I’m against gay couples having a marriage license. But I’m also against my wife and I having a marriage license. It’s not that I have anything against gays. I don’t. And it’s not that I don’t love my wife. I do. It’s that I’m against the government deciding who can get married and who can’t.
Medieval serfs who wished to marry were required to get the permission of their noble masters. In America we were supposed to leave all that nonsense behind.
George and Martha never had a marriage license. Neither did James and Dolly or Abe and Mary Todd. There was really no such thing as a government-issued marriage license until after the Civil War, when southern governments decided that they didn’t want newly freed blacks to marry white people. In America, the entire concept of requiring a license to marry was born in racism and slavery.
People should be free to have whatever kind of ritual or ceremony they please to declare for the world and for themselves their bond and commitment to each other. The legal protections, if they are wanted, can be in the form of a civil union contract whether the couple is gay or straight.
The definition of marriage is not something we need to fight over. We can just agree to disagree.
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