This week an Iowa judge struck down the state's ten year ban on homosexual marriage, creating the latest in a series of signals that gay marriage bans will soon be a thing of the past. The United States Supreme Court will likely rule these bans as unconstitutional as soon as it gets the next opportunity.
Gay marriage tends to split the conservative community. Social conservatives will support bans upon it whole heartedly while economic conservatives feel less comfortable in doing so. Democrats enjoy exploiting the fact that the party that wants government off the back of the people also seems to want to keep illegal a very personal issue.
Gay couples do need some sort of legal protection. They experience many of the same problems as heterosexual couples. Those enduring abuse or theft have a more difficult time finding legal remedies for their problems. However some object to the name marriage being applied to non traditional relationships
The problem can be solved with conservative philosophy. Conservatives want the government out of our lives as much as possible. The solution is to get government out of marriage entirely. The legal contract can be a civil union done before a magistrate or some other official. It applies to either form of coupling. Marriage would be the social and cultural event. This would mean that people could call their relationships marriages and not have to worry about government interference. Gays do not want the government legally saying they are not really married, others object to the government imposing a different interpretation upon them. Getting government out of marriage makes sense. It will also get one more time consuming issue off of the plates of state legislatures and courts.
You bring up an interesting suggestion by saying all legal aspects of marriage should be removed. I agree with most of the thing you said but marriage needs to be legally defined because some people will not accept a gay couple as married. Without laws, people would discriminate against gay couples and deny them the same rights heterosexual couples enjoy. As you said, it is important to provide some sort of legal protection for gay couples. The amount of government involvement and to what extent remains a controversial topic.
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