# Anyone here actually support same-sex marriage bans? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 15, 2004, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-here-actually-support-same-sex-marriage-bans/269454 "2004-10-15T20:48:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![look\_ninjas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b2d939/32.png) [@look\_ninjas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/look_ninjas)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2004, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-here-actually-support-same-sex-marriage-bans/269454/61 "2004-10-17T14:30:58Z")
Or save it from my total inability to use a spacebar. Let’s try that again. [Look](http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=marriage) [it](http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=marriage) [up](http://www.wordreference.com/definition/marriage). Gaudere’s Law strikes again! ---
**Author:** ![Lilairen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lilairen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lilairen)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2004, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-here-actually-support-same-sex-marriage-bans/269454/62 "2004-10-17T16:46:33Z")
> [@Cinnamon Girl](#): > > All well and good for your religion as long as the government recognizes your marriage. Unless you meant civil as in “polite.” Entering into a “civil contract” via your church does not make it legal, hence the need for marriage licences and certificates filed with an office of the government. A civil contract is a legal document. Churches have no such power. > [@](#): > > Exactly. You can be married without some honorific ritual, doves and holy bonds, and “obey” and all that, right? So, how about a party. That’s pretty social! Oh, I guess that’s why we’re doing that already. Now I get it. Social institution! Exactly. More technically, “marriage” is the term generally used for the social ritual that recognises the formation of a family. Some cultures celebrate that with a big-ass party; some cultures demand documents of some sort; some cultures demand some sort of ritual officiated by a priest; some cultures demand that property be tranferred from one family to another as some form of dowry or bride-price; etc. My culture requires documents of some sort (marriage certificate filed at Town Hall). My subculture demanded a party. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![1010011010](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/ea666f/32.png) [@1010011010](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/1010011010)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2004, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-here-actually-support-same-sex-marriage-bans/269454/63 "2004-10-18T02:50:28Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > But this is exactly my point. Tennessee can call it anything they like, but what are the practical implications of these semantical games? Nothing, I’ll wager. I bet that atheists married in Montgomery County Tennessee, joined by the Justice of the Peace, are exactly as “married” as those who consider their marriage bonds blessed by God–which is to say that as far as the state is concerned, everyone married has certain civil rights and obligations bestowed upon them. Period. Call it whatever you want, that doesn’t change, I don’t think. As far as the State is concerned (or the County of Montgomery, TN, anyway) everone is equally in the **HOLY BONDS OF MATRIMONY**. I’m a bit at a loss how I arrived in Holy Bondage, though, since I had no clergy involved in my marriage, nor any deities invoked. OTOH, if someone who desired to view their marriage as Holy Bondage was issued a generic/secular certificate, they could get some clergy to invoke a deity and so bless their particular union as Holy Bondage. It makes no difference in practice, of course. I’m plaing this a bit over the top… but it does annoy me to have that on my marriage certificate. it also annoys me for politicians to say that “protecting the sanctity of marriage” is a valid thing for them to do when people take marriage certificates and then engage in unsanctified marriages AND the state, not being a church, is not empowered to make things holy, anyway. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-here-actually-support-same-sex-marriage-bans/269454.md?page=3)