George Bush says two gay people getting married would violate the sanctity of marriage. The sanctity of marriage. The sanctity. Is anybody here married? Does it feel like a gift from God to you? Sanctity of marriage? You could - You could get married in Vegas at 5 o'clock in the morning to a toothless crack whore you met fifteen minutes ago. Not - Not only do I think gay people should be allowed to get married, I think they should have to get married! Because I'm a little tired of their happy-go-lucky lifestyles. They - they, should have to suffer like everybody else. I'm - I'm sick of walking by these sidewalk cafes you see these guys sitting there they're all tan and fit and muscular, they're like 60 years old but they look great cause they don't have someone at home sucking the will to live right out of em. And - and if - if you had to be married; being married to a guy would be great. Could you imagine saying something, and having the words you said interpreted exactly the way that you intended your words to be interpreted? That would be a nice touch, wouldn't it? "Remember what you said ten years ago when we were driving in the car on the way to my mother's house?" -- "No." -- "Oh me neither! I'm a dude. Forget it. Nevermind. I was - I was about to torture you with some fake transcription skills that I knew you couldn't really call me on, and then I was going to punish you for not remembering something that you actually never did in the first place, but instead since I'm a dude I'll just shut up, we can just drive along, maybe listen to music, have a good afternoon after all. Being married to a guy would be great. I did - I didn't even used to believe in soulmates, the whole concept of soulmates, I never believed in soul mates until I saw Siegfried and Roy...cause there you got a gay Lion-tamer who hooked up with another gay Lion-tamer! What are the odds of that happening?!? Talk about holding out for Mr. Right, that seems like a pretty beautiful story. People say they can't find someone who shares their interests, two German dudes play with Tigers in the middle of the desert, that doesn't seem vaguely Biblical to anyone else?

Marriage is the most important, the most sacred, contract that human beings can make. No matter whether we call it a contract, or a sacrament, or both, it remains precisely the same. And no matter whether this contract is entered into in the presence of magistrate or priest, it is exactly the same.

We deal with a right of privacy older than the Bill of Rights -- older than our political parties, older than our school system. Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred. It is an association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects. Yet it is an association for as noble a purpose as any involved in our prior decisions.

We are now, I believe, on the threshold of a third stage which I call the stage of the sacred marriage. This is the only position we could possibly take and still survive. This is a stage beyond both matriarchy and patriarchy. It involves the restoration to human respect of all of the rejected powers of the feminine. But it is absolutely essential that this restoration should be accomplished in the deep spirit of the sacred feminine. Not only should we invoke the sacred feminine, restore the sacred feminine, but this union between the matriarchal and the patriarchal, the sacred marriage, must be accomplished in the spirit of the sacred feminine for it to be real, effective, rich, and fecund. It must occur in her spirit of unconditional love, in her spirit of tolerance, forgiveness, all-embracing and all-harmonizing balance, and not, in any sense, involve a swing in the other direction.

They are preserving the sanctity of marriage, so that two gay men who've been together for twenty-five years can't get married, but a guy can still get drunk in Vegas and marry a hooker at the Elvis chapel! The sanctity of marriage is saved!

Same-sex marriage isn’t a gay privilege, it’s equal rights. Privilege would be something like gay people not paying taxes. Like churches don’t.

love affair, they’ll be divorced very soon, because all love affairs end in disappointment. But marriage is recognition of a spiritual identity. If we live a proper life, if our minds are on the right qualities in regarding the person of the opposite sex, we will find our proper male or female counterpart. But if we are distracted by certain sensuous interests, we’ll marry the wrong person. By marrying the right person, we reconstruct the image of the incarnate God, and that’s what marriage is.

That's why my generation thinks we need a constitutional amendment to protect the sanctity of marriage that guarantees that, in America, the only marriage to be recognized is the marriage between a man and a woman! In the house of God! There are so many things in America that have changed that should never change. And you listen to me: if it does, you can kiss this country goodbye.

Marriage is a public declaration of
a man and a woman that they have
formed a secret alliance, with the
intention to belong to, and share with
each other, a mystical estate; mystical
exactly in the sense that the real
experience cannot be communicated to
others, nor explained even to oneself
on rational grounds.

Why in the world shouldn't they have regarded with awe and reverence that act by which the human race is perpetuated. Not every religion has to have St. Augustine's attitude to sex. Why even in our culture marriages are celebrated in a church, everyone present knows what is going to happen that night, but that doesn't prevent it being a religious ceremony.

Drinking tea is as sacred as doing yoga. Sleeping silently, relaxed, is as sacred as prayer. Looking at a tree, talking to a friend, walking early in the morning, working in the factory or in the office, is as holy as anything else. This is the understanding that is needed for Tao to happen.

I have participated in numerous private and public debates about gay marriage, and all too often some wise guy asks ‘If marriage between two men is OK, why not allow marriage between a man and a goat?’ From a secular perspective the answer is obvious. Healthy relationships require emotional, intellectual and even spiritual depth. A marriage lacking such depth will make you frustrated, lonely and psychologically stunted. Whereas two men can certainly satisfy the emotional, intellectual and spiritual needs of one another, a relationship with a goat cannot. Hence if you see marriage as an institution aimed at promoting human well-being – as secular people do – you would not dream of even raising such a bizarre question. Only people who see marriage as some kind of miraculous ritual might do so.

There was no religious ceremony connected with marriage among us, while on the other hand the relation between man and woman was regarded as in itself mysterious and holy.

The earth is a living, conscious being. In company with cultures of many different times and places, we name these things as sacred: air, fire, water, and earth. Whether we see them as the breath, energy, blood, and body of the Mother, or as the blessed gifts of a Creator, or as symbols of the interconnected systems that sustain life, we know that nothing can live without them. To call these things sacred is to say that they have a value beyond their usefulness for human ends, that they themselves become the standards by which our acts, our economics, our laws, and our purposes must be judged. No one has the right to appropriate them or profit from them at the expense of others. Any government that fails to protect them forfeits its legitimacy. All people, all living things, are part of the earth life, and so are sacred. No one of us stands higher or lower than any other. Only justice can assure balance: only ecological balance can sustain freedom. Only in freedom can that fifth sacred thing we call spirit flourish in its full diversity. To honor the sacred is to create conditions in which nourishment, sustenance, habitat, knowledge, freedom, and beauty can thrive. To honor the sacred is to make love possible. To this we dedicate our curiosity, our will, our courage, our silences, and our voices. To this we dedicate our lives.