The REAL problem with Marriage

[ready182]

Gay Marriage, and marriage in general, is very controversial. I think I know why. It is because marriage, as defined at least in the US, is not about one concept, but instead about 3 different and conflicting ideals.

 

This first concept is the bond of individuals based on a religious belief. Based on one's owns religion, the "terms and conditions" of this arrangement may vary. Here is where you find the "moral ground" and associate arguements.

 

The second concept is a civic bond of individuals. Here, because individuals have chosen to unite themselves together, in a civic LEGAL manner, certain laws and rules apply. For example, tax benefits for married couples.

 

The final concept, and least obvious, is the one of public health. Here in you find pre-marriage requirements such as blood tests; a prohibition of marrying a close relative; etc.

 

I contend that religious bonds are not related to Civic bonds, and both are only loosely related to the public health concerns. I contend, If US law were to separate these three distinct concepts, the many problems, including the controversy of gay marriage, would dissapear.

 

ready

[Will]

Good points. As I see it, the problem isn't with "gay" marriage, but with "marriage." Three features of modern marriage really stand out: (1) the idea that progress towards marriage begins when two adult individuals meet and find themselves sexually and psychologically attracted to each other, making erotic love the primary bond uniting them; (2) the separation of church and state is blurred in this case, because the state authorizes religious authorities to sanction marriages on its behalf, even though -- strictly speaking -- such acts are not "religious;" and (3) the state extends certain financial and other benefits (NOT "rights") to those persons who contract a marriage.

 

However, in most societies around the world, and in European society until fairly recently, "marriage" is a contractural agreement between two families regarding the exchange or sharing of property bestowed on a son of one family and a daughter of another, with the expectation that there will be children. In other words, the primary *social* function of marriage in the overwhelming majority of humankind is the getting and rearing of children, with all sorts of property rights that go along with cojoining two families. What is more, the marrying parties do not choose their spouses, nor is their consent, or even their sexual maturity, necessary to make the union legitimate. This is far, far more common in both historical time and in the present than the custom in contemporary developed nations.

 

Ready's second point, then, is the rule, not the exception: marriage is primarily a civil action that concerns the joint ownership of property, with other responsibilities and rights along with it. The only modification I would make is that it is usually customary that this contractural agreement be ratified in a religious ceremony, as the separation between "church" and "state" is a political reality that just didn't exist before the 18th century in Europe and, so far as I know, has never existed anywhere else. In other words, regarding marriage the religious and "secular" authorities are one and the same.

 

If we truly had the separation of church and state, as they do even in those European countries that partly support a religion (i.e., Italy), there would be two, entirely separate, actions. One would be a civil action performed by a civil officer; that would establish the contractural obligations of the partners. In that sense, it would be more appropriate to call it a "Civil Union" than a "marriage."

 

"Marriage," as others have noted here, would then be whatever rites or ceremonies celebrated the particular union of those individuals. It would not be a matter of the state's authority in any sense of the word. Indeed, there would be no legal guarantees whatsoever attendant on such unions.

 

This, in fact, is the pattern used by the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers. When two Friends decide to marry (and it doesn't matter how their genders are distributed), they seek only the advice of their Meeting; when they celebrate their union, they do so in the context of the regular Meeting. As there are no clergy in the Society of Friends, there is no officiant at the wedding. Consequently there is no "Civil Union," even though the Quakers are perhaps the most inclusive religious body in the U.S., as well as the most concerned with the strength and maturity of marrying partners, so that the union will have the best chance of survival.

 

What's needed, then, is a new definition of "marriage" as precisely equivalent to a "civil union." As long as the state continues to allow religious values to color its institutions, we're never going to be free of this problem.

[Guest Merlin]

Now you see why people believe that gay "marriages" are a threat to marriage and the family in the traditional meaning of the words. Once you decide to accomodate the desire of gays to be included, it is necessary to redefine the word "marriage" which, since the beginning of time, has meant a union of a man and a woman. Ultimately it leads to the type of carving up of "marriage" represented by the above two posts. Further, it leads to a rexamination of the concept of marriage. Why not allow bigamy? Why not polygamy? But if everything is a marriage, then nothing is a marriage, or at least, it ceases to be a meaningful concept. I think it is a mistake for gays to be seen as attacking the fundamental unit of society, without a better reason than I have heard.

[Doug69]

>Now you see why people believe that gay "marriages" are a

>threat to marriage and the family in the traditional meaning

>of the words. Once you decide to accomodate the desire of gays

>to be included, it is necessary to redefine the word

>"marriage" which, since the beginning of time, has meant a

>union of a man and a woman.

