I know this is a couple of days old, but I could’t stop thinking about the state legislators newed efforts to waste time and tax money by attempting to pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. The idea that marriage is a sacred covenant between one man and one woman is not only a fairly recent development in human history, it’s not even one that’s shared across all human cultures, so that argument is idiotic on its face. But a lot of people see it as an issue of morality so logic isn’t always relevant. What struck me after several days of thinking about how to reconcile the rights of the LGBT community with the demands of the Christian right (not to be confused with people who are pious and progressive) is that the answer has been right in front of us the whole time: abolish state sanctioned marriage.
My wife and I were wed outside of a church and the officiant was not a member of the clergy. Our personal relationship is not related to our relationship with any deities, real or imagined. Legally, our marriage confers rights and responsibilities on us relating to property, taxes, offspring (real or imagined) and a host of other things. These rights and responsibilities should be available to anyone who wants to commit to a partner or partners in this country. Conservatives are correct that the nuclear family is the underpinning of western civilization, but they are wrong in assuming that the family can only be configured one way. What I’d like to see is the creation of a strictly secular definition of marriage to legally bind willing parties.
If you want to be married in the eyes of the state, then you have the same rights and responsibilities as any other married couple or configuration (sorry, polygamy and polygyny work in our culture and others). If you want to be married in the eyes of god then that is between you and your god(s) and the State should stay out of it. If you want to be married by a minister, rabbi, imam, or sorceress, cool. If any of those religious bodies deem you unfit to be wed before their interpretation of god, cool. By replacing State-sanctioned marriage with civil commitments for all you could ensure equal rights for all citizens while allowing people the free exercise of their religion as promised in the Constitution.
State and church, seperate and unrelated. It’s one of the great things about living in the first world. What do you think?
January 15th, 2009 at 7:52 am
I agree with the concept you have here, but there’s one little problem: Semantics. Honestly, society needs to admit that the legal contract of marriage, which can be done (and un-done) completely outside of a faith community, is not the same thing as marriage in most churches.
Just as you were married outside a church, people can be married *in* a church and have it not count legally.
The problem: Although these are two different concepts, we call them the same thing. So people who feel that their religious definition of “marriage” doesn’t apply to certain subgroups don’t want to allow those groups to have the state/legal definition of marriage, either.
It’s semantics. Therefore, we need a new word for marriage. Got any ideas? I figure you’d be able to pick something cool, Taffy.
January 15th, 2009 at 8:23 am
That semantic problem is what I was getting at but didn’t articulate well. That’s the problem with still-developing ideas. As far as terminology, I think civil union is fine. Or “teh awesomez” since “married” life rules.
January 22nd, 2009 at 8:59 am
Married life rules? You’re a sick, sick man. I agree though, civil union would be a better term, and let’s remove religion from the proceedings.