MARRIAGE IS A CONTRACT BETWEEN TWO PEOPLE

Marriage is a contract, generally between two people of the opposite sex, the same religious persuasion, the male being the elder and larger of the couple, the same ethnic background and the same color. But that is only “generally,” and it is generally the situation in the United States. IT COULD BE VERY DIFFERENT!

In other countries, other restrictions or conditions “generally” apply, such as, payment of money, goods, or livestock by one party or the party’s family to the other party or party’s family, or permission by one of the party’s fathers or parents for a marriage to take place after investigation into various requirements or prohibitions such as class, tribal affiliation, relative wealth, or other conditions common to the culture of the marrying people. When all the issues are settled, as in civil contract law that requires an Offer, an Acceptance, and Consideration, that is, an exchange of something of value between the parties, the contract is then affirmed.

Religious officialdom has imposed rules and regulations on marriage that are as varied as the religions themselves and the representatives of those religions who have been given the right by a higher-up to pronounce the marriages “OK.” All religions call for their particular God to bless the contract and make it holy, or whatever “holy” means to them. But contracts are between people, and judging from the rate of divorce, and despite the “holy matrimony,” contracts can be broken – and sometimes should be broken.

The United States, by virtue of its laws, its diversity, and the intelligence and way of life of the American people, has legally done away with such conditions and requirements. In most marriage license-providing government offices, the only requirement is a blood test assuring the couple and the state that neither of them have a sexually transmitted disease, presumably for the health and safety of each member of the couple and their potential offspring. With license in hand, the couple is married in the eyes of the law. But they must be of the opposite sex except in three states, where a couple can be of the same sex and obtain a marriage license.

What the Framers of the constitution of the United States put asunder, Church and State, God has joined together. Joan of Arc can now be burned at the stake and the Spanish Inquisition’s Torquemada can pull people apart on the wheel because they are destroying the sanctity of the state’s Gods. The religionists of America have united to assure that only THEIR Gods can determine the validity of the contract between two people who love, honor, and cherish each other until death do they part.

California’s passage of Proposition 8 will prohibit the state from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. And America moves a little closer to its own destruction as a free country.