Freedom from religion

[Neo-Scholastic]

Laws were enacted on behalf of/because of marriages to create a universal and easy social contract to protect one or both parties. There is nothing special about marriage contracts that individual contracts could not achieve. It's religions influence that has fucked things up by defining who can or can't qualify for the contract.

I think the answer Neo is looking for is the potential to have children.

Then functionally sterile people don't need a marriage contract? It is applicable to more than just procreation.

Mh.Brewer, I do not disagree with anything that you said. I think you would see as much from a careful reading of my first post.
https://atheistforums.org/thread-52275-p...pid1661001

On the one hand, common and civil laws for marriage almost exclusively concerned issues surrounding the financial obligations of family members, child custody & guardianship, and rights conferred by virtue of blood relationship such as inheritance and legitimacy. On the other hand the religious issues of marriage centered on appropriate gender roles, sexual fidelity, and the spiritual status of the couple with respect to God and the religious community. For a long time there was no compelling need to draw out the implicit distinction between the religious and civil dimensions of marriage because they largely overlapped. In my earlier post, I tried to draw out the distinctions between the sacramental and civil aspects of a marital relationship.

As you noted, and I earlier stated, laws were enacted for convenience, such as tacitly recognizing religious wedding ceremonies as official civil contracts. Indeed there is, by and large, nothing about a marriage contract that could not otherwise be achieved by contracts between private parties. That functional equivalency is not the same as being identically, i.e. equal. The difference is that a marriage contract concerns issues of blood relation that are not part of any other type of contractual agreement.

The concept of marriage is deeply embedded in the Christian faith, perhaps more so than any other faith. People who say its all just "homophobia" are ignoring the rich allusions and symbolism that inform the Christian faith - the "Spirit and the Bride", the Song of Songs, the parables of the Bridegroom, husbands to loving their wives as Christ loved His church, etc. Believers see marriage first and foremost as a sacrament, one that reflects God's relationship with His Church. But they have tacitly accepted parallel state regulation of it with respect to civil matters because the definitions perfectly overlapped, except with regards to divorce which has no effect. Same-sex unions are not a perfect overlap because they are essentially and objectively different types of contracts. Advocates of marriage equality are not interested in the legal protections and rights. They want to force religious people to call things that are essentially and objectively different by the same name. Doublespeak, pure and simple.

Now if activists want to be spoilers and take away traditionally acknowledged civil obligations and privileges to heterosexual couples that are infertile, we can have that conversation. It should make no difference to believers; we will remain married in the eyes of the Lord. Maybe the solution is not to force believers to call things that are not marriages marriages, but to remove marriage entirely from civil discourse and make everything private contractual relationships. Of course that would never happen, so I see nothing problematic with calling things by their proper names and affording same-sex couple the same legal protections as those of marriage. But this rational compromise has been rejected by gay activists.