The Obssession with Homosexuality

[Andres]

So if there is a legal institution of Rabbis and I want my dog to be a Rabbi I can make him a legal Rabbi?

I don't keep myself busy with "what if there would be". There isn't. And bringing a dog into it, makes your argument very silly, so I don't take it serious. A dog is not a human being.

Christians want their institution to be recognized by the state, and it is being. Still, it is a religious institution being recognized by the state.

No, it is not a religious institution. There's legal marriage and there's the religious institution. Those are NOT the same, despite of how many times you claim that it is. It's not. Get over it.

That is why changing it would cheapen the religious institution in their minds.

Indeed, in their minds and only in their minds. They ask for unequal treatment, they have to bring good reasons. "I think it will cheapen my private, non of the state's business, religious institution" is not a justification for discriminiation.

I understand your point Andres, but I think you should be arguing for absolving the legal institution of marriage, not changing it.

Ah, now we're talking. That's something completely different and I do consider it an alternative solution. Get rid of mariage entirely and there can be no longer discrimination.

However, if people are going to live together, be it two or more persons, then it is desirable imo to have some form of civil union, a legal framework which the parties involved can or cannot accept, including legal consequences. If people are going to share their lives and belongings, there should be the possibility of some legal protection and/or consequences. But then again, some will say that's the same as marriage, but it's just no longer called marriage. Still, a legal framework for a long lasting relationship is reasonable and should be there, at least as an option you can chose for.

Surely you can see how changing it would weaken the religious institution in the minds of Christians.

And there, I disagree again; it is wrong to mix up the legal marriage with the religious one. They are seperate. The fact that a part of the religious people fail to understand that cannot be a justification for discrimination.

Marriage should be defined by the religious definition as long as it exists, but I think it would be much better and take care of the problem to get rid of government representation of religious institutions.

The legal marriage is not a religious institution.

[Vuk]

I don't keep myself busy with "what if there would be". There isn't. And bringing a dog into it, makes your argument very silly, so I don't take it serious. A dog is not a human being.




No, it is not a religious institution. There's legal marriage and there's the religious institution. Those are NOT the same, despite of how many times you claim that it is. It's not. Get over it.



Indeed, in their minds and only in their minds. They ask for unequal treatment, they have to bring good reasons. "I think it will cheapen my private, non of the state's business, religious institution" is not a justification for discriminiation.



Ah, now we're talking. That's something completely different and I do consider it an alternative solution. Get rid of mariage entirely and there can be no longer discrimination.

However, if people are going to live together, be it two or more persons, then it is desirable imo to have some form of civil union, a legal framework which the parties involved can or cannot accept, including legal consequences. If people are going to share their lives and belongings, there should be the possibility of some legal protection and/or consequences. But then again, some will say that's the same as marriage, but it's just no longer called marriage. Still, a legal framework for a long lasting relationship is reasonable and should be there, at least as an option you can chose for.



And there, I disagree again; it is wrong to mix up the legal marriage with the religious one. They are seperate. The fact that a part of the religious people fail to understand that cannot be a justification for discrimination.



The legal marriage is not a religious institution.

You're missing my point Andres. I did NOT say that they are the same institution in anything but perception. They ARE different institutions, but the legal one is a representation of the religious one. It is the legal form of a religious institution, and for that reason, I think should be gotten rid of. Marriage was a religious institution that religious people wanted represented by and protected by the state. That is what legal marriage is/was. That is why I think we can both agree that it should be gotten rid of. As I said, there should be civil unions that are in all things but name marriage, and gays should be able to have them. I think that if you are going to keep marriage, that you should still have these unions. The thing at stake here is the word, because it is take from religious doctrine. THAT is what Christians want to protect, as Jews would want to protect the word Rabbi if I wanted to legally make myself a Rabbi so that I could demand equal treatment. I am all for gays getting equal treatment, but the word marriage has religious underpinnings and it makes no sense to try to take that word from Christians and make them accept a different meaning than what God told them. That is why I say it is sillyness on both sides. Why highjack the word Marriage? It is as silly as me trying to highjack the word Rabbi. It belongs to a religion and you should let them have it. Why anger Jews for no reason by making a legal definition of their word different than their religious one? Likewise, why anger Christians by doing the same? Give gays equal treatment by all means, but there is no sense aggravating people of religious persuasion by trying to legally redefine the institutions that they think God gave them. Just call it a civil union and get rid of the legal term marriage! Don't go messing with something Christians think comes from God.

