JONATHAN CHAIT AUGUST 19, 2010
-
Read Later
READ LATERAvailable only to subscribers. SUBSCRIBE TODAY
-
Listen
ARTICLE AUDIO
- Font Size
In the gay marriage debate, President Obama says that he supports civil unions for same-sex couples. But has this always been his view? A look back at his statements on gay marriage, from his days as a state senate candidate until his time in the White House, suggests that Obama's public stance has shifted notably:
1996: In response to a questionnaire from Outlines newspaper (now part of Windy City Times), Obama, a candidate for the Illinois state senate seat representing the wealthy Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, writes, “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages." Eight years later, in a letter to Windy City Times, Obama would say that he opposed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) of 1996, calling it “an effort to demonize people for political advantage” that should be repealed.
1998: Responding to an Illinois State Legislative National Political Awareness Test: “Q: Do you believe that the Illinois government should recognize same-sex marriages? A: Undecided.”
2004: In an interview with Windy City Times, Obama mentions the religious dimension of the gay marriage debate, says he supports civil unions, and indicates that his stance is dictated in large part by political strategy:
Obama: I think that marriage, in the minds of a lot of voters, has a religious connotation. I know that's true in the African-American community, for example. And if you asked people, 'should gay and lesbian people have the same rights to transfer property, and visit hospitals, and et cetera,' they would say, 'absolutely.' And then if you talk about, 'should they get married?', then suddenly…
WCT: There are more than 1,000 federal benefits that come with marriage. Looking back in the 1960s and inter-racial marriage, the polls showed people against that as well.
Obama: Since I'm a product of an interracial marriage, I'm very keenly aware of ...
WCT: But you think, strategically, gay marriage isn't going to happen so you won't support it at this time?
Obama: What I'm saying is that strategically, I think we can get civil unions passed. I think we can get SB 101 [which would add “sexual orientation” to Illinois’s non-discrimination laws] passed. I think that to the extent that we can get the rights, I'm less concerned about the name.”
2006: In his bestseller, The Audacity of Hope, Obama, now a U.S. senator, explains his support for civil unions, again mentioning religion and noting the strategic problems that the push for gay marriage poses:
For many practicing Christians, the inability to compromise may apply to gay marriage. I find such a position troublesome, particularly in a society in which Christian men and women have been known to engage in adultery or other violations of their faith without civil penalty. I believe that American society can choose to carve out a special place for the union of a man and a woman as the unit of child rearing most common to every culture. I am not willing to have the state deny American citizens a civil union that confers equivalent rights no such basic matters as hospital visitation or health insurance coverage simply because the people they love are of the same sex—nor am I willing to accept a reading of the Bible that considers an obscure line in Romans to be more defining of Christianity than the Sermon on the Mount. …The heightened focus on marriage is a distraction from other, attainable measures to prevent discrimination and gays and lesbians. (pp. 222-3)
July 2007: At the CNN/YouTube Democratic primary debate in Charleston, South Carolina, Obama discusses interracial versus gay marriage and says that it should be up to individual religions whether they recognize civil unions as marriages:
Anderson Cooper: Senator Obama, the laws banning interracial marriage in the United States were ruled unconstitutional in 1967. What is the difference between a ban on interracial marriage and a ban on gay marriage?
Obama: Well, I think that it is important to pick up on something that was said earlier by both Dennis [Kucinich] and by Bill [Richardson], and that is that we've got to make sure that everybody is equal under the law. And the civil unions that I proposed would be equivalent in terms of making sure that all the rights that are conferred by the state are equal for same-sex couples as well as for heterosexual couples.
Now, with respect to marriage, it's my belief that it's up to the individual denominations to make a decision as to whether they want to recognize marriage or not. But in terms of, you know, the rights of people to transfer property, to have hospital visitation, all those critical civil rights that are conferred by our government, those should be equal.
August 2007: At the Human Rights Campaign/Logo gay issues debate, also during the Democratic primaries, Obama emphasizes the religious importance of the term “marriage” and explains why civil unions aren’t discriminatory:
Q: If you were back in the Illinois legislature where you served and the issue of civil marriage came before you, how would you have voted on that?
