On Thu, 29 Jul 2004 19:47:44 GMT, "Warren" wrote:

The Watcher wrote:
Madalyn Murray O'Hair used to call those licenses "Sex Licenses",
since that was
all they really allowed you to do that you couldn't do before. You
could live
together without being married and it wasn't a problem, and you could
eat
together, and you could pretty much do everything else together, as
long as you
didn't have sex, so all you needed the license for was to have sex.

If that were their only value, who'd care?

A marriage license, once it's recorded a wedding actually took place,
allows you to get tax breaks, share health insurance and other employer
provided benefits, and inherit property without taxes, just to name a
few things.

My wife and I lived together for a number of years before getting
married. It wasn't long after we got married that she died. Had we not
gotten married, even with a will that said everything would go to me,
the situation would have been very different. Not only would I have been
emotionally devastated, I would have been facing legal and financial
problems that I would have been in no condition to deal with. If
children were involved, and I wasn't the biological father, well, it
would have been outrageous what could have happened.

That "sex license" was far more important than that.

My wife had been divorced, and had a medical condition that prevented
her from having children within our marriage. If we allowed certain
churches to control marriage, they would have objected to our union. Our
childless marriage after her divorce was every bit as endangering to
their concept of the sanctity of marriage as same-sex marriage is. Those
churches aren't fighting to defend marriages like ours was. Given the
right political atmosphere, they would be trying to prevent the state
from allowing people like my late wife and I from getting married.

But the political climate of today won't allow an attack on women who
can't get pregnant. The political climate of today won't allow an attack
on divorced people getting remarried. The political climate of today (in
most places) won't allow an attack on inter-racial marriage. The
political climate of today won't allow an attack on inter-faith
marriage. But it is okay to attack homosexuals.

If that's as far as they can get today, the churches will take it. And
maybe they'll find during the fight that there are enough people willing
to go the next step right away. And then the next step after that. And
pretty soon, many of us will find that we're in marriages that the
oppressive churches with political power oppose.

Separation of church and state. It's the only way to protect our
marriages. If that means some states will allow same-sex marriages,
that's fine. But we need to protect our existing marriages. (Isn't it
ironic that the folks who say they're "defending" marriage are actually
moving us down the highway that could ruin our current legal concept of
marriage?)

"Sex license", my foot.

To tell the truth, I don't bother with their little euphemisms like "Marriage
Protection Act" and all that nonsense. I think we should call a spade a spade. I
think those gutless people should just step right up and name their bills what
they really are, I suggest they call it the "**** Faggots and Dykes Amendment".
If they can't stand the language, maybe they shouldn't be trying to pass it. :/