Gay Marriage In Maryland

Congratulations!

I will say that I am a Republican/Conservative, but unless I bring it up, I won't discuss politics most of the time.  Mainly because I'm mostly uneducated and I know I'd easily go back and forth on my opinions for different things and probably get really annoying.  Anyway...

I do support gay marriage, but I also understand the people who say that marriage is defined as a union between a man and a woman who want to have children.  (The second part I've seen/heard more recently mentioned).  The problem I have with that definition is the children part.  There are plenty of straight people who get married who don't want children and gay couples who do want children.  The other part?  Marriage was a term created for legal purposes, therefore I don't think there's any point in changing such an old term.

I'm not positive on this, but it seems to me, the point of making gay marriage legal is to give gay couples the same rights as married couples. (If any readers are gay, let me know, please).  That's why I agree with Hawaii and Illinois (and Europe I think) who label a gay 'marriage' as a civil union.  They have the same rights as a married couple.  It seems to me that if any gay couples are opposed to the lack of the marriage title then live with what the government calls you nationally, and say you're married privately, because really, if others support you then they shouldn't care whether you refer to your significant other as husband/wife or life partner.

I did discover that this bill and a few others "protect" religions from performing a civil union.  First of all, it seems to me that if a church/religious group didn't support a gay couple, the couple wouldn't be asking them to perform the union.  Second... okay I don't think I had a send part to that thought.  I guess it's nice that the government is covering all the bases, but it doesn't seem to be needed.  That's the government for you.

So before I start to repeat myself I'm going to stop it here.  This is the article I read for "research."  I'm not a big non-fiction type person, but I thought something this important warranted a little more info than what I over heard on the news.
Please comment if you read this.  I'd really like to hear opinions from both sides.

Ciao :-*