 

This is just not the case. Marriage has meant many different things at many different times in many different cultures. In the last thousand years, Islam was the dominant religion on this planet for centuries, and its model of "marriage" entailed a male with lots and lots of wives. Christians have, at times, banned infertile couples from marrying and have prohibited divorced individuals from re-marrying as well - all of which is now quite common.

 

Also, nobody can claim with a straight face that what we currently recognize as "marriage" bears any remote resemblance to the supposed values underlying marriage in its traditional forms.

 

Heterosexuals, in this country have least, have wrecked the institution of marriage, at least if notions of traditional marriage are the standard to be used. One-half of all marraiges end in divorce. Heterosexuals routinely dump each other whenever the mood strikes and go and find the "newest spouse."

 

Seeing 60 year-old men with their "third wives" is indescribably common - including among the "leaders" of the Religious Right movement who claim to worship the sanctity of marriage while they hold the hands of their "current wife" (a newer, younger model than the one they dumped after their chilrden were born).

 

Heterosexual married couples sodomize each other in droves, and - even among the 50% of the heterosexual couples who manage to remain married - adultery is painfully rampant.

 

Heterosexuals have completely descerated what many of them assert as being the "core ideals" of marriage, which they claim they need to protect by excluding gay people from the institution. My favorite fact is that the author and primary sponsor of the abomination called the "Defense of Marriage Act," former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr, dumped his first two wives and is now married to a pretty little thing whom he, for the moment, calls his "wife."

 

I think the reason that so many heterosexuals - including moderate, non-gay-hating ones - are buying into the idea that marriage will somehow be destroyed if 1% of couples are same-sex rather than opposite sex is because thinking this way allows them to blame someone else for the devestation of marriage as an institution.

 

Adultery, divorce, multiple marriages? Let's not think about that. Let's just talk instead about how marriage will be destroyed if we let faggots do it - that way, we can pretend that we, the married-divorced-adulterous-remarried heterosexuals, are the Guardians of this Great Institution, protecting it from (rather than causing) its destruction.

 

Hearing heterosexuals talk about how they want to defend the sanctity and traditional values of marriage by keeping out homos is quite similar to hearing Saddam Hussein talk about how he wants to protect the civil rights of Iraqi citizens. One who has destroyed something cannot hold himself out, simultaneously, as the Protector of that which he has destroyed.

[woodlawn]

>I contend, If US law were to separate these three

>distinct concepts, the many problems, including the

>controversy of gay marriage, would dissapear.

 

Not at all. The fact is that there are churches with pastors all over America who are willing to perform same-sex marriages. The Episcopal Church in America is in the process of appointing its first openly gay bishop as I write these words -- their convention is meeting to confirm the appointment this weekend -- and may soon consider a liturgy for same-sex marriages. The problem is that we have government officials, including the president, standing up in public and stating that the beliefs of these pastors and their congregants are wrong. We have the head of our national government stating that government should legitimize the marriage ceremonies performed according to the beliefs of some churches, but not those performed according to the beliefs of other churches. Gay men who have religious beliefs have no desire to see the religious element of marriage separated from its other elements, they simply want government to treat their beliefs as having the same validity as the beliefs of others.

[Doug69]

>Gay men who have religious beliefs have no

>desire to see the religious element of marriage separated from

>its other elements, they simply want government to treat their

>beliefs as having the same validity as the beliefs of others.

 

Or, at the very least, do what the Constitution requires and not favor one religion over the other based upon the religious preferences of elected officials.

 

The point you raise is so often overlooked. Whenever people discuss allowing same-sex couples to marry, they almost always assume that this view of marriage is a "non-religious" one - i.e., that to believe in same-sex marriages is akin to arguing that religion should be separated from legal marriage.

 

But as you accurately point out, there are many religions in the United States which recognize same-sex marriages, bless them, have pastors preside over same-sex marriage ceremonies, etc. And this is found not only in tiny, bizarre, New Age fringe religions - but also in many of the most influential and traditional religions, including Anglican, Episcopalian, and various other Protestant churches, as well as in Jewish synagogues.

 

By arguing on religious grounds that marriage should be confined to heterosexual couples, the Government is plainly elevating certain religious views over others, and making their preferred religious views the offical religious view of the State - something unquestionably prohibited by the Constitution.

