LogFAQs > #945498868

s0nicfan posted...

Nobody is saying that. The discussion is over whether marriage, a religious institution, should confer legal benefits to married couples in a country that has constitutionalized the separation of church and state.

I think there are good arguments for having benefits that encourage family stability which is why I suggested moving those benefits over to civil unions which anybody can get.

Either way, the only reason anybody can even make a religious liberty argument is because people keep insisting that "marriage" specifically should be a protected right and not the legal benefits conferred to it.

Marriage and civil union aren't mentioned in the constitution, therefore the 10th amendment strongly implies that it's entirely up to the states.

You can make a convincing 14th amendment argument that limiting it to "one man and one woman" is unconstitutional, or the ERA would have made that a moot point had it ever ratified.