A: My view is that we should try to disentangle what has historically been the issue of the word “marriage,” which has religious connotations to some people, from the civil rights that are given to couples, in terms of hospital visitation, in terms of whether or not they can transfer property or Social Security benefits and so forth. So it depends on how the bill would’ve come up. I would’ve supported and would continue to support a civil union that provides all the benefits that are available for a legally sanctioned marriage. And it is then, as I said, up to religious denominations to make a determination as to whether they want to recognize that as marriage or not.
Q: On the grounds of civil marriage, can you see to our community where [your stance of separating gay rights from the word “marriage”] comes across as sounding like “separate but equal”?
A: Look, when my parents got married in 1961, it would have been illegal for them to be married in a number of states in the South. So obviously, this is something that I understand intimately, it’s something that I care about. But if I were advising the civil rights movement back in 1961 about its approach to civil rights, I would have probably said it’s less important that we focus on an anti-miscegenation law than we focus on a voting rights law and a non-discrimination and employment law and all the legal rights that are conferred by the state. Now, it’s not for me to suggest that you shouldn’t be troubled by these issues. But my job as president is going to be to make sure that the legal rights that have consequences on a day to day basis for loving same sex couples all across the country.
2008: In an interview with MTV, Obama says he opposes Prop 8, but also gay marriage. Civil unions, the candidate says, are sufficient:
I have stated my opposition to [Prop 8]. I think it is unnecessary. I believe that marriage is between a man and woman and I am not in favor of gay marriage, but when you're playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that that is not what America is about. Usually constitutions expand liberties, they don't contract them. What I believe is that if we have strong civil unions out there that provide legal rights to same-sex couples that they can visit each other in the hospital if they get sick, that they can transfer property to each other. If they've got benefits, they can make sure those benefits apply to their partners. I think that is the direction we need to go.
2010: After the Perry decision, which struck down Prop 8, the White House releases this statement: “The president has spoken out in opposition to Proposition 8 because it is divisive and discriminatory. He will continue to promote equality for LGBT Americans." Meanwhile, White House senior adviser David Axelrod tells MSNBC that Obama "does oppose same-sex marriage, but he supports equality for gay and lesbian couples. … He supports civil unions. That’s been his position throughout. So nothing has changed."
39 comments
In 1994, the social democratic government of the province of Ontario tried to get a version of gay marriage passed in the province. The bill was voted down in the provincial parliament, because many members of the government party bolted (always a tension between the trade-union and the social left wings of that party). At the time, the government had been warned that it did not have the votes for the bill, but also that a watered down version of it could have passed easily (civil unions without adoption). The government went for the first best option and failed. The failure of the bill resulted in litigation across the country, with the usual hand-wringing by conservatives about an activist judiciary and so on. Finally, after ten years, the federal government (then Liberal) introduced a bill into Parliament expanding the definition of marriage; the new Conservative minority government tried to repeal the bill, but the attempt failed and the matter has now become a non-issue. (We've already had our first major divorce case, along with custody and support issues ... ho hum.) Sometimes, as in 1994 in Ontario, accepting a less than perfect world as a given would have allowed for the passage of bills that ease the way, legislatively, into better policies. The ten-year litigation was, in effect, unnecessary, even if at the end of the day, the proponents got more than they were getting back in '94. (They could have had the benefits in the meantime, and pushed for full marriage rights in due course, as in fact they did and won both legislatively and in the court of public opinion.) It is perfectly sound for an academic to favour a policy position and, once in politics and recognizing the limits of policy-making, modulate his position to reflect what is possible rather than what is ideal. The Commentariat who have never had to deal with actual implementation of public policy should bear this in mind.
- icarusr
August 19, 2010 at 9:39am
This is a lot of words expended on something that, if I may be so bold, is pretty obvious to anyone who has the remotest understanding of Obama and the political world in which he lives. I'd be VERY surprised if Obama personally opposes gay marriage.
- IowaBeauty
August 19, 2010 at 9:40am
Oops, hit send accidently. Intended to add: I'd be equally surprised had he not "politically" opposed it.
- IowaBeauty
August 19, 2010 at 9:42am
Considering that I'm best friends with a lesbian couple who were married in Iowa, and am godfather of their child, you would think by now I would have a halfway decent grasp of this issue, but I just don't get it. Every attempt at a substantive argument against gay marriage that I hear has its foundation in religious doctrine. So how the heck does a refusal to recognize gay marriage pass a 1st Amendment test? If it isn't 'establishment' to say "you can't get married because my religion says you can't get married", then I don't know what is. This seems like more than a gay rights issue; it is also a religious freedom issue, but I rarely hear it couched in those terms.
