If anti-gay marriage people are ok with civil unions why don't we just call all civil ceremonies unions, including hetero, and leave marriage to the churches?

That would be logical. Oh no, can’t have that, not in America. The horror…

The religious folks just aren’t let that one go.

Because that’d be taking away their right to call their union “marriage”.

Oh, wait.

leaving anything to churches can be a problem.

That would be too easy.

Although that is, in fact, what everyone really does. The wedding license formalizes the civil union, and the church performs the wedding ceremony. You can be married with just the license as far as the government is concerned, but not if you just say words in a church.

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me unless it’s not a religious but a political and legal issue…oh that couldn’t be it ~

That’s basically what happens now, only we just label everything “marriage”. You don’t have to have anything at all to do with a church in order to be married.

Why do either the government or the church even get a say in who I spend my life with? Why is this even regulated?

Instead of worrying about legalizing “gay marriage” why don’t we work on getting the government and the church out of our homes and bedrooms instead?

because dumb Americans actually choose a presidential candidate over this and get votes for it.

@Blondesjon because marriage comes with all sorts of protections that gay people do not have access too unless they go through lots of trouble to set it up with lawyers. Even then I don’t think they can really make it all equal.

@JLeslie . . .That is my point. Why don’t we just wipe the whole board clean? Why do we have to stick with this outmoded system where the government doles out little tidbits of legal rights to keep us in line?

wish there was a easy answer for that… blondesdjon

@Blondesjon it’s impossible. Plus, laws that protect spouses when one dies for their rights of their homestead when their name is not on the deed, and the right to make decisions for your loved one when they are sick, I think some of these protections are good ones.

@BBSDTfamily
That’s basically what happens now, only we just label everything “marriage”. You don’t have to have anything at all to do with a church in order to be married.
Unless of course you’re gay..

@JLeslie . . .Are they worth a certain percentage of the population being denied the same rights based on sexual preference?

The only thing that makes something impossible is enough people saying that something is impossible.

I am a legally ordained minister, and I can perform any sort of ceremony in my home state that a church minister can do. Atheists can be legal ministers too, you know. I will perform wedding/union services for anyone that needs them, and I will do it for free. I was ordained to give atheists a choice beyond church and the justice o’ the peace. If gay unions are ever legalized in my state, I’ll be doing those as well. I think doing a gay union would be fun and quite wonderful.

To quote a great songwriter, “Love is never wrong.”

I think everyone should suffer equally :p

@Blondesjon i’m with you on this one. i don’t think it would be easy by any means, but i think over time people will change their minds about marriages, just like people have changed their minds about sex before marriage. People will see that having the government regulate love is NOT in their best interest…

how long this will take for people to realize…......................... um…...........................
...................
......................well idk. maybe people won’t get it… i’m still with you though!

You’re all missing the point. The snow job is that it’s a religious issue.
It’s a political issue.

@SeventhSense . . .It’s an issue between the two parties involved and no one else.

look, i’ll say it again, we all must suffer equally :p look at all the fighting it causes just make it fair. :p

@Blondesjon I really need to think longer about your point.

Y’all dalepetrie has been crafting for a really long time…can’t wait to see…

@Blondesjon
Exactly and the question is why is our government making such an issue of this?

@SeventhSense . . .For the same reason they make an issue out of anything else. Money, power and misdirection.

@Blondesjon
I am constantly amazed at the lengths that our government will go in the misdirection of our attention. We all need to boycott our local and network news and start subscribing to the foreign press. We are kept in the dark at every turn.

so true seventh sense.

@SeventhSense That’s tough. The rational part of my brain is saying, “Fear, discrimination”.

The conspiracy part is telling me that this is just another ruse used by the Republican party. We all know that they are hiding under the veil of traditionalism, family values and what have you, whilst in fact actually being the party that favors corporatism. It’s a stretch, but I’m under the assumption that it’s just another talking point; one they use as a foundation for running. Like-minded and prejudice folk go out to vote for them, as they know nothing of politics, economic issues and foreign policy – they just know that they are voting for the guy who hates the fags as much as they do.

