Marriage: Church vs. State

"Gay" marriage is a relatively new phenomena of our times. Unfortunately; do to the hyper-sensitivity in today`s environment, I must preface this piece by saying that I hold nothing against "gays" or homo sexuals. Ridculous is the idea of "coming out," as CNN host Don Lemon did several months ago before the release of his new book (what a suprise). Sex has always been a private matter; and it should stay that way. Imagine if a news person announced that he was hetero sexual on air ? "How well would that information be received? I would like to think that most people don`t care, and as a matter of fact feel infringed upon as they are now placed in a situation to think about you in a way that has nothing to do with your job. There is a such thing as "TMI" or too much information. If you are doing the news, I don`t want to hear about you being gay,straight, or transgender. It is personal. Anyway; as you can see, that is another proverbial "can of worms." Perhaps I will adress it more in another post, but I want to talk about so-called "gay" marriage. Here is the problem that I have not heard be fully spoken about. Marriage has its roots in religious institutions; and therefore it was the religious authorities, first the ancient Hebrews and then later Christians who defined "marriage" as adopted in western society. As the United States became a primarily Christian nation; this institution was adopted by the States. They could not have possibly seen what was to come in the future, for marriage was simply defined along classic religious interpretation, as that between a man and woman. Now although the State adopted marriage from religious institutions; we have seperation of said Church and State. Therefore the state can decide to do what it wants with its` interpretation of marriage. However, it is wrong to try to force any change on the religious institutions themselves concerning the interpretation of their doctrines. If a church refuses to marry such couples due to their religious beliefs, they should be fully allowed to do so. This is a "slippery slope" because many cry discrimination. However, the "right of association" must be understood. What is the purpose of having any organization if it is just like the secular society? For instance; a girl sues an all boys school for discrimination because she can`t enter. Now we know that we have all boys schools and all girls schools;because we have what is called freedom of association. We have the right to have private clubs with exclusive memberships etc. So I think that religious institutions retain the right not to marry those, whom they feel don`t fit the "qualifications." There is serious problem however; it is that the States issue the licenses to those officiating ceremonies. These "licenses" effectively take the power away from the religious institutions to define marriage and decide who can be married. It is up to the States. Therefore, religious institutions have effectively been stripped of what was once exclusively theirs. I think the future brings more confusion; as we see transgender issues being presented in the media, attempting to blur the definition of man and woman. Polygamy will also be a bigger issue in the future. Although I am not religious; I can see that the instution of marriage has been torn from its roots. Without the foundation and definition in place; anything goes, and the way things are,anything will go.