- Fishpeddler
August 19, 2010 at 10:00am
I take a more critical view of Obama on this issue, I think. I only qualify my criticism by my recognition of the need for nearly any politician to carve, compromise, swerve, spin, dissemble and accommodate as a matter of sheer politics. Obama's faith makes me doubt whether it's so easy to say that he is personally committed to gay marriage. I prefer to take him at his word on the issue. But take, for example, this quote which leapt out at me: ...But if I were advising the civil rights movement back in 1961 about its approach to civil rights, I would have probably said it’s less important that we focus on an anti-miscegenation law than we focus on a voting rights law and a non-discrimination and employment law and all the legal rights that are conferred by the state... Where the line gets drawn between principle and engaging the art of the possible is case by case. But isn't this going too far in shoring up a present day political accommodation to those--some even bigots--opposing gay marriage, i.e. denying equality under the law? Finally, Obama could have framed a position similar to the way litigators plead in the alternative: if not A, then B. He could framed a position that recognized the need for, and lawfulness of, gay marriage but in the meantime, without compromising that recognition, ensured vigilantly supporting civil unions. It's hollow, I think, as a principled position to write off marriage as just a word. It's a bed rock fundamental, culturally suffused, identity giving social institution for believers and atheists--like me--alike.
- basman
August 19, 2010 at 10:36am
Basman: you know what would have happened to Obama if he had followed your advice. Reminds me of the old saw about the pious Mullah who, on calling for prayer, intoned, "lA elAh-a ..." ("there is no god ..."), before he was cut down by an assassin. The poor schmuck wakes up and finds himself at the Gates of Hell. He wonders why and is told that he is a heretic. "But," the Mullah says, utterly confused, "the assassin didn't let me finish with 'el-Allah' (but for God/Allah)." Right Wing assassins of American politicial discourse never let you fin-
- icarusr
August 19, 2010 at 11:29am
Maybe, maybe, but I as I say I find it startling now to read him as having said in rationalizing his anti gay marriage political position that he would have told civil rights leaders in 1961 not to worry so much about anti-miscegenation law--i.e., to put it starkly, American blacks are not good enough to marry American whites. Is my reaction presentism? In 1961, I was 15 years old and was shocked then that there were laws prohibiting inter racial marriage as part of equally shocking explicit American de jure racism. In 1963 the ACLU intervened in Loving, which presented itself as a prime target for attacking those laws in Virginia and in fact there were previous cases floating around in other states chipping away at their constitutionality. The ultimate vindication by SCOTUS had amazing values-changing resonance throughout America and I don't see that litigation as having dissipated or diverted energy from the civil rights battles of times. Just the opposite. So as one-me-who sees no difference in principle between those laws and any gay marriage proscriptions, I am not so sympathetic to politicians trimming on the issue though I understand political reality. And taking Obama at his word--that he does not support gay marriage because of is faith--I find his position even more troubling. Finally, I contend that there is/must be a way of framing a position of principled support for this basic equal right that is not politically suicidal.
- basman
August 19, 2010 at 12:01pm
Douthat captures more than a little 'essence of contention' in the following: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/09/opinion/09douthat.html?_r=1&ref=rossdouthat Law has never had the capacity to fully sanctify in the personal sense. Thankfully so I might add. It is not the order of Law to rule man but to serve as a breadcrumb marker on the way to a larger Truth. Ostensibly anyway.
- jacko
August 19, 2010 at 12:08pm
"Law has never had the capacity to fully sanctify in the personal sense. Thankfully so I might add. It is not the order of Law to rule man but to serve as a breadcrumb marker on the way to a larger Truth. Ostensibly anyway." This is my personal statement. Rereading my previous post... i realized that one might reasonably infer that addendum as a Douthat quote. Not so..... just so we are clear. No offense intended Mr. Douthat..... or to anyone else for that matter.
