But the other half of Lutherans belong to churches of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (to which Michele Bachmann until recently belonged), and Evangelical Lutheran Synod. None of those bodies endorse those things, and unlike ELCA, they are not closely divided; they are virtually unanimous in opposing such things.

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http://www.metroweekly.com/poliglot/2012/02/domas-federal-definition-of-ma.html

“Simply stating what has always been does not address the reasons for it. The mere fact that prior law, history, tradition, the dictionary and the Bible have defined a term does not give that definition a rational basis, it merely states what has been. Tradition, standing alone, does not provide a rational basis for the law.” Judge Jeffrey White, Federal District Court for the District of Northern California, Golinski v. OPM

“There is no worse reason to justify something by saying it has always been done this way.” Justice Holmes

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I know where you were going, but civil unions do not grant the same rights marriage does (for example immigration rights). Actually, because of DOMA, even in states that approve gay marriage, marriage is not really marriage for us gays yet in terms of the rights that it confers.

Whatever we call it, if conservatives are so stuck in marriage being a religious institution they need to protect (and if semantics are really that important) we should propose to create a new term. One that does not appear in any religious text. One that allows two consenting adults who are not related to each other to form a legal union that grants a set of rights and responsibilities don’t vary according to their gender.

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as marriage is a sexist institution so strongly tied to religion in the united states, i’d rather be without it entirely. i’m 90-something% sure that in a lot of places, civil unions and/or domestic partnerships provide the same legal rights and protections of marriage. just not the federal rights and protections, but that’s a structural problem arising from states’ rights.

anyway, i’m more interested in a radical overhaul of society than ‘inclusion’ in it.

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Whenever I hear it, I think “Oh, so you think your maybe-totally-made-up-for-posterity gay friends should be treated like second class citizens. What a WONDERFUL FRIEND YOU ARE.”

I swear, it’s like Republicans think having a token queer in their social group is essentially a get-out-of-bigot-jail-free card.

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Different cultures around the world also have different conceptualizations of what a marriage entails, and what its origins are. Dividing the concept of marriage into the sum of its parts and renaming certain aspects ignores this diversity of experience.

It also seems unfair to abandon the inherent civil and legal functions that are associated with the word “marriage” in favour of a partial, and rather contextual definition, that is being promoted by a group or collection of groups. I understand the desire to divorce religion from the concept of marriage from a personal level, I’d completely agree with your thoughts there, but I think that we can only achieve inclusiveness in society when we allow institutions to have diversity rather than when we segment them, and by doing so build barriers between different groups.

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Marriage means a lot to most people in our society. People like the government acknowledging their marital status. They like having it officially documented. For those reasons, and others, I don’t see the government getting out of the marriage business at any point in our lifetimes. And so long as the government is going to give out certificates of marriage then they need to be given out regardless of anybody’s race, class, creed, or gender.

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