But state government laws do regulate adoption. Religious conservatives support adoptive children being raised in heterosexual households. Government recognition of same sex marriage or civil unions, it would seem to me, adds weight to restrictive adoption laws being seen by courts as unlawfully discriminatory and unconstitutional.

Olsen writes: “Let the government create a civil union between any two consenting adults. Why? So that they can own property jointly, have automatic legal right to visit each other in the hospital and make crucial life and death decisions for each other.”

But these are all things that should also be available to single adults with another person of their choosing (without a civil union).

There are overwhelming practical, purely social reasons for keeping legal unions heterosexual. You don’t even have to, and shouldn’t, mix church’s/synagogue/mosque’s and state’s different rationales for desiring the same outcome–maintaining the marital status quo that has served both well for centuries.

Separate is not equal. But if a system were in place where marriage was solely regulated by religious authorities and a “civil union” of sorts was under the purview of the government then nobody could make the “separate…equal” accusation.

At that point, folks – gay couples and straight couples – can call their civil union license from the state whatever they so desire. It is what it is though regardless of what an individual calls it.

As many have noted, these type proposals are not anti-marriage equality. Jonathan Turley, a leading legal scholar, has long been a proponent of marriage equality. He merely sees this proposal as a fair solution to the marriage wars. Read Turley here:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-04-02-faith-edit_x.htm

Separate is not equal.

Olsen’s proposal (which is, as you say, not new) would put us in a European system. There, people who want to get married go to a judge. If they want a church ceremony BLESSING the marriage, they have one after the civil ceremony. In the U.S. we didn’t do it this way because there were more churches than judges on the frontier.

Theoretically, I, as a GLBT ally, have no objections to reserving the word “marriage” for religious ceremonies. But you’ll never get the thousands of people who only have civil marriages to cease calling them marriages and start calling them “unions” and if same-sex couples aren’t afforded the opportunity to call their unions “marriages,” too, then we are right back where we started.

My church already performs such ceremonies: We call them weddings. Some churches reserve the term “holy unions” for same-sex couples because they don’t have the legal rights as marriage. One hetero couple in our church refused to get a state marriage license and had ONLY a church ceremony–refusing the legal rights of civil marriage until gay couples could have them, too.

I think I’ll stick with advocating marriage equality–and let churches (synagogues, mosques, etc.) recognize or fail to recognize whatever unions they want. That’s their right. But the state has no right to treat some couples differently than others.

Olson’s route is to – in the eyes of the government – call a “civil union” what is now referred to as “marriage.”

As Olson writes:

“A couple in civil union would enjoy all the current civil benefits, privileges and responsibilities of marriage. But it wouldn’t be called “marriage” by government”

So, presumably every “married” couple would enter into a civil union for legal purposes. Those with a religious identity would have the option of finding a church to perform the ceremony.

Although, according to Olson, it seems that gays and lesbians are not welcome the church where he holds membership. As he wrote, “Let THEM go to one of those…”

Given that there is at least some diversity on this issue among some of his fellow church members (as there is in most historically moderate Baptist congregations) and no formal church-wide statement that I know of on the subject, I do find it odd (inappropriate?) that Olson would make such a statement in Waco’s only daily newspaper.

So, if we go this route, rather than legalizing same-sex civil marriage, we equalize marrieds and singles–and that may be a long overdue justice, too.

Granted, my religious convictions influence what I believe about marriage. But my religious convictions also influence what I believe about murder, health care, tax policy, and perjury. I, too, regard marriage as a divine institution. Yet I also regard work as a divine institution. I regard the care of the planet as a divine institution.

Strip away the governmental role in any and all for which I have religious convictions and which I regard as a divine institution, and you’ll have little, if anything, left for the government to govern. Not a tenable solution, nor do I believe it to be a biblical one.

As an alternative (as I stated above), I commend to everyone’s consideration that vanguard thoughts of Roger Williams. The civil magistrate has no business attempting to regulate any person’s relationship with the Almighty. But matters of more mundane human intercourse (including even THAT kind of intercourse), are indeed legitimate objects of governmental attention and regulation.

It will be a political decision which of those aspects to regulate and how to do so. At this juncture my objective is not so much to address the intricate nuances of those questions. Rather, I wish to assert that it is indeed the government’s legitimate business to define marriage, and that my Baptist separationist ideas contradict that fact not at all.