- jacko
August 19, 2010 at 12:29pm
.jacko darling: ..Law has never had the capacity to fully sanctify in the personal sense. Thankfully so I might add. It is not the order of Law to rule man but to serve as a breadcrumb marker on the way to a larger Truth. Ostensibly anyway... Say what? Douthat starts off okay but then gets circular: ...This ideal holds up the commitment to lifelong fidelity and support by two sexually different human beings — a commitment that involves the mutual surrender, arguably, of their reproductive self-interest — as a uniquely admirable kind of relationship. It holds up the domestic life that can be created only by such unions, in which children grow up in intimate contact with both of their biological parents, as a uniquely admirable approach to child-rearing. And recognizing the difficulty of achieving these goals, it surrounds wedlock with a distinctive set of rituals, sanctions and taboos.... Note the presumed "two sexually different Human beings" And then he gets pernicious and hysterical: ...Or at least, it was the Western understanding. Lately, it has come to co-exist with a less idealistic, more accommodating approach, defined by no-fault divorce, frequent out-of-wedlock births, and serial monogamy. In this landscape, gay-marriage critics who fret about a slippery slope to polygamy miss the point. Americans already have a kind of postmodern polygamy available to them. It’s just spread over the course of a lifetime, rather than concentrated in a “Big Love”-style menage. If this newer order completely vanquishes the older marital ideal, then gay marriage will become not only acceptable but morally necessary.... It's another version of his two Americas cited in the debate over the Muslim Community Centre. One pudding to eat in reproof of this hysteria is that gays will be as offended by loose, degenerate, irresponsible sexuality--such as that might be-- as will straights.
- basman
August 19, 2010 at 12:40pm
p.s. Jacko: ...No default divorce... The perfect door through which to walk to get into Douthat's room of nonsense on this issue.
- basman
August 19, 2010 at 12:46pm
Itz, my lovely multifaceted barrister. Note the presumed "two sexually different Human beings". I take this statement as a bow before the reality that women and men reflect a complete representation of humanity. It's the microcosm which he is pointing toward. Thus providing the offspring with the possibility of unique insight informed by a personal fully represented universe. If only implied. "If this newer order completely vanquishes the older marital ideal, then gay marriage will become not only acceptable but morally necessary..." I take this statement not as a hysterical indictment and fear of sexuality potentials but an affirmation that hypocrisy is the more consequential vice. What, my man, is a No default divorce?
- jacko
August 19, 2010 at 1:16pm
Jacko: It used to be, at least in Canada, that you had to wait years to get divorced from the time of separation--like three and five depending on who left--short of having grounds like adultery, cruelty--mental or physical--bestiality and so on. Divorce cases all too often proceeded horribly on those grounds, which were a complete and inhumane distraction from finances, property and custody. Then with liberalization came the availability of divorce after only one year of separation, it not mattering who left who. Thus away went for all practical purposes divorces based on someone's misconduct. (I remember pleading a case based on cruelty and citing the guy's bizarre sexual habit of pissing on his wife. He quickly settled.) So you are left with an innocuous ground of separation for a year which took out virtually all of the fault based divorce litigation (though those grounds still exist but lawyers plead them at their peril with their clients answerable in costs if they are pleaded merely for some assumed for tactical advantage or for atmosphere.) Hence, at least in Canada, no fault divorce. I'm saying that it's an ample clue to what a reactionary view Douthat has that he assimilates this humane development in the law with what all he hysterically weaves together in the "polygamization" of America and he weaves gay marriage into his riotously colored carpet of sexual misadventure and America's degenerate going -to hell-in-a-hand basket. As to "two sexually different human beings": I know what he's saying. I think there's no warrant for his point.
- basman
August 19, 2010 at 1:55pm
But of course. As Barack Obama's political aspirations broadened, his defense of gay marriage atrophied. Would you expect anything else, people? Basman: So I suppose if I accused you of not reading the books you say you have read, then it would be okay? That is what happened with the Virginia nebbish and me. So, bas, stop saying that you have read Susan Sontag.
- liberal reformer
August 19, 2010 at 2:07pm
...Would you expect anything else... I would've liked to've expected something else. ...For morality is the human will dictating to itself a mode of being and acting in the world, whereby conscious effort is required to choose between various possibilities of good and evil... Who said this?
- basman
August 19, 2010 at 3:13pm
"...For morality is the human will dictating to itself a mode of being and acting in the world, whereby conscious effort is required to choose between various possibilities of good and evil... Who said this?" I have a suspicion but can also hazard a guess that it probably wasn't the guy who liked to piss on his wife.
