No. (And I’m responding to the past tense nature of your question.) Had the government tax laws, etc. included any couple, this would never have become an issue. For conservatives, the shame should lie much deeper. I have mentioned this before. Conservatives were okay with divorce, even no fault divorce. Conservatives were okay with adulterous affairs, with sex outside of marriage, with teenagers having sex (shrug, can’t stop them). In short, with the advent of The Pill heterosexuals decided it was party time when it came to heterosexual activities. Even those who disagreed, pretty much looked the other way when friends, neighbors, and even some politicians engaged.
Then the hypocrites dared to be horrified when homosexuals (where pregnancy never had been an issue) wanted to be as open about sex as heteros. Then with divorce and living together had made a joke of marriage already, they protest about homosexuals becoming married. One of the things I would like to give homosexuals a heads up on, is that those who practice divorce law (just like when divorce laws became more lax) are happy about another source of divorce income for themselves.
In short, until heterosexual conservatives clean up their own act, they should be ashamed now to be working to change the law on homosexual marriage. Let’s remove the beam from our own eye first (which, again, will.not.happen.) So there we are.
Keep in mind, you should be more understanding about how the faithful see marriage. It goes back to Genesis, specifically the latter chapters of Genesis. We see some of the Jewish patriarchs traveling beyond their own boundaries, out in other parts of the world. Story after story we see what they observed–that society after society with loose sexual mores and morals–were more chaotic. Please note I am not saying sexual freedom brings about chaos. However, it does seem that lack of sexual discipline may be a sign of lack of self-discipline in other areas, and that this overall lack of discipline results in chaos.
For themselves, Jews insisted that sex remain within the bounds of marriage. However, eventually they did begin to allow for divorce. With Jesus and Christianity, Jesus pointed to the ideal of marriage that God wanted for His people. Time after time, the marriage covenant and their covenant with God are compared. God keeps His covenants, and that should be our own ideal–to keep our covenants with God and in marriage. Both have shown to bring stability into our lives and into society.
Keep in mind that while it is true some are intolerant and prejudiced against homosexuals, there are also a great many of us who truly believe society should be looking up to the ideal, not sliding down the easy path. We are taking the narrow path, the road least traveled. If you wish to know which is which, ask anyone who is against homosexual marriage, what their opinion is on no-fault divorce, teenagers having sex, couples electing to live together outside of marriage. If they are okay with any one of these, then they haven’t a leg to stand on in criticizing homosexuality or marriage between homosexuals.
People either want the ideal, or they don’t. If they want to remove their own fraction (faction) from that ideal, then they should be perfectly fine with others removing their fractions as well.