[Kralizec]

Even if the term "marriage" has religious overtones it has evolved past it, and I'm pretty sure the term was used before most of Europe became christian. I see where you're coming from Vuk, but even if the institution was renamed to Civil Union people will still talk about getting married and marriages, gay people included.

[Vuk]

Even if the term "marriage" has religious overtones it has evolved past it, and I'm pretty sure the term was used before most of Europe became christian. I see where you're coming from Vuk, but even if the institution was renamed to Civil Union people will still talk about getting married and marriages, gay people included.

Let them, that is a private choice. The thing is that the word became used to describe the institution that Christians believe that God ordained. It is a thing before God, not man. To get a little Biblical on you, did people go to get married before Caesar or God? They did it "In the eyes of God" because it was a pledge they made before God, and God held them accountable, not the State. From a Christian perspective, it should not be a State institution either. There should be a State institution of civil unions, not marriages. Gays are not gonna be treated any better if they highjack a word that has sacred proportions to a large amount of the population. They are gonna be treated exactly as they would if the name was civil union instead, only they are gonna have Christians mad. If I am living in a Muslim country and I am not being treated fairly, I would argue for equal treatment, but I would not try to highjack religious words that are sacred to them and that do not apply to me. If a gay has a RELIGIOUS argument that they are entitled to enter into the institution with their gay partner before God, I would listen to their argument. That is a matter of church, not state though. (and I am not sure if it is just my experience or what, but by far the majority of gays I know are non-religious, Jewish, or Muslim. I only know one gay who claimed to be Christian and he recently announced his disgust for Christianity because he though it condemned his lifestyle. I wonder if there is statistics on that.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Likewise, why anger Christians by doing the same? Give gays equal treatment by all means, but there is no sense aggravating people of religious persuasion by trying to legally redefine the institutions that they think God gave them. Just call it a civil union and get rid of the legal term marriage! Don't go messing with something Christians think comes from God.

I don't think that standing in the way of what two consenting adults want to do with their lives, affording them the same rights and privileges as the rest of humanity, is something we should do just to make sure Christians don't get offended. If you've already conceded that gays have a right to be gay, have a right to do gay things together, and can be afforded ALL the rights of a couple, and the only sticking point now is that you don't like it compared to your "holier than theirs" marriage, it's time to let it go. They are going to call it marriage. You can't really stop them from getting married in their hearts, and you don't, apparently, want to stop them from having all the legal rights afforded to marriage. The bottom line is it makes you feel all icky when you have their relationships compared to your more "Godly" form of love. But at the end of the day, you have to deal with things that are offensive to your religious sensibilities, and how you personally feel about the issue does not have any bearing on the matter. Saying it makes you sad for them to have equal treatment and the same word, when you're willing to give them equal treatment, is losing the argument. It is just a word. And Christians do not have a monopoly on marriage as a word, nor does any religion. And challenging someone's legal marriage purely on the grounds you don't like it called marriage, though you don't challenge anything they do otherwise... it's absurd.

ATPG, no offense, but you are the most closed minded person I have ever talked to.

I'm not the one standing in the way of the happiness of hundreds of millions of people simply because I don't like the word they wish to associate themselves with. There are more important things in life than quibbling over words. If you've already conceded that gay people are normal upstanding equal members of our society and should be afforded the same rights as anyone else, you've also afforded them the right to call their relationship a marriage. That's part of having equal rights. You cannot monopolize a word; other people get to use it too.

You may counter that if we shouldn't quibble over words, then why am I arguing?

