You don't have to be Pro-Gay to be Pro-Freedom

From CNN's iReport

I said this back in March of 2004:

The Solution to the Gay Marriage Debate

The problem is a semantic one; a problem of meanings; a problem of language.

The transitive verb:

mar-ry v. -ried, -ry-·ing, -ries.

1. To join as spouses by exchanging vows.
   
2. To take as a spouse.
   
3. To give in marriage.
   
4. To perform a marriage ceremony for: The rabbi married the couple.
   
5. To obtain by marriage: marry money.
   
6. Nautical: To join (two ropes) end to end by interweaving their strands.
   

7. To unite in a close, usually permanent way: "His material marries the domestic and the exotic".

Note that none of the above definitions speak to either gender nor religion

But the term ceremony itself can be used without religious context; a "graduation ceremony" for example. Therefore a marriage ceremony can be based on either a religious (sacred) or a non-religious (secular) premise.

This distinction is at the heart of the argument...along with the constitutional clause demanding separation of church and state.

Simple enough.

However, there is third concept involved which causes confusion and tends to make the distinctions less clear.

Two people cannot be considered married just because they exchange vows or sign a piece of paper which gives them licence or allows them to marry getting a marriage licence does NOT make you married). Nor can they be considered married even if those vows are witnessed by kith and kin. The marriage contract occurs legally only when a person who has been invested with the authority by the state declares the couple married.

For a majority of Americans who get married, this person invested with the state authority to make their marriage legal will be a member of the clergy of some recognized religion. This means that the two otherwise distinct forms of marriage are blended into one ceremony; both the sacred and the bureaucratic are combined.

This investment of state authority is in itself is a breach of the separation of church and state clause, but because it has gone on for so long, it seems completely normal and is almost never questioned.

If the religious aspect of marriage is removed from the equation and we are speaking only of civil marriages, all of the arguments used by the religious right or by those proposing a constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage, as when Dubya referenced "cultural, religious and natural" traditions, are meaningless. And without those arguments, there is simply no rational reason not to allow same-sex couples to marry in a civil ceremony to make their relationship contractually legal in order, if for no other reason, that they be eligible to fulfill their legal responsibilities and pursue whatever advantages marriages bestows on married heterosexual couples, as citizens equal under the law.

Let all those who desire to be married legally to do so through a state appointed bureaucratic agent.

Those who desire to add a layer of sacredness according to the lights of their religion may do so freely.

Nothing will change or threaten the institution of marriage at all if this were done.
As it is heterosexual people who get married in civil ceremonies, such as the Las Vegas weddings, are not seen as threatening to the institution of marriage, so why should the civil marriage ceremony of same-sex partners be considered any more of a threat?

Also read about why "Civil Unions" are NOT equal to "Civil Marriage" :
Civil Unions vs Civil Marriage