[kahljorn]

I kind of agree McClain. Sometimes i think that marriages should be done on a religious basis. If it's really a religious or spiritual institution it should be fine for any church to marry anyone (although what about dogs and children and stuff right) that they truly believe should be married. Whereas the legal benefits should exist as a legal institution. If marriage is treated as a legal institution completely then a lot of arguments are voided, so most people avoid that. There is really no reason why homosexuals who have the same lifestyle as heterosexuals shouldn't receive similar benefits and statuses, and generally those types of things are delivered by a legal or political institution.
mostly though i think it avoids only valuing one religious definition of marriage which is actually a conflict of church and state... usually people dodge that accusation by saying something like, "separation of church and state is only designed to keep the STATE out of the church, not to keep the church out of the state."

does marriage mean anything besides legal benefits? i think its interesting that people think of people who are married as like i dont know, cut off or something. Like you shouldn't fuck them. It's a magic spell. There's really no reason for it, but most people, openly at least, think its wrong to fuck people who are married.