Again, that’s my leftist ideology speaking.

@Grisaille
It’s a bipartisan issue. Look who’s in office.

@Blondesjon I’m totally on board with getting the government out of our bedrooms, but where does that start? It is easy to say, but not so easy to do…In the meantime there are American citizens who are being denied basic rights. Whether or not a person agrees with gay marriage, that is not the issue. All American’s should believe in equality. Freedom. The right to be who you are without being prosecuted. The right to live whatever life you want to live as long as it does not infringe upon others. We should all support that sort of equality.

That is what I’ve been saying all along. Marriage was a religious concept before it was a legal one, so essentially there never should have been a legal term “marriage”, all legal marriages should be referred to as soemthing other than marriage, and that WOULD resolve this issue.

The problem though is that the religious types, no matter what they say, have more of a problem with the idea of the gay sex than anything, and they will do ANYTHING to keep from legitimizing that because they don’t want their kids infected by the gay virus or whatever it is that makes you gay. It’s basically all about fear, and the whole idea that people who are against it say they’re against it because of the word are 99 times out of 100 just using that because it’s the most legitimate sounding tactic. If we resolved that issue, they’d just switch tactics. Just like integrating blacks had to be forced down peoples’ throats, integrating gay marriage will have to be approached in teh same manner.

Oh, and sorry it wasn’t longer @JLeslie, I was distracted, not composing that whole time.

everyone please just marry and F^&k whoever you want. enough already society.

@SeventhSense No, I know. Just, my irrational mind likes to play scapegoat and blame social issues on people I most disagree with.

Kinda like the Republicans blaming Obama for the economic collapse.

D’oh

@jamielynn2328 . . .Nothing is going to change until we change it.

I know. Why don’t we all start by not getting married until we are sure that we have met someone we want to be with for a long, long time.

After we get that part down we can move on to step two.

@jamielynn2328 personally, i think its starts with me. i am not getting married. to a man or a woman.

(it is funny because our government, and other ones like japan, worry about the marriage rate in the country. they even create incentives and campaigns to make people more inclined to get married. apparently me being unwed when i’m an old maid is scary!)

By coincidence, during the debate on the Family Court Act last week, an independent Senator in our Parliament said, in passing, that civil unions, same-sex unions, were in our future, and pretty soon too. Mine is a country where the Prime Minister claims to be a born-again Christian; the idea is anathema to him (as for pro-choice, we supporters off the idea are still in the lobbying stage). The next few years are going to be very interesting.

@dalepetrie it was still good :).

@JLeslie – thanks!

All of my Catholic friends in the midwest are for gay marriage.

Do you really think Obama is against gay marriage?

Marriage is meant to be a civil union and is an issue for the states. Churches have the right to perform and/or recognize any marriage they wish as well as not recognize. That has no bearing on legal marriage. You can marry by signing a piece of paper at civil hall. Nobody seems to complain about that. If churches don’t want to marry same sex couples then that’s their call. Just don’t tell the states they can’t.

all I know is Ellen DeGeneres is funny.

oh and so is wanda sykes.

Love Wanda Sykes.

Politicians are patently without morals, self serving and competitive. Anyone who can compromise themselves to such a mind numbing degree as a political candidate for public office in this day and age, is someone who is the greatest actor alive. Any honest candidate can not stand. The greatest candidate as Plato(Aristotle, Socrates?) said, is one who does not want to hold office. You can really not know for certain anything about an elected official in office(and rarely running for office). Obama is as slick and shrewd as any of them. Not that I don’t think he’s better than the alternative that was offered but who even knows where he stands.

I wanted Hillary…but that is a different topic.

My gut is Obama is not very relgious and goes to church to hob nob only.

