http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/04/basic_rights_oregon_has_tv_ad.html

marriage is a religious and/or spiritual institution that has no place being endorsed, encouraged, or discouraged by any type of government... especially ours

I really like this campaign. It's powerful. I think we may see something on the ballot in 2012, or so I heard.

I'm liking the idea more and more of the government only recognizing civil unions, a legal partnership of any two consenting adults.

Marriage is a religious thing. The American form of government does not promote or hinder religion, so while the government shouldn't endorse it, it wouldn't discourage it either. If you get married at a church, you enter into a civil union. If you aren't a church-goer, you go to the courthouse and enter into a civil union.

Erik H.,

could you please become master of the universe?

This whole fight over the word "marriage" is a total waste of time and getting tiresome. Let's just work out the civil rights part now, giving non-traditional combinations of two people the same rights as the traditional combination, and after that wave soaks in, think about the nomenclature problem.

Doesn't anyone in the activist organizations have any sense of stratagem? Don't they know that when they get the Christians upset, (eg by trying to get in on their perceived ownership of the tradition associated with the word "marriage"), people like George W get elected, and that sets us ALL back how many years?

There's a great article in the NYT about how slavery got abolished. Perfect example of how smart leadership manipulated and swayed their way toward a goal while lulling their opponents. It appears that today people just don't care to be smart, they just want to be right. Good luck to them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/magazine/mag-03CivilWar-t.html

I'd like to point out to those who would like this debate to go away that it took until 2000 for Alabama to become the final state to repeal the ban on interracial marriages. But the sad part is that according to someone who was used as a poster child couple for that campaign, forty percent of the state would still vote to outlaw interracial marriages if they could. That's just a sad commentary on the ignorance and intolerance that exists in this nation.

There's a great article in the NYT about how slavery got abolished. Perfect example of how smart leadership manipulated and swayed their way toward a goal while lulling their opponents. It appears that today people just don't care to be smart, they just want to be right.

You might mention there was that whole four year long civil war part too, but hey, why bother with the facts? Let's just pretend we're all little Machiavellis and deal in personalities and secret strategies and insiders and fundraising and complex litigation and incrementalism and Winning (TM) and oh look I just built my own little power pyramid in the sandbox and...
NO. Government out of marriage is the only logical endgame, and there will be no compromise. Without a hostage, there is no ransom, and neither the government nor the Christian Reicht has any claim on our liberty. They are mere obstacles to be removed at the appropriate time when their oppression becomes too burdensome. The reality is, for most people, marriage is pretty far down there on the list of abuses being wrought by this system, and given that the system is collapsing, it makes far more sense to stake out the desired future condition (government out of marriage) and build the necessary strong ideological unity on the point now for when the government is out of commission later, the SHTF, and the reactionaries come calling. That way when we press into enemy territory we won't have to wait for some lame Emancipation Proclamation to draw allies into our ranks -- rather, they will have already been subverting the Palinocracy from the get-go.