Marriage--what's your excuse?

It used to be that if you said the word "marriage" people knew what the word meant. It was a state and church recognized contract between one man and one woman. For thousands of years and in all sorts of religions and cultures from primitive stone age and idol worshipers to Lutheran mergers in the USA it was understood that in order for there to be a solid family, the bedrock of all society, there had to be a recognized contract between a man and woman and the governing authority, whether the village elder, the king, or the state. Occasionally polygamy was recognized, (still is for some Muslims), but that too is for protection of the family unit and ultimately the state. Even those societies that encouraged or winked at relations among homosexuals, like ancient Greece or decadent Pompeii, never gave them the stamp of state or society approval of marriage.

These days you have to qualify the word marriage with the word, "traditional," if you mean that relational contract between a couple and the state. And if you own a business, it's not enough that you are a fair and just employer and you hire, train and promote people of all genders, faiths, and ethnicities--you must also contribute money only to those organization that support "non-traditional marriage." Like Chick-fil-a, a restaurant whose product I've never used, but will have to check out.

That said, we conservatives, Christians or otherwise, should be ashamed to target proponents of gay marriage as our marriage problem! We messed that up all by ourselves. Homosexuals didn't send the divorce rate soaring; they didn't invent the trophy wife or annulments; they aren't dropping babies to be raised by the state on welfare and Medicaid; if they are shacking up without our blessings, it's because the state and the church haven't an alternative for them.