- jacko
August 19, 2010 at 4:08pm
Not unless that guy was... I'm not saying yet.
- basman
August 19, 2010 at 4:18pm
Itz. I suspect you the author. If not consider yourself flattered that I would entertain such a notion. I just don't see where Douthat is being or saying all of the terrible things you accuse him of. I could be wrong. Wouldn't be the first time. Still I stand as before. It seems to me that he fairly articulated the primary of what is at stake in redefinition of marriage. He also suggests that for practical purpose it has been redefined by a good many participants in the endeavor. He asks " Do we throw out the baby with our 'enlightened bath water?" Reasonable question by my lights.
- jacko
August 19, 2010 at 4:19pm
It's not me and so consider myself, buddy.
- basman
August 19, 2010 at 4:26pm
Jacko, as I read him--and I will bow to no man in my capacity to be wrong-- he's proposing one America rooted in in what he calls his ideal vision of marriage--heterosexual, life long and child nurturing as against another America rooted in a slide, to mix metaphors, into polygamiztion. As I before quoted, but repeat: ...Lately, it has come to co-exist with a less idealistic, more accommodating approach, defined by no-fault divorce, frequent out-of-wedlock births, and serial monogamy. In this landscape, gay-marriage critics who fret about a slippery slope to polygamy miss the point. Americans already have a kind of postmodern polygamy available to them. It’s just spread over the course of a lifetime, rather than concentrated in a “Big Love”-style menage. If this newer order completely vanquishes the older marital ideal, then gay marriage will become not only acceptable but morally necessary... I paraphrase this to mean that gay marriage is of a piece with a terribly dysfunctional America marked in an important part by sexual irresponsibility as shown in things like no fault divorce, kids born out of wedlock and and lots of sexual relationships. When that dysfunctional America prevails, gay marriage, because it's inseparable from the dysfunction, will be a moral imperative. I.E. once ideal standards are gone, what ground can possibly be put against gay marriage. This is circular because its conclusion is its premise: gay marriage is a lesser form of institution that sullies the ideal, without a case made out for that or for the ideal being the ideal. And it's pernicious because it ascribes to gay marriage, just by an implicitly hysterical, mere say so, a role in America's moral decline as Douthat sees it. No?
- basman
August 19, 2010 at 4:44pm
It is properly "acting and being" in the Sontagian original. You still didn't answer my question and surely you do realize that I was joking for effect? Still, I could now - because of the erroneous quote - accuse you of sciolism.
- liberal reformer
August 19, 2010 at 7:20pm
Also, philosophically speaking, if I am right about determinism, then Sue was wrong about morality. I am certainly not a Laplacian determinist, that isn't even tenable any more, I am what I call a roll-your-own determinist. But if any sort of determinism is the case, then morality is merely epiphenomenal, at least as regards intention.
- liberal reformer
August 19, 2010 at 7:24pm
Sorry liberal reformer: we seem to be skating past each other. I don't know what question you asked me that I didn't answer; I missed what your joke was; I don't know what you are saying about determinism; and sorry for inverting the "acting" and "being", if that's what I did--I was going from memory. Finally, for this round of confusion, I have no idea how deteminism in relation to what Sontag said arises. If I was right that it's impossible to discern good and evil, then "Sue would be wrong", but so what?
- basman
August 19, 2010 at 7:43pm
A certain Virginia nebbish wrote here at TNR late last week that I haven't read the books I have indeed read. You seemed to be giving aid and comfort to said nebbish, so I asked you how would you like it if I said the same of you and then, in jocular fashion, I tossed out my Sontag statement. If you weigh in on a controversy, you should be conversant with what it is about. The musings on determinism just spontaneously sprung to mind when you reproduced (erroneously) the Sontag quote and it is not at all germane to anything. If we have no liberty of will, then morality would seem to have no place in such an order. That is what I was writing about. The fly in the ointment is that, as Milton Friedman told John Cassidy of The New Yorker years back, we can never know if determinism is true or not and this question has been debated back to early on in human history.
- liberal reformer
August 19, 2010 at 9:35pm
Methinks you have gone off the deep end.
- basman
August 20, 2010 at 12:55am
Basman: methinks you used the wrong tense. Simple past, if you please ... in the French sense.
