However, a legal contract is all such arrangements will ever be for homosexual couples. By no means will any sort of law or ceremony actually make same-sex couples "married," because marriage is exclusively the province of heterosexual couples.
I argue this case (without once citing the Bible or any other religious doctrine) in my 2010 essay, "What makes marriage, marriage?" There I show why none of the arguments offered by the pro-homosexual side have anything to do with what strikes to the core of what marriage is and is for. Simply calling a certain kind of legally-recognized arrangement between a man and another man (or two women) "marriage" doesn't make it so.
Nonetheless, "the times, they are a-changing," and homosexual "marriage" is going to be the law of the land sooner or later. When the issue comes before the Tennessee legislature, I will urge the lawmakers to enact legislation that simply gets the state out of the marriage business altogether. I say that the state should do weddings and churches (synagogues, etc.) should do marriages.
Let the state issue certificates of civil union, not "marriage licenses." The certificates would have all the legal force of present licenses. For a full explanation of why I would support this when the time comes, just click on over to the link.
Update: Gayle Kesselman asks, "Is It Time to Legalize Heterosexual Marriage?"
Social conservatives who feel they are defending traditional marriage by opposing homosexual marriage need to ask themselves some serious questions. Namely, can the institution of traditional marriage be salvaged without the wholesale repeal of no-fault divorce laws which swept through our states beginning in 1970? Or, in other words, is it time for social conservative to advocate for legalization of marriage for heterosexuals? And, are they up for that debate?And the answer is No.