I will take my chances with a non church going obama lol over the first at the alter going republicans like mark sandford to name just one.

Kinda odd that only @JLeslie has addressed the legal frustrations that un-
“married” couples face.
@blondesjon, you can advise people not to worry about institutions – but institutions have power.
”...marriage comes with all sorts of protections that gay people do not have access to unless they go through lots of trouble to set it up with lawyers. Even then I don’t think they can really make it all equal”; “laws that protect spouses when one dies… when their name is not on the deed, and the right to make decisions for your loved one when they are sick” – for example. In many states, a person who’s mortally ill CANNOT name his or her (gay) partner as the responsible party in making end-of-life decisions. That’s why this matters.

i still ‘vote’ for no marriages, just love…. plus that makes the paper work nonexistant when you want a ‘divorce’!

i still vote for integrity but that seems to be lacking for alot of people nowadays.

@susanc thank you.

I don’t think we have heard from any of the religious completely against the idea of gay marriage people yet? I wonder if they are willing to call their marriage “just” a union.

@JLeslie – I would say you can be legally united by the government and it gives you the legal rights that come with entering into what is essentially a contract (and if you think about it, what other contract can two parties enter into where it matters who they are physically attracted to?). Then you can also be married if your church or whatever private organization wants to bestow that ceremonial title upon you. That’s how it should be, then I don’t think the religious types would think of their marriages as “just unions”. They would be legally united by the state, and married in the eyes of the lord.

I still haven’t heard anyone articulate how two gay people being allowed to marry -and call it a “marriage” – has any effect at all on any hetero couple’s marriage.

On the other hand there are many many reasons why gay couples would want all the same legal protections that hetero couples get when we get married. It’s about fairness and not anyone’s religion.

exactly, cyndyh glad at least some people understand this.

as i said earlier,
I think everyone should suffer equally :p

@dalepetrie I think we agree, we are saying the same thing. Or, maybe I did not say it here that I find it remarkable that we sign our names to a legal document like marriage and never get to read what the contract entails beforehand. Amazing the contract holds up in court—ha! I think the civil marriage is just that a legal contract. We get this, but the people against gay marriage don’t. They think they hold the rights to the word marriage as only applying to a commitment between a man and woman. They use scare tactics like priests will be forced to mary same sex couples—total crap—flippin priests don’t even need to perform interreligious marriages, why would they be forced to marry anyone? Then they say, “what’s next people marrying their dogs” it is a legal contract, a dog cannot sign a legal contract, people are so dumb they are swayed by this crap. Sorry for all of the swearing, it drive me crazy.

Personally, as I stated in my original question, I want us all to be able to use the word marriage. I like it, I like being married to my husband, but I would give it up if it meant that everyone could have equal rights.

Well, as an atheist, I don’t want to give my rights to the word over to only religious folks to decide how it gets used. I do think the anti-gay marriage folks would just change their tactics at that point anyway.

Equality isn’t about us having to give something up. It’s about everyone having the same rights. Giving gay folks the right to get married doesn’t take anything away from me and it shouldn’t have to just to please some muddy-thinkers.

@mzdesigns: That thing about “everyone suffering equally” is only funny if you’re not my husband in disguise. :^>

@SeventhSense Good point!

I agree with this idea, JLesley. Churches have their own rules, and if one church says it’s not ok to marry people of the same sex, then we shouldn’t be trying to force them to. But civil unions are social mechanisms, and we can change them to fit the current needs of our society. It is obvious that many people want to marry someone of the same sex, and we should therefore accomodate that need.

I’m for all state sanctioned civil unions for everyone – gay or straight – that wants them, and if you want to get “married” in a particular church, go do that separately. I think that’s the cleanest solution.

California is already working on it http://ag.ca.gov/cms_attachments/initiatives/pdfs/i800_09-0003_domestic_partnership_initiative.pdf

@benjaminlevi I didn’t know, thanks for the link.

