I am a real romantic at heart. I watch romantic comedies (don’t tell nobody), read books with romantic happy endings. I really believe that two people can love each other enough to want to spend their lives together. Hell, I even wish that one day it would happen to me.

A marriage is defined LEGALLY (in short) as this: Marriage is a legally sanctioned contract between a man and a woman. Entering into a marriage contract changes the legal status of both parties, giving husband and wife new rights and obligations. Public policy is strongly in favor of marriage based on the belief that it preserves the family unit. Traditionally, marriage has been viewed as vital to the preservation of morals and civilization. (http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/marriage)

I posted the definition because I want you guys to understand that I know WHY the society (aka the government and religion) wants us to be married. I understand that they believe that marriage between man and wife with some kids is beneficial to our society. The problem is, it isn’t fair to those who aren’t Christian, or straight, or believe in having one spouse.

Previously, marriage was used for some to combine countries and families for financial and power gain. Now, we have been led to believe that the only way to be successful in life is to fall in love, get married and have the government make you sign a contract that says that you will be with only one person for the rest of your life. For the greater good of us all? I think not. How can it be when you leave out the homosexual community, the polygamist community and so forth and so on. On top of promoting marriage by making us feel that we aren’t successful without one, they decide to throw tax breaks and benefits on as the icing on the cake. And we all fell for it! You even have some atheists getting married. Most don’t even REALIZE that they are being tricked into believing in government’s idealized "everyone is married society" aka CHRISTIAN WAY OF LIFE!

What most of you don’t understand is how unjust the legal definition of marriage is. Why is it only between man and woman? Of course the idea is based on Religion. As we all know, this country’s foundation was religious based, specifically, Christian. It’s no surprise that what constitutes as legal marriage is exactly that described in the Bible. This country is fast moving towards tolerance of all cultures, religions etc. Yet, it still ENFORCES this remedial religious idea of what marriage is supposed to be, and we have all been bamboozled.

We have discovered you can have functional children from non – traditional homes. We now realize that not everyone is Christian and straight and don’t necessarily want to be.. We understand now that women are intelligent enough to vote and that minorities aren’t unintelligent. We understand now that there are other religions and each and everyone of us should have the right to believe what we want to believe and practice what we want without being forced to be exposed to one specific dominant religion, except when it comes to marriage. HUH?

With that said, even though most of you are still uniformed and traditional in your thoughts regarding marriage, it doesn’t negate the fact that it is unfair to impose religious undertones into a legal contract, and that’s just what marriage is when the government is involved, A LEGAL CONTRACT.

As a matter of fact, the Government shouldn’t be involved in the institution of Marriage at all.

If you want to get married for religious reasons, GO RIGHT AHEAD. Allow your church to create a contract for your in regards to that, but NOT THE GOVERNMENT.

If you choose to want to live with someone and share household expenses and be legally bound by a contract to split them when you part , THAT’S when the government should be involved. LOVE and RELIGION should have NO BEARING on that. And, therefore, shouldn’t be limited to a man and woman. If two (or more) consenting and sound mind adults want to enter into an agreement to share a household together and want to receive benefits for such THEY SHOULD BE ABLE TO, regardless of sex and religion.

Want to be religious? Fine. For those of us who aren’t religious, I find that we are still being FORCED into adopting a Christian way of life by agreeing and allowing the government to dictate who can and cannot get married BASED on a religious system.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no real problem with religion. In fact, I respect it and know how beneficial it has been for society, my problem is forcing it upon everyone. And that’s EXACTLY what the government’s involvement in "marriage" does.

Given this information, I often wonder if people would be more or less inclined to get married. Particularly those who aren’t religious and especially those fighting to have their marriages honored by the government.

I definitely believe that if the government separated church and state when it comes to marriage, we would all get along just a LITTLE better, if not, then learn to tolerate each other’s differences.