You have to demonstrate why they can't use that word, otherwise they can freely use it by default. The responsibility of showing why marriage can only be as you define it to be is on you, otherwise you have no basis for stopping them from calling it what you like. All I've seen so far is your religion says it's not a good idea. Not a good enough reason.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I don't think that standing in the way of what two consenting adults want to do with their lives, affording them the same rights and privileges as the rest of humanity, is something we should do just to make sure Christians don't get offended. If you've already conceded that gays have a right to be gay, have a right to do gay things together, and can be afforded ALL the rights of a couple, and the only sticking point now is that you don't like it compared to your "holier than theirs" marriage, it's time to let it go. They are going to call it marriage. You can't really stop them from getting married in their hearts, and you don't, apparently, want to stop them from having all the legal rights afforded to marriage. The bottom line is it makes you feel all icky when you have their relationships compared to your more "Godly" form of love. But at the end of the day, you have to deal with things that are offensive to your religious sensibilities, and how you personally feel about the issue does not have any bearing on the matter. Saying it makes you sad for them to have equal treatment and the same word, when you're willing to give them equal treatment, is losing the argument. It is just a word. And Christians do not have a monopoly on marriage as a word, nor does any religion. And challenging someone's legal marriage purely on the grounds you don't like it called marriage, though you don't challenge anything they do otherwise... it's absurd.

Regardless of what many (most?) Christians want, this will become the dominant fact. It's been called marriage for centuries. Gays want to be married, not unioned. Gays and those who favor that viewpoint will label it "marriage" regardless of what governments or anyone else wants it called. If the churched shift their preferred label to some new term, gays will do so as well in order to continue their basic quest (having the gay lifestyle viewed as and treated as perfectly normal in all respects). So, unless we are ready to persecute them and force them back into the closet through discriminatory statutes and viscious social pressure, the issue is lost.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Regardless of what many (most?) Christians want, this will become the dominant fact. It's been called marriage for centuries. Gays want to be married, not unioned. Gays and those who favor that viewpoint will label it "marriage" regardless of what governments or anyone else wants it called. If the churched shift their preferred label to some new term, gays will do so as well in order to continue their basic quest (having the gay lifestyle viewed as and treated as perfectly normal in all respects). So, unless we are ready to persecute them and force them back into the closet through discriminatory statutes and viscious social pressure, the issue is lost.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I used to be, regardless of my religion or lack thereof, on the opposing side of where I stand today. I wasn't raised in a "Godless" household. It did not seem to be intuitive to me to equate gay couples with straight ones. I at one time felt it was a moral versus immoral issue, and felt it had something to do with the family. It took a very long time and a lot of observation... but there is just no basis for the discrimination. What is inherently moral about straight couples? I've seen some really immoral ones. What is inherently immoral about gay couples? They're not hurting people or doing anything immoral by any definition I can come up with.

I'm not even over it. I still have issues where I don't really want to watch gay couples kissing. I'm not entirely thrilled about the situation, but... I recognize where that comes from, and it's societal pressure and rejection of that which isn't considered the norm by the majority. But it's been around all my life and I'm attempting to get over it. I readily admit that I'm not. However, I simply cannot argue any other way than for equality and non-discrimination, and ultimately every argument leads back to that, and other than religious concerns there is no basis for opposing it. If you were taught that the tides were caused by ships at sea for example, all your life that is what you knew was fact, it would seem counter-intuitive to consider the idea that the moon's gravitational pull has anything to do with it. Eventually you let go of what you thought you knew, and you accept that which seems strange to you at first. If you're taught all your life that gay couples are different or wrong, and straight couples are the only acceptable thing, and if gay marriage is called an abonimation... that is what you know to be true.

Gays want to be treated as equals (doesn't everyone?). There can be no special "marriage" just for them. You don't have to marry them at your church, just as I don't have to get married at your church, because that's a religious marriage not a legal one. You don't have to accept their idea of marriage in your heart, or in your church, you can preach what you please. It's freedom of speech. A church, to me, is a private organization with it's own rules. There are some very backward (from my perspective) people who wouldn't marry a couple who were of differing races. And I don't want the government to step in and force a church that believes something along those lines to reform. The government has little to do with church and religious marriage. Conversely, church has little to do with government and legal marriage. We never should have mixed the two, and we do well to remember the distinction.