It is funny to me in a country that supposedly has seperation of chuch and state that we have this problem. I mentioned my in-laws above, they are from Mexico. These matters are completely separate civil marriage and religious marriage (don’t get me wrong here, they probably don’t allow gay marriage either)but the argument that these are two different types of marriages would be completely understood. My sister-in-law years ago made a comment when we were watching the president on tv, she said, “I think it is so nice that the president can end with God bless the USA.” Of course I am less than thrilled with that, but it does not upset me. She went on to say, “in Mexico that could never happen because the church used to have so much power now you can’t have any crossover like that.” I found that interesting. Not sure how it is down there now, this was almost 20 years ago that she said it.

I have no problem giving up the “word” marriage or married, after all

1) Marriage was a religious concept first, if our government had never co-opted the word and actually kept church and state separate like they’d promised in the very founding documents of our nation, then this wouldn’t be an issue, and

2) A rose by any other name….

I’m with @dalepetrie
as long as whatever the thing is called afford equal rights that come with it to all people, regardless of sex, I’m fine with it

But, for cripes sakes, @dalepetrie and @Simone_De_Beauvoir – don’t you get it that
the “word” marriage has been denied to gay people and therefore they are prevented from
filing joint tax returns (which means they get rooked on the deductions), they can’t inherit from each other without expensive and easily breakable wills overriding “next of kin”, they
can’t be present for one another if one partner is sick in the hospital unless the “real family” is willing – and there are many more “can’ts”. This isn’t
“ha ha ha marriage is just a word”. This isn’t about everything is fine as long as everyone has equal rights. Gay people DO NOT have equal rights.

Am I the one who’s missing something here?

@susanc – OF COURSE I FUCKING GET THAT. Haven’t you read anything I’ve ever posted on the matter. I’m saying that we should take the word marriage out of it, give it over to the religious and let EVERYONE get civilly united.

@susanc – I want to apologize if my previous post strikes you as hostile, but I HATE being misrepresented, and as I see it, you criticized me for saying something I don’t think, never said and would NEVER say, and which I don’t think my words, if they were actually read, would have led anyone to believe I thought or said, so yeah, it pisses me right the fuck off. If you’ll do me the courtesy of going back and actually re-reading my posts, you will find that I no way stated, implied or insinuated in any way, shape or form that gay rights should be any different in any way than rights for everyone else. Now, if I was saying straight people should be married and gay people should be allowed civil unions, then NO, in my mind that is NOT acceptable…that is separate but equal which we all know doesn’t work based on recent history. But I didn’t SAY that. I want gay marriage to be the same as straight marriage and I don’t give a flying fuck if we call all legal marriages “fartgasms”, it doesn’t matter what they are called, and the word is unimportant, it’s the rights that go with it, and everyone should have the same rights. If you’ll read what I said, what I SAID was that marriage was a concept developed by religions, it has been around for thousands of years. Our government has been around for 233, and decided at some point to put in place a legal contract built around the religious institution, a contract which conveys certain VERY important rights to the parties. This was in spite of the fact that supposedly our government was supposed to be kept separate from religion. And because our government didn’t live up to its own standards, we now have a situation where the people against whom the religious elite have always discriminated now have enough clout in our political system to demand equal rights, as it should have been all along. But because our system of marriage is based on a religious concept AND a legal concept, both of which share a term but whose meanings are COMPLETELY different, the issue that is problematic (the governmental definition of marriage) can not be sorted out, because if you change the very definition of the word, it threatens to change the understanding of the concept with which the term originated. Ergo, even though you don’t have to be married by a priest, many are, I was not, I would not in any way have any problem if you called the contract I signed with my wife a “civil union” or whatever the hell you wanted to call it, if it meant that my gay loved ones could also sign the same exact contract. Capice?

In the future, please know what the fuck you are talking about before going after me, OK? Thank you. And sorry I had to take your ass to school, I just fucking REFUSE to have hateful or ignorant words or thoughts attributed to me…if you had any idea how livid your post made me…..

