Gay Marriage

Well, it's just before another presidential election and another state supreme court has weighed in on gay marriage. I don't know why they choose this particular point in the election cycle to bring this up but there it is.

And along for the ride comes the usual collection of foolishness. Sorry. Usually, I'm not so judgmental (right, says my wife) but these guys are idiots.

Let me say right up front: I'm a happily married heterosexual guy. I have a son. And I am absolutely in agreement with the Supreme Court of the State of California. Gays should have the same right to marriage as anybody else. The text of the actual decision is here.

There are a lot of reasons to be in favor of the decision, most of them in the decision itself and I won't elaborate them here. But there is one that is not so addressed. That is the compelling need of the state.

It is in the best interests of the state to bring marginalized populations, be they marginalized by race, orientation or religion, into the mainstream. The state-- by which I mean ourselves-- benefits. Tensions within society are reduced. Polarizing influences are ameliorated. We all benefited when African Americans started being brought in. We benefitted by different points of view, increased awareness of the breadth and depth of our country and, most of all, from the society not being so damned white all the time. Gets pretty boring around the suburbs when that sea of white faces drive by in their SUVs. Looks a whole lot friendlier when there's a little color leavening the view. Not to mention that making people's acts clandestine is the quickest way to make them criminal. Things that are criminal acts should be criminalized. But by taking something that is already happening and making it clandestine you make it open to manipulation by the unscrupulous and insure that participants will not have legal recourse.

The opposition to this have a standard litany of issues: sanctity of marriage, slippery slope, child rearing and dissolution of society. That's pretty much the gist of their problems. Let's take them one at a time.

Sanctity of Marriage:Look at that statement. Sanctity? Since when has the state been in the business of bestowing sanctity on any religious institution. Personally, I don't think the state should be in the business of marriage at all. The state is a secular institution. Marriage is a religious institution. The best the state can do is bestow recognition of a contractual state-- a civil union to coin a term. All state licenses can only truly be is a recognition of a contractual relationship that has for reasons that escape me termed marriage, thoroughly confusing the issue since it uses the same religious term. So: it's not the state's business to keep up your religion so get over it. I like the idea of the "enduring union" proposed in the decision to replace the word "marriage". Go for it.

Slippery slope: This means that once we recognize gay marriage, we'll be forced to recognize marriage of three people, five, hundreds, dogs marrying cats, humans marrying horses, George Bush marrying Ken Rove.

First, I'm much more concerned about a country that let's sixteen year olds get married. That's a much bigger assault on the concept of marriage than a couple of lesbians in Lawrence getting hitched. Second, I think the institution is obviously limited to human adults for a couple of reasons. One, few other species would have us without coercion and second, until the day that dogs talk, we'll never be able to determine consent.

As far as the idea of multiple marriages, so what? I question the sanity and self-esteem of an adult woman who would want to share a man with someone else. Although, I could possibly see the idea that two women sharing a man might also be sharing a burden. Regardless, I don't care. It doesn't change my marriage, or that of anybody else's, one whit.

In fact the slippery slope argument is one of the arguments for gay marriage. Mainly in how we handle polygamy. From the recent FLDS cases in Texas, we've already heard that polygamy is generally not prosecuted unless some other criminality is involved such as child abuse, etc. This has two very interesting effects. First, it's made polygamy acceptable in those regions where it is practiced. And, in those same regions, it's under the control of some fairly nasty people. Since it is illegal and since the participants (the women) have only the legal recourse of reporting their participation in something illegal, the participants have entered into a place where they have no rights. They have no right of divorce. They have no right to marriage property. They have no right to debate custody. They have only the blunt instrument of bringing charges of a crime in which they have participated. If polygamy were legal, these people would have right of divorce, right to determine custody, standing in a court of law, etc. At least all of those arranged marriages by Reverend Moon were binding contracts and could be negotiated under the law.

Of course, multipolar marriages and divorces are going to be a lot more complex than bipolar marriages. I wouldn't want to be in one but there you have it.

Child rearing: They trot this one out all the time. Last time I looked there was no vast gang of gays searching parking lots for stray children. Gay men have to adopt. While I don't have any particular faith that DSS or China can pick a good adoptive family, they're certainly not going to do any worse with gays than they already have with heterosexuals. I think we can safely say that most gay men who married would likely be childless not because they didn't want children but because the hurdles and hideous expense of adoption would be just as tough on them as any other couple. As long as adoption is this hard and this competitive, couples who can't or won't have children of their own have a better than even chance of being childless regardless of their gender makeup. Although, in this area it's possible that gay men might be more receptive to adopting older children and not be so infant obsessive as heterosexual couples. Gee: a loving gay adoptive pair of parents or an endless series of foster homes. Which do you think the average DSS six year old would choose?

I think this one is a low blow aimed at lesbians. After all, any lesbian couple with a turkey baster and a sperm donor has a good chance of starting a family. God forbid they might actually be legitimate.

If the opposition really wants to help kids, get single mothers who are already at the brink health care. Get the single mothers education and child care. Going after gay marriage and leaving single mothers to rot is the rankest sort of hypocrisy.

Social dissolution: You have to work a little bit about this one. In a culture where marriages have as good a chance of failing as lasting, where a significant number of homes have only one parent, where people are having to choose between food, health insurance and rent, where nearly half of the men of one particular ethnic group is in jail and their families torn apart. Somehow the idea of a same sex marriage will bring the whole society to its needs. Yeah. Right. That's enough about that.

I do think marriage and families are under attack. It's being trivialized by those who marry frivolously. By bridal magazines who try to milk as much money as they can from it and are right there to milk gays the same way they go after high school girls. By having state laws allowing kids to marry before they can drink-- in some places before they can get a driver's license. By extremely successful celebrities making sex tapes of thirteen year olds. By television shows that can't seem to show a marriage that lasts more than a season without affair or death. By television shows that glorify the nastiest and most self-destructive relationships so that we can all participate. By stagnating wages so that both parents and sometimes a parent have to work just so the family survives. By ignoring economic changes that either destroy families outright or make it nearly impossible to stay together. By building schools that are monuments of architecture but not allocating enough money to pay the teachers. By ignoring substance and embracing illusion as fact.

By going after silly issues like gay marriage.

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Links of Interest
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Fear of a White Planet

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