I know marriage is not a religious concept, because atheists, agnostics, pagans, and many other followers of differing kinds of beliefs can fall in love and seek to be partners for life. And they take their marriage just as seriously as yours. When I get married I doubt it will be at a church because I don't belong to one. But my marriage is equal under the law, as it should be. If gay people have equal legal rights and protections as straight people, and they should, then they can get married at the same courthouse I can and their marriage will be treated the same.

The slippery slope argument doesn't follow. People will not be marrying their dogs or their furniture or their food. In the end, our diverse culture must respect things we don't understand. I myself don't understand and cannot fathom why circumcision should be legal, on males or females. I see them as the same thing, just different levels of severity. However, as frustrating and appalling as it is to me, I recognize that there are too many arguments in favor of allowing it to be an option for males, and it may in fact be unintentionally offensive to, say, Jewish people. So I have to accept that which I don't agree with or understand.

It's all part of living in a multicultural world that respects diversity and human rights. I think Scientology is a joke, but I have to accept that some people like it. I find Saudi Arabian restictions on women to be abhorrent. But I'm not willing to go to war over it. And if a Saudi woman were in the United States I couldn't tell her to take it off. I have to respect differences. They have a legal right to practice their religion... some have a legal right to practice circumcision. Some are demanding the equal rights they deserve, even if it makes some uncomfortable.

Yak, yak, yak yak yak. That's me, I just love to talk.

[Vuk]

Regardless of what many (most?) Christians want, this will become the dominant fact. It's been called marriage for centuries. Gays want to be married, not unioned. Gays and those who favor that viewpoint will label it "marriage" regardless of what governments or anyone else wants it called. If the churched shift their preferred label to some new term, gays will do so as well in order to continue their basic quest (having the gay lifestyle viewed as and treated as perfectly normal in all respects). So, unless we are ready to persecute them and force them back into the closet through discriminatory statutes and viscious social pressure, the issue is lost.

So it will not be treated normally in all aspects unless they can legally have their union termed marriage? Otherwise they are being persecuted? Crap then, I am sick of this persecution! I will never be treated normally until I can legally be classified as a Rabbi! Darn those Jews trying to keep it to themselves and discriminated against everyone else!
And BTW, gays can call it whatever they want, the argument is over what the state calls it. That is why it should be classified as a union, and those who want can privately or through their church have it deemed a marriage. There are people who abhore the word marriage and do not want their relation to be termed marriage, so this would give everyone the choice. It would be a legal union, and they could choose to call it whatever they wanted in private.
You know what Seamus? You and ATPG are making it like 'marriage' is up on some tier above other unions; it isn't. There is nothing better or unequal about marriage compared to any other union. It is just a word that Christians judge as theirs, and redefining it will NOT make gays be treated normally in every aspect (the union will, whether it is called marriage or not), it will just insult and offend the church that the state sees fit to redefine a word they judge as theirs. Likewise with Rabbi, the government COULD make Rabbi a legal word for citizen if they wanted, then everyone would be equal!! ummm...no...they would just take a word that the Jews judge as theirs (even though they have no legal claim to it) and redefine the meaning which would not make anyone be treated any more equally, but simply offend and insult the Jewish community. Not that there is anything wrong or unequal about the general populous, but because it is a sacredly defined term, and changing the meaning is violating that sanctity. I don't feel that I am persecuted or not treated normally in everyway because I am not legally classified as a Rabbi, and if being called one means so much to me, I will simply start calling myself Rabbi Vuk. Likewise if I was gay, I would not feel persecuted because my relation was not legally termed a marriage, and if it meant anything to me, I would just call it one! Heck, I am a straight Christian and I don't call my relation a marriage, because it does not fit the technical criteria in the Bible. I am not offended or persecuted because of it, and it means nothing to me. If I wanted to be married I would get married, and if I wanted to the term to apply to me now, I would just tell people that I am married. The only thing I have now that makes me not be treated equal is that I do not have the rights of someone who is in a union or married. Give me them and call it a forevertango for all I care!

