It might be time to rethink marriage

The argument against gay marriage seems to rest in the confusion between religious and civil commitments to the act of marriage itself. One group claims God has determined a marriage should be between opposite sexes (and that position is only a rumor passed down through generations of believers).

Another says the purpose of marriage is procreation (hence the opposite sexes argument again). Under that criteria, people who cannot bear children are not eligible for marriage (the elderly and the infertile). People who have no intention of having children also would be ineligible.

Yes, there are prohibitions against relationships that constitute incest or child abuse, but there are valid medical reasons for their prohibition.

Perhaps the time has come to require that only a civil contract between couples will confer and control legal responsibilities to each partner. Relegate marriage to strictly a religious ceremony defined by whatever a particular sect wishes it to be and let it have no legal function in the secular world.

For many years, marriage has lost its original significance. So many have lost or never had the understanding that marriage is a state of mind and has nothing to do with rings, words and paper or I suspect the sex of the partner. A divorce rate of 50 percent is certainly no glowing endorsement of marriage as it is currently is practiced. Personally, I have been married to the same woman for 46 years and it wouldn't have mattered one iota if we had been married by a cleric, a judge or neither.

James Prescott

Schaumburg