Homosexual acts and same sex marriage

It just occurred to me that in the same-sex debate I hear frequently people stating how such-and-such religion prohibits homosexual acts and therefore same-sex marriage is prohibited by extension, which got me a bit confused, frankly.

First, I do not find those same people defining homosexual acts, but it may be safe to assume that by homosexual act, people mean sex in all of its forms with a person of the same sex/gender. Okay, fine.

(I hope we do not ever have a law somewhere defining sexual acts.)

But then, what has that got to do with marriage? Marriage is not about sex, is it? It may be about sex, in addition to many other things, but not necessarily.

So, I wonder about the following scenario. Say two persons of the same sex want to marry and they commit not to engage in any "homosexual acts" with each other, however they, the homosexual acts, may be defined. Would that be okay? I mean, there is no requirement of the married couple to have sex with each other, no?

(I hope we do not ever have a law somewhere defining those acts married couple must do with each other in order to maintain the married status.)

Executive bonuses

Mr. Hall (from Citigroup) is in the news. Should receive his 100 million dollar bonus for good performance. Difficult question these days. In today's climate, this might be a problem. Mr. Hall seems to think so. He is currently looking for an alternative job, probably at a company who did not receive bailout money.

I have a simple solution. Capitalism, which I support, should support companies paying bonuses in proportion to the money earned. However, the percentage of profit should be moderate. Mr. Hall generated 5 billion in profits for Citigroup in the past 5 years. 100 million is 2 percent of this total. This seems reasonable, *if* the profit is for work done in the past 5 years.

However, what if he loses money for the company one year? In that case, I believe the salary should be decreased by the same percentage, or he should owe money accordingly. Thus, if he lost 5 billion for the company one year, he would have to return 100 million dollars. In that way, it is the employee who pay the company for failure. This kind of rule would give the manager incentive to take less risk. Less gain, but also less loss. On the other hand, it would not prevent some managers from taking continued risk: the managers who truly believe they are good.