[Tribesman]

Heck, I am a straight Christian

Haggard used to shout that a lot .

[Vuk]

Haggard used to shout that a lot .

If I was gay, it would only help my argument Tribesy. Sorry to disappoint you, but the Vuk is one woman chasing wolf.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Regardless of what many (most?) Christians want, this will become the dominant fact. It's been called marriage for centuries. Gays want to be married, not unioned. Gays and those who favor that viewpoint will label it "marriage" regardless of what governments or anyone else wants it called.

I must deem this Christian-centred.

The word 'marriage' is older than Catholicism. It is older than the church. It is older than Moses. It is older than the Israelites. The word 'marriage' is ancient, and common throughout the Indo-European linguistic world.
Christianity claims an exclusive right to a word that predates the church by millenia.


The act of marriage predates the church by countless generations too, nobody is entirely sure how old it is. Very certain is that Europeans have been wed to one another for millenia before the birth of Christ.


The church is a modern invention. A totalitarian institution that shamelessly claims monopolies on much older, truly ancient institutions, such as marriage, harvest feasts, burials.

It is not gays who want to take traditional marriage away from Christians. It is on the contrary, Christians who seek to take the ancient tradition of marriage away from any and all non-Christians.

[Tribesman]

Sorry to disappoint you, but the Vuk is one woman chasing wolf.

Thats what Haggard used to shout , christians are viriile have lots of sex and really satisfy women . So then Vuk when are you going to drop the charade and come in the open about being fond of back door deliveries ?

[Fragony]

@luigi

I can think of no society where a bond such as marriage was between same sexes, even in ancient (wth??) Greece it was an tolerated vice despite being very publicly acceptable.

[Andres]

Ok then:

1) Couple A consists of two people of the opposite sex; couple B consists of two people of the same sex.
2) Couple A is allowed to marry
3) Couple B is not allowed to marry.
4) Couple A and B are treated differently aka there is unequal treatment.

To those opposed to gay marriage: what is your justification for this unequal treatment?

[Louis VI the Fat]

@luigi

I can think of no society where a bond such as marriage was between same sexes, even in ancient (wth??) Greece it was an tolerated vice despite being very publicly acceptable.

Marriage predates Christianity. What Christians consider an ancient, inherently Christian tradition is in fact much older.

Not only that. This Christian 'tradition' has changed throughout the centuries, and throughout different places. Do not mistake a few centuries-old, northwest European practise for a timeless intitution.

What follows is from an eleventh-century Greek manuscript labeled Grottaferrata G.B.), and I have inserted some of the significant original Greek words in transcription.

Office for Same-Sex Union
[Akolouthia eis adelphopoiesin]

I.

The priest shall place the holy Gospel on the Gospel stand and they that are to be joined together place their right hands on it, holding lighted candles in their left hands. Then shall the priest cense them and say the following:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

II.

In peace we beseech Thee, O Lord.

For heavenly peace, we beseech Thee, O Lord.

For the peace of the entire world, we beseech Thee, O Lord.

For this holy place, we beseech Thee, O Lord.

That these thy servants, N. and N., be sanctified with thy spiritual benediction, we beseech Thee, O Lord.

That their love [agape] abide without offense or scandal all the days of their lives, we beseech Thee, O Lord.

That they be granted all things needed for salvation and godly enjoyment of life everlasting, we beseech Thee, O Lord.

That the Lord God grant unto them unashamed faithfulness [pistis] and sincere love [agape anhypokritos], we beseech Thee, O Lord. . . .

Have mercy on us, O God.

"Lord, have mercy" shall be said three times.

III.

