A couple random thoughts

Maybe disrespectful, I don't know:

What's going to happen if a same-sex couple goes to a baker and wants a wedding cake with the Confederate battle flag on it?

And all the Hollywood (and other) hetero couples who said, "We're not getting married until EVERYONE can get married" - time to step up to the plate, no more excuses. (And I suspect in some cases it WAS an excuse).


Also, is there still an IRS "marriage penalty" on the taxes? Yeah, people are not gonna love that. (If it still exists).




I dunno. I personally am unaffected, at least directly, as I am neither gay nor married. I just hope this doesn't lead to a raft of unintended consequences (or maybe, in some circles, intended) for people practicing more conservative forms of faith. (I've hard a few people farther to the right of me opine that this is going to be a way to start trying to eliminate church tax exemptions, which would lead to a lot of churches - mine included - having to close, because most churches don't have that kind of money on hand these days. On the other hand: maybe in 30 years we go back to more and more "house churches" like back in the first days of Christianity, and there's less insistence on big facilities and the money taken in is more directly spent on missions and outreach. I know if we didn't have to keep up our big old building we'd be in better shape financially.)

I will also say that all the people on social media who are making it more about "THE PEOPLE WHO OPPOSED THIS ON WHATEVER GROUNDS LOST, NANNY NANNY BOO BOO" rather than "same sex couples can now marry and I support that" .... well, that's the ugly place our culture has gone to, for some it's more about crushing the other guy's face in the dust, apparently.


I am generally in favor of things that enhance stability in a culture (which marriage tends to do - though I will also say I can see some divorce lawyers getting ready for their practices to expand now) and I think many understand homosexuality differently than it was understood in Biblical times or even a hundred years ago (Then again, you read of pairs of women or of men who "shared accommodations" and from other things you read about them, you figured they were a couple in all but name, and it seemed in some cases people either pretended not to see what was there, or maybe they were more tolerant than we think of them as being)

I don't know. People smarter than I am on both sides of the issue probably have clearer ideas of the implications. My gut feeling is to get government out of "officiating" marriage and instead let people legally choose a "next of kin" who would fill the legal role a spouse would in re: inheritance and medical proxies and the like. And then leave it to individual religious leaders to follow their consciences, and tell couples they are not permitted to compel someone to marry them. (And there's probably no shortage of folks willing to)

I do have friends who are gay, some of whom lived in states that recognized same-sex marriage and so they got married, so that's one side of it. But the other side, as I said, I hope this doesn't lead to persecution of people who genuinely, as a part of their faith, have an opposition to same-sex marriage.

I think the reason I find this kind of stuff - with the spiking of footballs and all that - frustrating is that I can genuinely see both sides of the issue.