ORIGINAL: MISTRAD
Let people declare they are married based on each of their own belief system.  But let the government only legalize civil unions, so their legal status is equal and fair.

You say “let the government only legalize civil unions”, but government has already done so for hundreds of years.  Marriage is by definition one example of a civil union.  You and others seem to want to impose yet another politically correct term “civil union”.  Marriage is a perfectly good word.  There is no need to use a code word for marriage.  Marriage is what marriage has always been, a [b]legally[/b] recognized consensual civil union.  The nature of the details of that consensual civil union may vary.  For example, there may be a unique prenuptial agreement.  Or the union may be between gays.  Maybe the husband worships satan and the wife is an islamic militant.  So what?  It is still a consensual civil union.  Unless there is a compelling reason to do otherwise, the government should not concern itself with restricting the details of a mutually consensual union.  Upsetting a few religious fanatics does not qualify as a compelling reason.

The educated lawyers and politicians that drafted thousands of laws that use the word marriage in its proper legal sense should not have to alter their terminology to conform to the mistaken beliefs of the uneducated or misguided as to what the legal term “marriage” means.  In the courtroom, marriage is a legal term, not a religious term.  But to placate the excitable faithful who do not understand this, in the future lawyers and politicians may to refrain from using the emotionally charged word marriage.

If someone wants to misuse the word inside the church, fine.  But imposing such faulty terminology on society at large is a wasteful distraction.  There are real problems to be solved, and our legislatures are having their time wasted by dumbas*es who do not know the accepted legal and linguistic definitions of words.

Fine.  There may soon be a law that strikes every mention of the word marriage and replaces it with the words civil union.  There will be no real change in the law.  There will be no real change in the fact that homosexuality is a naturally occuring phenomenon.  There will be no change in the fact that gay couples are effectively married (even if it is called something else).  The only difference will be that millions of dollars and thousands of man hours will be spent rewriting thousands of laws to include the new politically correct terminology “civil union”, and the faithful will sing Kum Ba Yah in celebration that God’s will has been realized. 

Whatever.  We live in an Idiocracy with leanings toward a theocracy…what do you expect?