^another reason to edit..people can lose your^ thread….zzzzzzzz…wwwhat were we saying?

@susanc of course I get it, I’m a long time queer activist and it’s not about words, it’s about rights…now if all people hereto or not had the same rights, it doesn’t matter what the union is called because it’s equal…if it’s a civil union, then let it be so…it sounds like to you the word it more important, the very thing you accuse me of…because you’d rather have the word not the rights…and if the word stays that’s fine but then the rights have go to go with it…so it’s either marriage for all or civil unions for all…personally, I don’t think all these legal benefits should be attached to marriage to begin with but if they are attached then everyone should get them…please forgive me but I don’t see where in my above responses I implied that I am unaware of all the things you list that queer people are denied…I educate others on these matters daily and have done so for well over 10 years

@dalepetrie – There’s no acknowledgment by you on this thread that the unions of gay couples are still unrecognized by existing legal structures.
I think of you as someone who educates the rest of us. If you leave stuff out, I don’t know… Sure, I should trust you to think all the “best” things. Fine. But the truth is that we don’t know each other. Just the words on the page.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir: you say “if all people hereto or not had the same rights, it doesn’t matter what the union is called because it’s equal”. But… they don’t.

Sorry, both of you.

I want the inequity named. I want explicitness. Thanks for followup. Sorry to be a kvetch. But not very sorry. I needed you to say the things you said after I kvetched.

@susanc i would think that the inequity is obvious to any half-alive, half-brained person

I wonder how ridiculous religious fanatics of the present are going to look in 50 years… do you think they’ll liken it to civil rights in the 60s?

@susanc – nonetheless a) I’ve gone on record EXPLICITLY stating as much many, many times, b) what you see as missing is clearly implied in what I said, what you accused me of is NOT and c) Look at my VERY FIRST POST on this thread where I said, and I QUOTE, “Just like integrating blacks had to be forced down peoples’ throats, integrating gay marriage will have to be approached in the same manner.” READ before you assail me, or if you did read and misunderstood, at least ask me, “does this mean you think x, because I can’t tell” rather than accusing me of not getting the issue, that’s all I ask.

That said, I do accept the apology, not trying to continue jumping down your throat, I just felt what I felt was made clear in the first place.

Thank you and peace.

@dalepetrie
Approaching the 10k my man. All that training’s been paying off. Tip top shape and ready to cross the tape.

@SeventhSense – slowly but surely, give me another couple weeks….if I can make it before August 6 I’ll have achieved 10k in less than a year.

sigh

Leaving fluther for a well-earned rest.

It is actually not a bad idea.
Politically, it would isolate the crowd that opposes gay union on the basis of Biblical caprice.
And it would appease people like me.
I have no objection to legally recognized gay union. Loving and committed relationships are values that are clearly universal in humanity. There is no sense arguing that fact.
I object to the appropriation of the word marriage.
Here is why.
It is the immoral practice of the radical left to abuse the language, by taking conventionally understood words, and changing their meaning, thus making rational debate impossible. The fact that specific words stand for specific abstract concepts is what allows our entire legal system to work. It is the basis for the scientific method. It is the working formula that makes Aristotle’s non contradictory identification (logic) method actually work, and that is one of the pillars of Western Civilization. The destructive power of the abuse of the principle is the reason that the Stalinists called East Germany the German Democratic Republic. George Orwell, a socialist, understood that and illustrated the practice in 1984 with slogans like “Freedom is Slavery” and “Ignorance is Strength”. Edward Walter’s The Rise and Fall of Leftist Radicalism in America discusses the tactic of abuse of language extensively.
The point is gay people have been made tools of the radical left, and I bet in most cases unwittingly, much in the same way that some American blacks were in the 60s and have continued to be. And I am very much an opponent of the radical left. So when I am ambivalent, or even resistant to the idea of gay marriage, it is not gay people that I oppose. It is their radical leftist sponsors that I oppose. So I would very definitely join the fight on the side of gay people if they simply demanded their rightful due, and left the conventional language alone. In time, I am sure, convention would modify the language in their favor. But the language should not be modified by the by the progeny of the Anti-Enlightenment.

