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As much as the gay marriage debate is a civil rights issue, there is a lot more to the entire debate.

Every single time I hear someone (politician, talking head pundit on a news program, or my father) defend the ban on gay marriage, they always mention that this new bill is necessary to preserve the sanctity (holiness) of marriage and how homosexual unions are not recognized in the eyes of God. Now, this is where things get sketchy because there are pleanty of heterosexual atheist, hindu, buddhist, muslim, jewish, etc. couples which are legally married but not in the eyes of the christian God (because they do not worship/belive in Him). The way I see it, if the government succeeds at preventing homosexuals from marrying just because the concept goes against their religion, what is to stop them from deciding that all non-Christians cannot get married? And from there, what is to stop them from discarding the US Constitution for the Bible?

And just to be fair, let me just say that I have no problem with a devout Christian believing that his or her personal marriage (or future marriage) carries spiritual value. If you believe that God plays a a significant role in your relationship, that is wonderful, and I'm not going to try to change your mind. However, when a person shows a strong desire to make his or her religious beliefs common law and ultimately force an entire society to practice and live by a single religion (to any degree), that is crossing the line.

Not to make bad analogies or anything but, if you will, think of theology as the roulette table at Las Vegas, and at some point during the course of every man and woman's life, he or she places all of his or her chips on the religion which that person believes is the one which leads to eternal salvation. Now, there are many, many religions to choose from, just like the red and black squares on the casino table and corresponding wheel, and all of them have one thing in common: Nobody can be absolutely, positively certain which religion is the correct one (the one which leads to salvation). But everyone takes an educated guess at some point and decides which creed they feel is the right one to follow. "Feel" is the most important word in that last sentence.

Of all the talk about religion, nobody can actually vouch for God's or Jesus' existance or prove that there is indeed a Heaven, and at the same time, no one can prove that there is no God, Jesus, or Heaven; people only have feelings about the existance or non-existance of a guiding spiritual force and a spiritual kingdom. And because nobody can really claim that their religious belief is more than a feeling, a government has no authority to govern a society on the basis of religion because they may not even be practicing the right religion! All people need to come to their own, personal decision concerning spirituality; after all, if a government forces everyone to bet on red at the "theologian roulette table" (and that basically is what they're trying to do with the ban on gay marriage), and the little ball lands on black, then that means hundreds of millions of people are instantly sentenced to eternal damnation.