The priest shall say:

Forasmuch as Thou, O Lord and Ruler, art merciful and loving, who didst establish humankind after thine image and likeness, who didst deem it meet that thy holy apostles Philip and Bartholomew be united, bound one unto the other not by nature but by faith and the spirit. As Thou didst find thy holy martyrs Serge and Bacchus worthy to be united together [adelphoi genesthai], bless also these thy servants, N. and N., joined together not by the bond of nature but by faith and in the mode of the spirit [ou desmoumenous desmi physeis alla pisteis kai pneumatikos tropi], granting unto them peace [eirene] and love [agape] and oneness of mind. Cleanse from their hearts every stain and impurity and vouchsafe unto them to love one another [to agapan allelous] without hatred and without scandal all the days of their lives, with the aid of the Mother of God and all thy saints, forasmuch as all glory is thine.

IV.
Another Prayer for Same-Sex Union

O Lord Our God, who didst grant unto us all those things necessary for salvation and didst bid us to love one another and to forgive each other our failings, bless and consecrate, kind Lord and lover of good, these thy servants who love each other with a love of the spirit [tous pneumatike agape heautous agapesantas] and have come into this thy holy church to be blessed and consecrated. Grant unto them unashamed fidelity [pistis] and sincere love [agape anhypokritos], and as Thou didst vouchsafe unto thy holy disciples and apostles thy peace and love, bestow them also on these, O Christ our God, affording to them all those things needed for salvation and life eternal. For Thou art the light and the truth and thine is the glory.

V.

Then shall they kiss the holy Gospel and the priest and one another, and conclude.

It is this ceremonial, and blessings like these, that Boswell claims to be part of a lost, or deliberately suppressed, tradition of church-legitimized same-sex marriages between men.

Homosexuality in ancient Greece, as described by the Towering Giant of Western philosophy, Plato. For Plato, as was the custom in Greece, male homosexuality was the most manly, most revered form of love:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The Speech of Aristophanes
PLATO

From the Symposium, by Plato, translated by Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff, 1989

In a dialogue on the meaning of love, Plato writes a masterpiece for his sometime sparring partner, the playwright Aristophanes, to explain the mystery of our desire for one other person. This passage follows Aristophanes's myth about the origins of human beings. In the beginning, Aristophanes conjectures, humans were essentially two people combined, each with two heads, four feet and four arms. There were three sexes: those with two male halves, those with two female halves, and those with one of each (the "androgynous" sort). At one point, however, Zeus, to punish humans for misbehaving, cut each human in two. Since then, each half wanders the earth in search of its lost other half, creating homosexual men, lesbians, and heterosexuals. Notice how same-sex love is put on the same plane as opposite-sex love, but also see how marriage is not identified with it.

Each of us, then, is a "matching half" of a human whole, because each was sliced like a flatfish, two out of one, and each of us is always seeking the half that matches him. That's why a man who is split from the double sort (which used to be called "androgynous") runs after women. Many lecherous men have come from this class, and so do the lecherous women who run after men. Women who are split from a woman, however, pay no attention at all to men; they are oriented more towards women, and lesbians come from this class. People who are split from a male are male-oriented. While they are boys, because they are chips off the male block, they love men and enjoy lying with men and being embraced by men; those are the best of boys and lads, because they are the most manly in their nature. Of course, some say such boys are shameless, but they're lying. It's not because they have no shame that such boys do this, you see, but because they are bold and brave and masculine, and they tend to cherish what is like themselves. Do you want me to prove it? Look, these are the only kind of boys who grow up to be politicians. When they're grown men, they are lovers of young men, and they naturally pay no attention to marriage or to making babies, except insofar as they are required by local custom. They, however, are quite satisfied to live their lives with one another unmarried. In every way, then, this sort of man grows up as a lover of young men and a lover of Love, always rejoicing in his own kind.

And so, when a person meets the half that is his very own, whatever his orientation, whether it's to young men or not, then something wonderful happens: the two are struck from their senses by love, by a sense of belonging to one another, and by desire, and they don't want to be separated from one another, not even for a moment.