It has a lot to do with money too. Married couples get tax breaks etc.

@josie The fact that specific words stand for specific abstract concepts is what allows our entire legal system to work This is one of the arguments I have for allowing gay marriage. Married people get certain privelages, rights, and obligatons under the law. If a gay couple becomes a “civil union” then what are you going to do rewrite everything to say civil unions and married people own primary houses as an estate in its entireity and both can get health insurance from their companies and both can file taxes the same way, change every document out their to accomodate civil unions? I argue civil marriage is simply not the same as religious marriage. Chocolate and caramel can be married to each other in a Rolo. The word already has multiple meanings.

You are equivocating in your Rolo example. Anyway, the answer to your question is yes.

@josie Then I think all civil marriage should be civil unions, heterosexual and homosexual, that would be my answer to this. Keep marriage for the church only.

That is a different argument, and a different political fight. For starters, you will never be rid of the folks who think the Bible makes homosexuality a sin. If the the whole gay marriage debate is an attempt to make the Bible thumpers go away, then gays are dreaming. The Bible crowd will always say that the word marriage in either secular or religious context is a union between men and women, because homosexual unions, being a sin, are not even up to debate. You can pass laws, you can disapprove, and they will always be there to disagree and even torment.
And what about people like me, who think it is reckless to imagine that changing words actually changes the concept that the word describes. I think gays should be permitted to publicly declare their commitment and partnership, with all the attendant benefits and risks. People should leave them alone to pursue their lives and dreams. But the word marriage already means something, and it has a history that goes back millenia. And as I already said, it plays into the hands of a truly unscrupulous movement, the anti-enlightenment, or as it was called in the 60s the radical left, whom I disdain. Anyway, If I take a cat to a dog show, and call it a dog, I should not be surprised if the judges at best ignore me, and at worst throw me out. The papers would call me crazy.
So, your idea makes one self interest group feel good, and simultaneously provokes or even enrages another. That promises an even more unpleasant reckoning in the future. That seems to be a contemporarily accepted strategy (certainly a political expedient-the politicians responsible for such a practice will not be around for the next unpleasant fight) ,but it makes the present unstable and the future grim. Shame on folks who want to do that to “the children”.
Anyway, that is my position. Right at the moment, I am sympathetic to gays wanting to be regarded as “legitimate”. I do not intend to get in their way. If they get to close to my philosophical blood enemy, however, they will lose my sympathy (not , I am sure, that they give a shit, but just so it is on the record).

@josie I am not tring to make anyone go away. I am trying to do what is fair. Why is it a problem for heterosexual people to have a legal civil union, if it will deliver all the same rights? They can still call themselves married. http://www.fluther.com/49245/if-anti-gay-marriage-people-are-ok-with-civil-unions-why-dont/

@JLeslie I said why I think it could be a problem- It is not a solution to anything that creates a brand new and different problem. Anyhow, my objections are more on the linguistic and metaphysical side of the issue, and not on the gay marriage political debate per se. I really do not have a dog in the political fight, except as I have said so many times before, it engages my sworn and undying enmity towards the Rad Left, Some members of the gay community have (I suspect unwittingly) become pawns in that movement. Their victory in the gay marriage debate, if or when it comes, will be a step towards their (and yours, and my) overall defeat as they lose one more bit of their innate right to live in a free and rational society. I have argued similarly in many other little debates all over Fluther, and occasionally been insulted or ridiculed on the point, that I am getting a little tired of it (not referring to you). So suffice it to say, and repeat, that I am on the side of gays who want legitimacy in addition to my empathy and support, unless they flirt too much with my enemy. Gotta go check my ribs and cool off a couple bottles of wine. Company coming.

