Coming up for a vote.  Soon.  They would have us believe.  All our fine lawmakers who cheat on their wives and marry and divorce multiple times are working hard to eliminate the scourge of same-sex committed couples.  The religious right would have us believe that allowing gay marriage would send us down a slippery slope – opening the floodgates to polygamy, and, horrors, interspecies marriage!  Yeah, right.  More likely, we’ll see a slippery slope in another, far more direct course.  Make gay marriage legally impossible, then make gay sex illegal, then make homosexuality illegal, and then you can work on making premarital sex illegal, (although our government bigwigs will draw the line at extramarital sex, since that would put a crimp in their own lifestyles!).  Bit by bit, this would allow them to impose a few more religion-based restrictions.  After making homosexuality illegal, you can then restrict other kinds of consensual sex.  After making homosexuals illegal, you can make other kinds of people illegal.  This drives me nuts.  OK, if you don’t want to call it marriage, fine.  Make a new kind of legal partnership that allows two people who love one another to share the legal benefits; not just health care, but dual parenthood, power of attorney, rights of inheritance, property rights, hospital visitation, etc.  All things that married people get for free, and even take for granted, which are available now to committed couples only if they want to spend years in court and tens of thousands of dollars on legal fees.  Committed couples raise children, and adopt children (taking them out of a horrible situation, in most cases – gay couples adopt hard to place children at a higher rate than straight couples.)  Committed couples purchase property, and improve that property, benefiting entire neighborhoods.  Committed couples invest in the quality of life in their towns, becoming involved in politics, associations, and volunteer organizations that do good works.  How restricting couples from making a commitment that results in more positives than negatives is viewed as a good thing just boggles my mind.  It’s a wholly personal-religion-based point of view that should not be allowed any basis in law.