Should They Marry?

I have been thinking a lot about my stand on homosexual marriage rights. It really isn't a thought process on my position as I am all for it, but rather why I believe in this. It took me 10 min reading AOL message boards to find out. Also, I like to look at what other people think. Here are some views:

This is a conservative Christian talking about his religious views and a copy of his letter to his senator:

"However, in no case, has anyone suggested that these relationships deserve the special recognition or the designation commonly understood as "marriage." The suggestion that relationships between members of the same gender should ever be accorded the status or the designation of marriage flies in the face of the thousands of years of experience about the societal stability that traditional marriage has afforded human civilization. To insist that male-male or female-female relationships must have the same status as the marriage relationship is more than unwise, it is patently absurd."

This is a liberal Christian's view on Gay Marriages. Just a forewarning, it has many quotes from the Bible:

"As described elsewhere, the Bible is silent about loving, committed homosexual relationships. In 1st century Palestine, the only same-sex behavior of which Paul was most likely familiar with were orgies in Pagan temples, and sexual molestation of children and youth (often slaves) by abusive male pedophiles. In 1 Corinthians 7:2, he wrote: "Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband." (KJV). Those are fine alternatives to celibacy for a heterosexual man and woman. However, they were not applicable for gays and lesbians. So, we have to infer from passages on other topics what our belief and practice should be about committed, same-sex relationships."

This is the Catholic Church's official stance on homosexual marriages:

"The Church teaches that respect for homosexual persons cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behaviour or to legal recognition of homosexual unions. The common good requires that laws recognize, promote and protect marriage as the basis of the family, the primary unit of society. Legal recognition of homosexual unions or placing them on the same level as marriage would mean not only the approval of deviant behaviour, with the consequence of making it a model in present-day society, but would also obscure basic values which belong to the common inheritance of humanity. The Church cannot fail to defend these values, for the good of men and women and for the good of society itself."

This is my opinion:
I do believe in God and am more religious than some, but I don't think God intended us to hate gay people. Where in the Ten Commandments does it say "Thou shalt hate anybody who disagrees with you"? I think the problem with people who use religion for their argument is that they haven't figured out what they hate. Do they hate the act or the person?
Also, the religious argument is unfounded in this country because COURTS marry people, not churches. We have a thing called separation of church and state. Take church out of the homosexual marriage argument and there is no reason for homosexual couple NOT to be married. I mean, people say that religion is crap, evil, and horrible and they get married all the time, and isn't it also a sin to not believe in God?

*Edit~ This is the TIME article about it:

"If we have homosexual marriage mainstream, I can't even describe to you what our culture will be like."

I'd sure like to know. OH NO!! They might hold hands in public!!!

*Note* John Cloud, the reporter for TIME, is my favorite reporter for that magazine. He usually is fair and objective (maybe slightly leaning towards the left) on very touchy subjects. Just a little FYI.