These are the people who finish out their lives together and still cannot say what it is they want from one another. No one would think it is the intimacy of sex-that mere sex is the reason each lover takes so great and deep a joy in being with the other. It's obvious that the soul of every lover longs for something else; his soul cannot say what it is, but like an oracle it has a sense of what it wants, and like an oracle it hides behind a riddle. Suppose two lovers are lying together and Hephaestus stands over them with his mending tools, asking, "What is it you human beings really want from each other?" And suppose they're perplexed, and he asks them again: "Is this your heart's desire, then-for the two of you to become parts of the same whole, as near as can be, and never to separate, day or night? Because if that's your desire, I'd like to weld you together and join you into something that is naturally whole, so that the two of you are made into one. Then the two of you would share one life, as long as you lived, because you would be one being, and by the same token, when you died, you would be one and not two in Hades, having died a single death. Look at your love, and see if this is what you desire: wouldn't this be all the good fortune you could want?"

Surely you can see that no one who received such an offer would turn it down; no one would find anything else that he wanted. . . .

[Vuk]

I must deem this Christian-centred.

The word 'marriage' is older than Catholicism. It is older than the church. It is older than Moses. It is older than the Israelites. The word 'marriage' is ancient, and common throughout the Indo-European linguistic world.
Christianity claims an exclusive right to a word that predates the church by millenia.


The act of marriage predates the church by countless generations too, nobody is entirely sure how old it is. Very certain is that Europeans have been wed to one another for millenia before the birth of Christ.


The church is a modern invention. A totalitarian institution that shamelessly claims monopolies on much older, truly ancient institutions, such as marriage, harvest feasts, burials.

It is not gays who want to take traditional marriage away from Christians. It is on the contrary, Christians who seek to take the ancient tradition of marriage away from any and all non-Christians.

First of all, your history is quite off. Second of all, Christians are not trying to have a monopoly on 'marriage' in the sense of pagans, but simply to preserve the meaning that the word has acquired in recent centuries. So what is the urgent need to go back to the neolithic age? Many other words have changed in meaning over the centuries through PEACEFUL evolution, and no one is saying "The Jurassic meaning of this word may be different! We need it changed!" The meaning of words change throughout history either by general consensus when the people start using it for something different, or when dictators or powerful organizations try to change it for their gain. While it is true that the Catholic church was responsible for extending its control over unwilling people, the definition of marriage was not forcibly changed by Christians, but came to refer exclusively to God's union through centuries of use with the absence of pagan marriages. It was not 'stealing' the word, because the word ceased to be used for all other purposes, so no one had a claim on it. Marriage simply means 'bond' anyway, so cannot the state define such unions as unions or bonds? They are synonyms of the original meaning of marriage. Marriage did not come to refer to what it refers to today by taking the word away from other people who used it for another purpose. If you go trying to change the meaning now, you are going to forcibly change the word that has a long established, common usage among several agreeing organizations and 100s of 1000s of people. Why? It is, as I said, like me trying to claim the word Rabbi. The roots of the word Rabbi have a linguistic history longer than the roots of the word marriage, and were used all throughout the Middle East and the Fertile Crescent. It simply means revered one, or lord. Why is it then that they should have a legal monopoly on it? All throughout history you have had non-religious leaders called Rabbi (or some form of the word), and then those totalitarian childeating Jews (half-brothers to the darker and more disturbed Christians) come along and try to claim it! Those evil Jews are trying to take my reveredness away! Oy vey! I will never truely be accepted or treated equally until I and humanity reclaim that word from evil religion!
I don't know what you bad is with religion, or if it is maybe just Christians you hate, but I think you need to put things in perspective a bit.

EDIT: And just wanted to put a note in to any Jews who see my Oy vey comment and get the wrong idea. I am not making fun of Jews. I am part Jewish myself, and my religious views are very much influenced by Judiasm (to the point where I may say that I am 'half-Jew' in a sense). :P I was just trying to play on the irony and be funny.

[Louis VI the Fat]

First of all, your history is quite off.

I don't know what you bad is with religion, or if it is maybe just Christians you hate, but I think you need to put things in perspective a bit.

Three remarks:

My history is quite correct.

I do not in the slightest bit wish to take away Christian marriage from Christians. I only resist Christians taking away non-Christian marriage from non-Christians.

My beef is not with Christians. It isn't with religion either. My beef is with discrimination.