@josie What about words like gay? It has evolved from meaning happy to homosexual. We could come up with a whole list of words that have changed over time. Language simply does evolve and change.

Feels too much like a concession. I wouldn’t go for it.

@nullo Do you support gay marriage?

@JLeslie Heck no. And here I thought we knew each other.
I’ve actually pondered this one – and discarded it because ultimately, it encourages a sinful behavior. We need less of that.

@Nullo – I assume in the same vein then you would support elimination of civil marriage of any form…?

@Nullo Ok. I was just curious. Your answer only addressed that you do not want to give up civil marriage for heterosexuals.

@On some days, yes.
@JLeslie Glad we cleared that up, then.

I love this challenge to the anti-gay marriage troop, because it effectively puts the shoe on the other foot and expounds it as the discrimination that it is.

I fully agree, if gays can’t ‘marry’ because it means something specific to some groups, then the government shouldn’t recognize the word ‘marriage’ at all…all ‘marriages’ should be classified as ‘unions,’ or whatever, and the churches can call it and treat it however, as whatever they like, and stay out of gay people’s business. While they are at it, they should stay out of everybody elses business too!

Haha. Appropriation is immoral now? Yeesh.
Sorry Warhol. You monster.
You wrote:
“It is the immoral practice of the radical left to abuse the language, by taking conventionally understood words, and changing their meaning, thus making rational debate impossible. The fact that specific words stand for specific abstract concepts is what allows our entire legal system to work. It is the basis for the scientific method.”

Really? Then I guess you must be a member of the RADICAL LEFT, because this is a blatant subjective interpretation and abuse of language, with absolutely no facts to back it up. Conventionally understood words? Could you make me a list of those? Because CONVENTIONALLY UNDERSTOOD sounds a hell of a lot like ‘Possibly misunderstood’ and ‘unreliably defined’ from where I’m sitting.

Everything you wrote is not true. Why is it immoral practice to appropriate? Are you serious? Where do you come off saying that only the RADICAL LEFT abuses language? ‘War on Terror’ anyone? Better yet ‘War on Drugs?’
Marriage as an ‘ABSTRACT concept’ has nothing to do with being exclusively b/w a man and a woman. Those are specifics. SPECIFICS and ABSTRACT concepts are on opposite sides of a spectrum. ‘SPECIFIC ABSTRACT CONCEPT’ is an oxymoron. You’re confused.
Also applying specifics, like ONLY BETWEEN A MAN AND A WOMAN, is the abuse of language because this is not a fact. That is not how marriage has been defined, exclusively, now or ever, and never has been. (CONVENTIONALLY DEFINED? Hahahaha. Thats a hilarious abuse of language right there!)
As an ABSTRACT concept marriage doesn’t have anything to do with laws, religion, or legalities. You can marry a slice of white bread to a toaster. One might say ‘its a match made in heaven.’ But there’s nothing scientific about that match either, and it doesn’t have a thing to do with God or the legal system.

How on earth, does making the word ‘marriage’ defined differently, affect our legal system’s ability to function? Scientifically speaking, please.

Perhaps you don’t know anything about the history of marriage or think that social norms dictate definition? You do realize this is the opposite of the scientific method, right?
When it concerns SOCIAL SCIENCE, the scientific method applied absolutely goes out of its way to account for cultural differences. Which you are not. Also the scientific method pretty much rules out absolutes and that’s why the right wing, hates it. It protects the outliers.

Perhaps you just believe for some bizarre reason that culture is meant to be static, although it basically never, ever has been, like oh, I dunno, ever?

Perhaps we could adopt the French practice: there is a conventional marriage in a church with all the trimmings, together with a visit to the registrar’s office where a civil procedure follows. What you call it – marriage, civil union, whatever – is not important.