Ed Rutledge for Lieutenant Governor

In an ideal world, government would have absolutely no role in marriage, which is a compact between two consenting adults and, at their mutual discretion, a church. That said, we live in a practical world, and there are practical benefits that the state confers upon those granted "Married" status.

In our practical world, this contentious issue has nothing to do with any religious or historical definition of marriage. Instead, we are looking at an attempt to keep a particular group of citizens legally relegated to second class status based on sexual orientation, just as the shameful Jim Crow laws legally relegated another group to second class status based on race.

This is just wrong. We are either a nation of free adults, or a nation of busybodies. While I fully support the autonomy of churches to perform and recognize marriages at their discretion, I cannot support the legal relegation of a category of citizens to second class status, for any reason.

Everyone has an unalienable right to pursue happiness, in his or her own way and without the interference of government so long as he or she does not interfere with that same right held by everyone else. It is time for government to either apply the law uniformly, or to get out of the marriage business altogether.

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