Your closing comment misses one very important point... interracial marriage is not against Jesus's teaching, homosexual marriage is.

Actually, I think both of you are missing points:

Marrage is now TWO issues, not one. The first is a church-recognised union. Given that the church is an entity unto itself, they can do what they like.

The other one is the legal aspect of it, and thats where the government comes in.

Here in New Zealand, I dont know of any church that will "marry" 2 men, or 2 woman. There may be some, but I personally dont know of them.

OTOH tho, the government recognises ANY couple, married or not, gay/lesbian or not, who have been together for 5 years (and can prove it) as "married" - ie, if they split, property is split 50-50, same as married couples - etc - they have all the same legal protection.

Personally, I'm undecided about churches accepting gay marrages - but OTOH, I dislike organised religion, so that might have something to do with it.

But as for the state / government providing the same legal protection to every established, committed couple, regardless of church marrage or sexuality - this is something I'd DEFINATLY in favour of.

Great post Nic...

"But as for the state / government providing the same legal protection to every established, committed couple, regardless of church marrage or sexuality - this is something I'd DEFINATLY in favour of. "

says it best IMO

I've enjoyed reading this weblog so far, but I'm kinda disappointed that even on my favorite .NET blog (a subject which has absolutely no relation to gay marriage) this topic can't be escaped.

With all due respect, please don't turn in to WilWheaton.net and start waxing political; it's not very topical and not something I as a reader really want to be exposed to when I just want to read about your experiences at Microsoft and with new technology.

"Interracial marriage was illegal once too. Let's go forward, not backward."

and hey, then we could open it up to "Inter-generational" (yknow, marrying kids), "inter-species", inter-ANYthing.

...or would that dilute the concept?