Here’s what I don’t understand. Someone so insistent (rightly so) on defining their own religious prerogatives and safeguarding their religious practice from the interference of the state having an opinion AT ALL on the state’s definition of marriage.
I stand to be corrected, but Torah doesn’t recognize ANY relationship outside of the halachic union of a Jewish man and a Jewish woman as Nisuin.
That’s the definition of marriage for a Torah Jew. Period. Anything else, anyONE else is like marrying a doorstop to a cuckoo clock. It has no halachic meaning AT ALL. And once you get out of a halachic discussion, we’re just talking about your personal opinions.
If you want the state to start getting involved in Torah definitions of marriage, interfering in how we define and practice marriage, the ONLY definition of marriage that matters, the best way to do it is to invite the government, the ACLU, the Gay rights movement into your living room for a discussion YOU started.
I want the government to have nothing to do with the Jewish definition of marriage. So when they start legalizing unions that are contrary to Torah, I add that to the other things they permit that are contrary to Torah, and I say – boruch hashem that I live in a country where I have religious freedom and can define my own religious practice for myself.
All that being said, I’m not pro gay marriage, because the only union I consider to be a marriage is a halachic Jewish one, and the government isn’t demanding that religious denominations MUST sanction their government defined unions. These people were cohabiting before the government’s position changed, and they will be doing so afterwards.