Back in May I wrote privately to another Beliefnet contributor,

"I won't go into details but i lived around and knew many SSA folks back  in my bohemian days.  I found many of them to be kind, gracious,witty and  sometimes even brilliant people.  Most of the ones I knew well were educated  professional folks.  But something that struck me about them was how their  relationships worked.  I met many who were in what I think they would call  committed relationships; but their relationships didn't preclude them from  seeing other people.  I'm not saying that monogamous couples didn't exist, I  just never met any whose relationships worked that way.

I know that happens also in male/female relationships but at least here  it's the exception; there (from what I saw)  it seemed to be the rule.  What  will marriage mean to these folks to them if/when it is  institutionalized?"

I bring this up because I found this article in GetReligion.org titled:

Twin rocking chairs for  gay Lutherans?   < click here to read full article.

My assumptions are echoed; the author includes:

As a visiting gay theologian once told me during a conference at Iliff, very  few gay, lesbian and bisexual Christians have what he called a “twin rocking  chairs forever” definition of monogamy. That was just too restricting, he said.  Most gays, he said, believe that it is possible to be “faithful” to one partner  and, thus, “monogamous,” while continuing to have sexual experiences with  others.

Let me stress that his was not the only viewpoint that I heard on this issue.  More on that in a moment. The key is to grasp that debates are common among gay,  lesbian and bisexual theologians on this issue. Here is how I expressed part of  that equation in a Scripps Howard column ..."...:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.tmatt.net');" href="http://www.tmatt.net/2000/07/19/charting-the-sex-wars-pt-ii/"> about a  decade ago:

“Monogamy” isn’t such a scary word, once people get the hang of redefining it  to fit the realities of modern life, according to gay provocateur Dan  Savage.

“The sexual model that straight people have created really doesn’t work,”  said the nationally syndicated columnist, in a New York Times Magazinepiece on post-modern sex. “All it does is force people to lie. … In this  society, we view monogam like we view virginity, one incident and it’s over,  the relationship is over.”

Heterosexual couples, he said, should relax and learn from homosexuals.  Relationships must grow and evolve. “I know gay couples who have been together  for 35 years. They have separate bedrooms. Sometimes they sleep together and  sometimes they sleep with other people, but they’re a great couple,” he said.

Are some Gays attempting to expand the definition of marriage ever further?  If the courts can expand on who can be married, perhaps we can get them to expand on what marriage actually means as well.

I wonder how this information would have influenced the California election if it were used.

Why is this thread in the Church and State form? It seems it should be in the Sexual Orientation Discussion forum.

I'm willing to give this thread a couple more posts in which to get around to something that really looks like it belongs here, and if that doesn't happen, it will be moved.

Summer813

Beliefnet Community Host,

Church & State Issues

Aug 30, 2009 -- 9:19AM, Acts 28:22 wrote:

Aug 27, 2009 -- 2:39PM, Tpaine wrote:

Why is this thread in the Church and State form? It seems it should be in the Sexual Orientation Discussion forum.

Valid question.  I thought the last two sentences answered that:

"...If the courts can expand on who can be married, perhaps we can get them to expand on what marriage actually means as well.

I wonder how this information would have influenced the California election if it were used."

But the subject matter doesn't appear to interest folks in this forum; if you want to take it down it won't hurt my feelings

My question then would be... Why should the COURT or the STATE even be in the marriage business? And when did the CHURCH make it their business? Evenso, only the state can recognize the legality of the marriage contract. And that is mainly for the purposes of property and children... not morality. (as far as I know...)

TPaine, a marvelous solution but strangely absent in the political debate.