I think I would especially agree with your last statement. I wouldn’t mind giving up the incentives that the government allows for those of us who marry, as long as the homosexuals will agree to leave the definition of marriage as it should be, between one man and one woman. I have written about it before, so I will not go into a lot of details, but I feel that is their ultimate goal, to have their kind of relationships classified as normal. It is not and that is what I think needs to be protected.

A tension exists between the various truths we all hold, primarily between our understanding of individual liberty/free will v. our understanding that some things are immoral.

We know some things are wrong (abortion being the easiest example), but we are loathe to prevent anyone from exercising their freedom, even their freedom to make wrong choices.

Maybe it’s my mommy’s influence, but I’m not willing to go full libertarian on the whole thing. If abortion should be legal because not everyone believes it is murder, wouldn’t that same logic mean a sociopathic atheist isn’t capable of murder because he believes the person he killed was an inferior animal?

And as for gay marriage, the thing is. It’s not like Christians are out en masse trying to root out homosexuality. Christians are on the defensive, here, just trying to preserve a fundamental concept of the nuclear family. Many (not all!) homosexuals are on the offense, using the government thru faulty civil rights analogies, in the hopes of fundamentally altering our culture.

Fiscally speaking, won’t legal recognition of homosexual marriage also cost alot of federal funds? In the military alone, that could be a rather large expansion of tricare, dependant allotments, housing, SGLI (life insurance) payouts . . .

The problem isn’t that gov’t legally recognizes marriage only between male and female. The problem is that gov’t also provides monetary rewards for a marriage, in the form of benefits, tax breaks, etc.

I’d be happy to give up all gov’t incentives to marry if it’ll make folks leave the definition of marriage alone.

Whew. Sorry if this is a bit long and all over the place. Glad you are feeling better.

As for the role of government, the old adage “give them an inch and they will take a mile” comes to mind. Government does have a role in our lives, but it seems they find it much easier to increase that role, rather than decrease it. That’s a dangerous place for us and our country.

There are those government regulations that truly do protect the welfare of the nation. I see a need for government in some places, but what we have allowed is ridiculous.