Preachin' to the choir

I know that pretty much everyone that would ever read this has an opinion of gay marriage that is very close to mine, so I don't have to really convince anyone of the needs for gays to be recognized as equal to straight people. I guess the only thing I think people need to know about my opinion is I believe that the push for civil unions was well intended, but not enough. Civil unions should be for all American citizens. We have done a commendable job at separating church and state in many parts of our government, but failed spectacularly in others. Marriage is one of the later. Why do we allow such an important facet of our relationships with each other and with our religious establishments be so inertwined with our government. The only real way to solve this problem is to kill two birds with one stone: have only civil unions recognized by our government, and allow every couple this right, meanwhile allowing people to find a church to marry them if they feel the need. A church marriage would mean nothing to the state and a civil union could mean nothing to the church. While I am on the topic of church and state I just want to mention one thing that always bothers me: as an atheist, I hate that 'In God we trust' is on our money, and I will never back down in this regard, but I am at a loss as to why the largely Judeochristian citizenry of our nation allows their God to be put on money in the first place. Neither Jews or Christians believe that God was in favor of honoring money, and some very orthodox sects are reticent to even write the word 'God' at all. Why aren't people mad that their god is being used as a tool to legitimize a secular financial system? Back to Gay Marriage. Many people believe that it would undermine the family values that have been a part of American culture for so long. They have two reasons this is bad: #1. American Children growing up in households without both genders represented will be unbalanced, and #2. Sanctioning homosexuality is going to lead to ever-increasing amounts of sexual deviance. I don't understand these arguments. When my father died my mother wasn't forced to remarry. My sister and I were not taken from our mother and placed with a family that could represent both genders as role-models for us. We were left where we were. I know many bad parents who are not interfered with in their parenting by the state and many inmates on death row, people who our country had deemed unfit to live in and interact with society as a whole, were allowed to both marry and procreate. Why are these killers, rapists, terrorists and torturers deemed fit parents, while people who engage in (sadly, in some states only recently) legal sexual activities are not. As for #2, growing acceptance of gay relationships in the past decade have also come hand in hand with a decrease in homosexual promiscuity. Giving these people a sense of legitimacy has lifted an oppressive mentality that kept them from healthy, open relationships. As seen in the example of the US military, where a don't ask don't tell policy forces homosexual relationships to remain secret, we can see an ever growing trend of sexual abuse caused by both gay and straight soldiers. Anyway, that was a big rant. I hope you had a good holiday weekend!