Breaking Things Down A Bit

There are many issues tangled up in the on-going discussion / debates about homosexuality and marriage.  We see the fabric of things, but also have to acknowledge that there are many threads to it.  Each thread is both significant and insignificant, at the same time.  But, nonetheless, we have a fabric.   Here are some of the threads, it seems to me:

• What is marriage?
• Who defines it...society, government, religion?
• How are 'rights' involved, from a civic perspective?
• Where has governance, based on definitions / assumptions on the first question(s), created the problems we see now in the last question (ex, if the societal rights / benefits target a narrow definition of marriage than society now wants, where does that leave us...morality aside?)
• What about sexuality?  Our perspectives on this have influenced our assumptions / definitions of marriage (as an institution...and, likely, otherwise).
• How dynamic is our sexuality (is it only hard-coded or are there other factors involved, too?)?
• How do we determine what we believe about what is constant and what isn't...from a religious, cultural, or societal perspective?

Click here for one summary of the Supreme Court discussion yesterday....

I get the feeling there are too many threads, than any one of us can keep good track of.  Life is both science and mystery.  Is the more significant / helpful question something like, how do we live (what is our disposition?) with things we don't fully (or even largely) understand?  What are we afraid of?  What do we turn to, in an effort to calm our fears?