We Yanks elect to office people that were more often than not brought up with certain religious beliefs and faiths.

Look at Bush the Younger. He wants to give federal money to faith-based programs that seem to violate the separation of church and state plan that the founding fathers were keen on keeping.

That's why there's no prayers in public schools.

The separation is meant to promote religious tolerance for all faiths. Prayer in school would most likely favor one form of religious ideology, or at the least offend atheists who are against such concepts all together. America is supposed to favor diversity in religion, not eliminate it or choose one to practice above all overs.

And the idea that an outside force, say the Vatican, could control and dictate internal policies for the country and such if there was an official "religion of the USA".

The coutries of the Old World were autonomus but had to contend with the Church trying to dictate to them how to run their countries and and be held answerable to the Pope.

Though marriage can exist without a religious context, in most people's eyes it is deemed "sacred."

How do they explain the divorce rate then if it's so sacred, eh?

For the last 30 years, happy heterosexuals in America have seen homosexuals start to enjoy the same freedom, openess, and opportunity that straights have had since 1776. (And back then it was only the white male land-owning straights!)

Battle lines have been drawn and walked over. This seemingly last line will be defended the most vehemently by people who don't want to acknowledge complete equality between straights and gays.

Quite frankly, bully for them. Keep your silly old marriages that always seem to end in divorce these days. Commitment ceremonies carry the same emotional weight as weddgins, serving as a public declaration of love and bonding.

But we know there's more than that at stake. It's money that's the bottom line. Married couples get tax breaks that single people can't get. Married couples have rights and privileges not accorded to single people.

Behind the moral pontification, there's something else that drives the people who don't want gay marriage....and that's cold hard cash.