So as we were watching The Colbert Report (a few days late, thanks to technology), I had one of those I-don't-believe-someone-really-thinks-that-way moments. Colbert was interviewing Douglas Kmiec, a Catholic Professor of Law at Pepperdine about his new book, Can A Catholic Support Him? (the "Him" is Obama). My surprise was not at the book, but at a comment made by Kmiec regarding gay marriage.
Kmiec's argument is that marriage should be the province of the Church and that "legal contracts" should be the province of the government. The latter should be entirely unrestricted by gender, creed, etc. The Church (or synagogue or whatever) should be allowed to put whatever restrictions it wants on who it marries or doesn't.
This was not shocking. In fact, it is one of the more rational religious stances. While I think that, as a society, we have created a legal status that is "marriage" that should not be restricted, as long as religious belief continues, a church should be allowed to marry/not marry whomever it wants for whatever reasons it wants. But that is the purview of the religion, NOT the state.
The shocking thing was when Kmiec suggested that if "legal marriage" were to be only a contract, atheists would convert to the Church to get a valid spiritual marriage.
Um... I hate to be the one to break it to you, Mr. Kmiec, but an atheist doesn't care one little bit about a "spiritual marriage" because we don't believe in the existence of god. As the internet would say, epic fail.
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