[Guest ncm2169]

Michael Kinsley has an interesting take on all of this in a recent column in the Washington Post. }( Herewith, for your edification:

 

Abolish Marriage

Let's really get the government out of our bedrooms.

 

By Michael Kinsley

Thursday, July 3, 2003; Page A23

 

Critics and enthusiasts of Lawrence v. Texas, last week's Supreme Court decision invalidating state anti-sodomy laws, agree on one thing: The next argument is going to be about gay marriage. As Justice Antonin Scalia noted in his tart dissent, it follows from the logic of Lawrence. Mutually consenting sex with the person of your choice in the privacy of your own home is now a basic right of American citizenship under the Constitution. This does not mean that the government must supply it or guarantee it. But the government cannot forbid it, and the government also should not discriminate against you for choosing to exercise a basic right of citizenship. Offering an institution as important as marriage to male-female couples only is exactly this kind of discrimination. Or so the gay rights movement will now argue. Persuasively, I think.

 

Opponents of gay rights will resist mightily, although they have been in retreat for a couple of decades. General anti-gay sentiments are now considered a serious breach of civic etiquette, even in anti-gay circles. The current line of defense, which probably won't hold either, is between social toleration of homosexuals and social approval of homosexuality. Or between accepting the reality that people are gay, even accepting that gays are people, and endorsing something called "the gay agenda." Gay marriage, the opponents will argue, would cross this line. It would make homosexuality respectable and, worse, normal. Gays are welcome to exist all they want, and to do their inexplicable thing if they must, but they shouldn't expect a government stamp of approval.

 

It's going to get ugly. And then it's going to get boring. So we have two options here. We can add gay marriage to the short list of controversies -- abortion, affirmative action, the death penalty -- that are so frozen and ritualistic that debates about them are more like kabuki performances than intellectual exercises. Or we can think outside the box. There is a solution that ought to satisfy both camps, and may not be a bad idea even apart from the gay marriage controversy.

 

That solution is to end the institution of marriage. Or rather (he hastens to clarify, dear) the solution is to end the institution of government-sanctioned marriage. Or, framed to appeal to conservatives: End the government monopoly on marriage. Wait, I've got it: Privatize marriage. These slogans all mean the same thing. Let churches and other religious institutions continue to offer marriage ceremonies. Let department stores and casinos get into the act if they want. Let each organization decide for itself what kinds of couples it wants to offer marriage to. Let couples celebrate their union in any way they choose and consider themselves married whenever they want. Let others be free to consider them not married, under rules these others may prefer. And, yes, if three people want to get married, or one person wants to marry herself, and someone else wants to conduct a ceremony and declare them married, let 'em. If you and your government aren't implicated, what do you care?

 

In fact, there is nothing to stop any of this from happening now. And a lot of it does happen. But only certain marriages get certified by the government. So, in the United States we are about to find ourselves in a strange situation where the principal demand of a liberation movement is to be included in the red tape of a government bureaucracy. Having just gotten state governments out of their bedrooms, gays now want these governments back in. Meanwhile, social-conservative anti-gays, many of them southerners, are calling on the government in Washington to trample states' rights and nationalize the rules of marriage, if necessary, to prevent gays from getting what they want. The Senate majority leader, Bill Frist of Tennessee, responded to the Supreme Court's Lawrence decision by endorsing a constitutional amendment, no less, against gay marriage.

 

If marriage were an entirely private affair, all the disputes over gay marriage would become irrelevant. Gay marriage would not have the official sanction of government, but neither would straight marriage. There would be official equality between the two, which is the essence of what gays want and are entitled to. And if the other side is sincere in saying that its concern is not what people do in private but government endorsement of a gay "lifestyle" or "agenda," that problem goes away too.

 

Yes, yes, marriage is about more than sleeping arrangements. There are children, there are finances, there are spousal job benefits such as health insurance and pensions. In all of these areas, marriage is used as a substitute for other factors that are harder to measure, such as financial dependence or devotion to offspring. It would be possible to write rules that measure the real factors at stake and leave marriage out of the matter. Regarding children and finances, people can set their own rules, as many already do. None of this would be easy. Marriage functions as what lawyers call a "bright line," which saves the trouble of trying to measure a lot of amorphous factors. You're either married or you're not. Once marriage itself becomes amorphous, who-gets-the-kids and who-gets-health-care become trickier questions.

 

So, sure, there are some legitimate objections to the idea of privatizing marriage. But they don't add up to a fatal objection. Especially when you consider that the alternative is arguing about gay marriage until death do us part.