Our country was one of the first to be founded on principles of the Enlightenment and more specifically, that the church was not the head of the government.  Ours is a secular government.

    Our laws may have been founded upon Catholic Canonical law, but we have made changes to our laws to make them more secular than religious.

     We are left with one major law which is argued for based upon religious law but again, we are a secular country and the act of marriage in this country is a LEGAL contract and not a religious one.  It is entirely based on permissions of the state for the couple to be ABLE to marry and for the officiant who performs the ceremony.  Weddings, in most states, are able to be performed by judges, magistrates, clerks, and notaries.  It isn't necessary in ANY state for the ceremony to be performed by an ordained clergy.  So why must same-sex couples be denied EQUAL PROTECTION?  Remember, "separate but equal?"  It didn't float with the Supreme Court way back when, so why should our fellow Americans...our brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, co-workers, neighbors, friends, fellow church-members...be denied the very same rights we have as heterosexuals enjoy?

   We sit here and fight about denying someones right to love and express that love in a legal manner, unique to matrimony.

    You know, taking a step back and looking at the whole picture...It's really sad...I look at how rare life really is...no other place we can see clearly that life, such as ours, lives as abundantly and as diverse as here.  An oasis of life in a solar system devoid of life such as ours.  Yet one group is citing their bible and all of the rules and regulations it carries and it's obsession with death, dead things, the end of the world, sacrifice and torture...and another group is claiming that their defense of marriage is based on "biology" (when was the last time you were invited to a critter wedding?)...all the while you have an unspecified amount of time here, amid all of this life, to live your lives and experience true life (not a heavenly life promised, but a tangible one) for a negligible amount of time in the infiniteness of space and the finite world which we share.

     Why not allow others to experience the joy, pain, laughter and sorrow which this group of people seek?  Divorce is already a 50/50 shot for straight couples.  It is already a frivolous institution made into a joke by Las Vegas and other novelty wedding cities.  Pastors, ministers, Baptists, Catholics, and others have married, cheated and divorced...all of this WITHOUT one single gay couple married.  What harm could they do that straight couples haven't already screwed up beyond recognition.

Drop the fight.

     Let them make the same mistakes in the same institution which we have dragged through the dirt and tarnished its name.

     Who knows.  Maybe they will show us some things about love, honor, respect, redemption, and hope which we have forgotten.

     Are you afraid that they may be better at it?  That their divorce rates will be lower and their families will be more stable due to the pressures you subject them to every day?

     Our time here is short.  Let them love and throw the dice.  I, for one, hope they win and show us how we may better love each other while we experience everything that this life has to offer.