sanctity

[pinkpops]

http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entries/03/s0060300.html

So why is the government concerned about sacred, saintly things. Aren
t these religious terms?

[GodHelpUsAll2]

1. No one has told them

about seperation of church and state

[stevedeshazer]

2. I've thought about this a lot

It bugs me. Apparently, it bugs you too.

First, let's examine the definition of the word:

sanc·ti·ty
n. pl. sanc·ti·ties

1. Holiness of life or disposition; saintliness.
2. The quality or condition of being considered sacred; inviolability.
3. Something considered sacred.

courtesy of the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.

My beef is that this is indeed a religious definition which the Radical Right is attempting to attach to the US Constitution via amendment, an attempt which I believe will fail.

With any modern Supreme Court save the current one, this sanctity crap would never fly.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. because they need a conservative issue

Bush has abandoned traditional conservative values like fiscal sanity and a non-interventionist foreign policy (though he's annoyingly kept the one of screwing the poor at the expense of the rich - but that doesn't get him a lot of votes, just donations), so he needs some reason for the normal conservative base to ignore his incompetance. He's picked homosexual marriage, because there are a lot of fundamentalists who really hate it. 'Sacred' has both the religious meaning, which they like, and also an implication of 'untouchable' - ie something that must always be conserved, no matter what. This fits his agenda perfectly.