them by their fellow Americans who were loyal to the Crown, and they had to fight back. (After the loyalists lost, some of the Christians among them even hightailed it up to Canada or to the UK or even to places like Australia, declaring the United States a work of the devil. Others basically turned inward and did their best to ignore the new government.)

Thus it is not quite right to suggest that Protestantism formed the core of the American experiment. But it, and Christianity in general, played an undeniably huge role. And yes, while the Lutherans maintained their own apostolic-succession-derived Bishops as well as the Episcopalians, they and the Calvinists and related Protestant groups like the Baptists, with a stronger focus on individual conscience than other Christians, were a huge influence on the idea of individual freedom of conscience being a key right.

Congregationalist Protestantism, which basically throws out the hierarchical authority of the bishops (and is anathema to Presbyterians, Lutherans, Catholics, and many other Protestants), also is arguably part of where the idea of populist democracy gained a foothold in the popular imagination, although the idea also went back to the ancient non-Christian Greeks and Romans.

I might also note that the United States had, and still has, strongly Pagan roots. That’s what you’re looking at whenever you look at a statue or portrait of Lady Liberty, just for example. She’s Libertas, a Roman Goddess. Many of the intellectual Founders, like Jefferson and Franklin, were *huge* fans of Greek and Roman mythology; there’s even a semi-famous letter from John Adams to his son John Quincy Adams admonishing him not to neglect his studies of ancient Greek, which he viewed as indispensible to the educated and cultured mind. If you spend much time in Washington D.C. you’ll see an awful lot of statuary and such that’s straight out of Greek and Roman mythology–undeniably so.

The intersection of faith and politics has always been a complicated and fascinating business in the United States. It isn’t new. The friction’s always been there. I already gave the examples of Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Jesse Jackson, and Martin Luther King, but it’s not like these religious folks went underground in the 1790s and popped back up in the early 20th Century. William Jennings Bryan, noted anti-Darwinist and social progressive, was three times nominated by the Democratic Party for President of the United States. His status as a Presbyterian minister and firey religious orator was inseparable from his political life, as he viewed Darwinism as both a religious abomination and a threat to the progressive, populist-liberal values he championed, and his best known speech contains his most famous line:

"Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold."

That speech was delivered at the Democratic National Convention in 1896. He was a pro-silver progressive, you see, because he wanted to increase inflation in order to help poor struggling farmers and laborers with easy credit. But don’t kid yourself that populist Christian rhetoric was not central to his popularity. It was. And while we’re on the subject of famous Democrats, let’s not forget ordained Baptist minister James Earl Carter, who wore his status as a "born again Christian" on his sleeve and still teaches Sunday School last I heard, and whose religious affiliation was crucial to his successful election in 1976.

So, it is not true that Christianity and/or its Protestant derivation all by itself was central to the American revolution, but it did play a crucial role on both sides. It is also not true that religion and politics only became a source of conflict and misunderstanding in recent decades. Our status as a "Christian nation" has never been official, and was actively denied by many of the founders. But it’s a fact that Christianity has played a huge role in our politics from day one, and that’s never stopped. I don’t see it stopping any time soon, either.

So there. :-)

The state should not be in the marriage business.  People should be able to enter into whatever contracts, compacts and communes that they want.  However, since the government has decided that it is in the marriage business and we don’t have the will to throw them out of it, it is up to us to manage it.

Same-sex marriage is a slippery, slippery slope.  The next spot on the slope is polygamy.  I would put it about eight years past a federal acceptance of gay marriage.  After that, I’m guessing that we would be about 15 years from incestuous marriage.  Maybe even incestuous polygamous marriage.

Once you start redefining marriage to satisfy the emotional needs of subcultures (as opposed to the classical economic needs) then the sky is the limit, especially if you have done it because you decided that there is a right to have those emotional needs accommodated.

Phelps’s last blog post..Obama Fears McCain

I don’t much care for the practice of courts finding a "right" to homosexual marriage in the auras and penumbras of state or federal constitutions.

But, at the same time, I can’t really oppose the basic idea.  I’ve yet to have anyone clearly articulate what, exactly, the possible objections could be, without veering off into irrelevancies like the harm homosexual marriages could presumably do to heterosexual marriages, or the religious sanctity of the institution, or the supposed "need" to continue increasing the population of the settled areas of the Earth.

I just don’t get it.  If adults want to marry each other, in whatever numbers or combinations all parties are agreeable to, I pretty much don’t have a problem with that.  I do think such changes to the legal system properly belong with the people, via their elected representatives, however.

(Aside: I do agree with Kevin that Western Civilization is on the way out – for different reasons, though.)

In some ways, the only thing that was born half a century ago was the notion that nation was inherently Christian. Prior to that, religious right movements had tried again and again to pass amendments to the Constitution that would make it officially recognize God. They failed over and over, winning only occasional booby prizes. The founders good orthodox Christians? The religious right spent a century calling them (falsely) heathens and atheists! (The reality is simply that they were diverse: most were what we moderns would happily call Christians or at least Unitarians, but few felt that Christianity and the very mundane, partisan business they were about had much to do with each other. They even voted down having opening prayers.)

But then, starting around or after the Civil War, someone hit upon the idea that they should just declare that it always had been a nice simple Christian Nation, and a whole fount of silliness was born. Eventually, Jefferson’s powerful and inspiring motto was replaced with a petty sectarian one, the pledge of allegiance (itself a new and questionable addition to the country) was changed, ironically splitting apart the "one nation, indivisible" with another petty division.

I think, at this point, Christian arrogance has had quite enough fun scrawling their self-obsessed graffiti all over our symbolic traditions. Sorry, but they aren’t going to get our actual system of government too.

Most of the Separation of Church and State ethic has been good for the country, whining to the contrary. There have been some cases in which people have taken it too far, confusing government action with personal, but quite a lot of that has involved individual bureaucrats, and has actually been opposed by many of the SoCaS organizations that protect our form of government.

Most of the objection to what the ACLU does, for instance, relies on deliberately confusing government action with civil society, and playing on the ambiguity in the word "public" (which can mean either "government owned and run" or "civil society/out in the open") and claiming that people want to take religion out of the public.

"There is no indication that the founding fathers thought anyone could do anything they could get away with; no one proposed total personal freedom."

And no one is proposing it now, "head for the hills!" rhetoric aside.

Bad’s last blog post..McCain Panders to the Left, Bitter Hillary Supporters Pander to the Right?

Isn’t there even an amendment to the California Constitution banning these things?

As others have said, a statute, not an amendment — but the amendment is coming.

Wouldn’t it have been better to pass something like this legislatively?

Always.

Isn’t this likely to just give ammunition to conservatives who want to fight activist judges subverting the will of the voters?

Yup. Of course, we’ve never seen self-destructive behavior from that side of the sexuality line before…

Phelps’s last blog post..Obama Fears McCain

Now Prop 22 is back on the ballot, this time in the form of a constitutional amendment.  Ironically, that means that the lawless acts of the Legislature and the Supreme Court have almost canceled each other out, leaving California with roughly the result that would have obtained if the Legislature had followed the rules: a gay marriage law, subject to a popular vote.  The thumb is still on the scale in favor of the gay marriage position, however, due both to the inertia from having gay marriage now, and to the fact that a sizeable chunk of the population reflexively votes “no” on everything.  In a state where even non-substantive clean-up bills can only pass 75% to 25%, it’s a safe bet that there are some voters who would have voted against a measure to enact gay marriage, but who will neverthleess also vote against the new constituitonal amendment to ban it.

Xrlq’s most recent blog post..You and Your Silly Principles