- icarusr
August 20, 2010 at 2:12am
It seems to me that you are front loading his implications of 'dysfunction' with the assumption that perversity is the mover of his objections. I would contend that the origins of his concern would be misguided narcissism across the spectrum of relationship dispositions. In other words he asks the question, " Is there something important and distinctively worthy of the loyalty and implied commitment to a union that sanctifies progeny?" " Is there a valuable psychological/spiritual construct at risk by diluting the Judeo/Christian embrace of nuclear heterosexual monogamy and the multi-directional consequences of the Individual thus constituted?" Very good questions that should not be dismissed with insouciant and accusatory contempt. We are trying to define Love and all of its implications.
- jacko
August 20, 2010 at 8:23am
By the way, Itz, I wasn't accusing you of insouciance lest you tell me to, " Buzz off little twit."
- jacko
August 20, 2010 at 9:03am
Say, libref. You seem to have quite a bee in the bonnet these days. Whazzup? What is REALLY pissing you off? We don't talk much anymore. Well... we didn't talk much before. Nonetheless it seems a bit out of character for you to be gettin up in the grill and goin all tangential. That's more my style.(har-har) You wearin a new hat these days?
- jacko
August 20, 2010 at 9:54am
Just one more thing Itz... Pissing on someone is grounds for claiming justifiable homicide or at least a real good ass kicking per self defense. Talk about a degrading insult. Revoke this guys license to ever marry again.
- jacko
August 20, 2010 at 10:30am
Jacko: Well Douthat uses the word polygamy. But I'll grant you your well taken point about my front (over) loading "dysfunction" and say I can make the same case with your notion of “misguided narcissism”. I don’t think Douthat’s asking the questions you’re saying he’s asking. I think, rather, he’s answering them by saying, I paraphrase, in relation to your formulation of his questions, “Yes there’s something important, and yes it’s at risk and gay marriage is part of that risk.” There’s obviously something important and worthy in an enduring and loving and committed relationship which puts its children first. But that question answers itself affirmatively and that question and that answer, contra Douthat, have nothing to do with gay relationships and gay marriage. The evidence: gay relationships, marriages, themselves which are stable, loving and permanent, and some of which have children. And where, my friendly, does gay marriage come to be a “dilution”? That trope—dilution, lessening by addition—has you buying into Douthat’s circularity: making your premise your conclusion. What has the deep, loving and, say, life long commitment of two same sex partners, with or without children, who are by their natures, whether or not made by a God, drawn to their own sex, have to do with the "dilution" of marriage? I need to see that case made out.
- basman
August 20, 2010 at 10:56am
p.s. BTW, the more I talk about this here, the more troubled I get by Obama's opposition to same sex marriage owing to his faith, which was part of the original post heading this thread.
- basman
August 20, 2010 at 11:08am
I think the barrister has argued a fairly good case. I still have some provisos with other angles of inquiry. All said it is a benefit to thoroughly vet. The issue isn't as simple as it may seem or as has been framed by proponents and opponents.
- jacko
August 20, 2010 at 12:48pm
The deep end? Well, sure, as long as it is not something that is happening to you. I don't recognize your username, jacko. Are you posting under another name?
- liberal reformer
August 20, 2010 at 12:59pm
Once upon a boxofrox.
- jacko
August 20, 2010 at 1:32pm
Oh hi, box. I definitely recall you. How have you been?
- liberal reformer
August 20, 2010 at 10:06pm
Hey back. I'm doing alright all considered. Thanks for asking. Et toi? Comment ca va?
- jacko
August 21, 2010 at 4:00pm
Ca va bien, merci.
- liberal reformer
August 21, 2010 at 7:53pm
It is hard to justify opposition to same-sex marriage without reference to religious belief. But it is also hard to justify opposition to polygamy without reference to religious belief (even though of course polygamy is regularly practiced in the Bible). Basic Judeo-Christian beliefs about social order are at the heart of our system of laws and indeed morality, and so it is thus impossible to have a total separation of church and state. That having been said, I have become convinced that civil marriage between same-sex couples should be allowed, as a matter of equal protection. If using the term "civil unions" takes it outside of the religious context, simply use the term for all marriages, and equality is established.
- flynnb_az
August 24, 2010 at 6:15pm