Democratic Candidates and LBGT Issues Forum

I didn't catch the forum on gay issues last night, but Liz Mair posting at the Daily Dish has given her take on it. Though she thinks Hillary came out on top -- largely for being crafty -- I wanted to point to her overview of Obama's take on civil unions and marriage.

She writes:

1. Barack Obama: Obama took a little heat for supporting civil unions, but saying what I felt amounted to, civil unions for everyone, marriage at the discretion of churches. Personally, I found this an interesting answer and one that smacked of having a slight undertone of "get the state out of marriage, let the state only be involved in ratifying/notarizing contracts"-- which I will admit is pretty close to my view. Note that I did not have a religious marriage, thus making my marriage more civil union-like-- and maybe making me less convinced that what (depending on the route a state takes) may amount really to a linguistic difference, as opposed to an inherent one impacting on rights-- particularly where the separation of church and state is preserved--
results in "unequal" treatment (and maybe making me less wistful, for lack of a better word, about "marriage," generally).

Is it unfair that, if we define marriage as a religious institution, gay couples cannot necessarily get married, depending on what their church says? Yes, but then perhaps so are rules within the Catholic Church that a Catholic and Non-Catholic cannot marry, unless certain promises are made (which non-Catholics, like for example my husband, would simply not make). Churches are private entities and their beliefs and practices, I think, should not be subject to dictation by the state-- regardless of how distasteful we may find particular churches' views.

Speaking as a pastor, I thin that ultimately this is the way things must go. All current "marriage benefits" need to be switched to civil unions and then letting churches or whoever wishes to do so celebrate marriages -- after all there are churches that approve gay marriage and many that don't. There are senior citizens who wish to celebrate their commitments to each other in the eyes of God, but know that if they get married they will lose part of their social security benefits. If we get the state out of the marriage business and the church out of the contract business, I think everyone will be better served!