There is an important sense in which the very concept of marriage is a discriminatory one--that is, we choose certain intimate relationships as worthy either of government sponsorship or of church sponsorship. Marriage means something more than that we will not forcibly prevent someone from having that kind of relationship, something we do in pedophilia cases (and, yes, we used to do with some homosexuality cases through sodomy laws). But we choose certain relationships, in virtue of their permanence, or for some other reason, to say that if you are in one of those you can file married filing jointly, you can have community property, you can transfer your wealth to that person when you die no questions asked, you can get spousal social security benefits, etc. etc. etc . And we do that for some relationships and not others. When we call something a marriage, we say that it is something more than a hookup or even a shackup, it's something we as a society, or a government, or a church, should support. When you accept same-sex marriage, you eliminate being of the opposite sex as one of the requirements for sponsorship. When it comes to church sponsorship, one church was sponsoring gay marriages as far back as 1969, others, such as the Roman Catholic or Southern Baptist churches, or even the United Methodist Church, still won't do it. But if you literally thought that all relationships were equal, you would be eliminating marriage, not making it equal.
By the way, I have notice that legislatures are moving to change abortion laws in anticipation of a reversal of Roe v. Wade, but are not doing the same thing with the Obergefell decision. I wonder why that is. This seems to me like the dog that didn't bark.
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By the way, I have notice that legislatures are moving to change abortion laws in anticipation of a reversal of Roe v. Wade, but are not doing the same thing with the Obergefell decision. I wonder why that is. This seems to me like the dog that didn't bark.
I'll guess:
Because the few gay people that actually get married are then faced with the same divorce laws as everyone else and will soon lose their money and their desire to get married. So it's a self correcting situation?
That and no one is being killed by gay marriage.
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Could we broaden things further? Nearly any concept X will "discriminate" by including some things as X and other things as not X.
"Discriminate", used as a pejorative is usually used in an imprecise way. The OP uses the term both generally and specifically which confuses the issue. In this way, marriage is inherently discriminatory in that a person chooses one spouse and not another. However, in the pejorative sense, it is outside of the purview for a government to discriminate against classes of people entering into marriage except for issues such as age and consent. The role of the government is not that of "sponsorship" but rather permission. The license grants a permit, not a commendation.
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