[Undertoad]

More on the "marriage sacrament" item (via here):

Begin, if you will, with the Senator's own theocratic assumptions. The Senator is said to be a devout Presbyterian. If so, he should go back to his catechism. Marriage is simply not a sacrament in his religious tradition. Marriage is a Christian sacrament in Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and high church readings of Anglican Christianity. For Presbyterians and most Protestants, generally, who limit sacramental acts to those actually commissioned by Jesus as a means of grace, marriage is not a sacrament. It is an ordinance, a religious act governed by teachings and practices of the church, but it is not a sacrament.

The Presbyterian senator would, thus, impose on us all via the Constitution an understanding of marriage which is held only by his Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and some Anglican constituents. God save his Moslem, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, and agnostic constituents, for whom the very word "sacrament" has no meaning. God save his Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Pentacostal constituents, for whom marriage is not a sacrament. God save his heterosexual constituents, to say nothing of his homosexual ones, who believe that a committed relationship is its own means of grace, which does not depend on constitutional definitions, justifications, intrusions, or protections.