Dana, I also want to be very careful with this hot potato, for similar reasons that you state. I however, take a more nuanced approach. Also, in the name of full disclosure, I have a gay child, so this hits me a little closer than some.

My approach is this: There are two aspects to what we call marriage in this country. One is the historically religious aspect. All religious groups have some definition of who they will marry under their various religious guidelines. The other aspect is what could be called the civil contract of marriage. This is the part that does things like grant automatic survivor rights, automatic next of kin notification, property rights of various kinds, and so on. I would suggest that the solution to the dilemma is simple: separate the two.

Allow any religious group to marry or NOT marry, anybody they choose. The only legal restrictions would specify that the married parties have to be adults.

Then, define a civil process whereby any two people who want to create this special form of contract could do so. Again, the restriction would have to specify adults only.

Great post. You articulate so idea the definition of tolerance.

Hs-

Just to clarify, what constitutes a marriage? Is your definition two, unmarried individuals that are of consenting age?

Wowee..I’ll try to answer the question…

Marriage is, at it’s heart, a covenant relationship between two people, who publicly commit to that relationship. It has it’s religious overtones, the word covenant is chosen carefully.

The two key words are covenant and public. Covenant is similar to contract, but there are more meanings there. At it’s base, a covenant between two people is a commitment to share all they have with the other. Doing it publicly means that society recognizes the covenant between these two specific individuals and grants certain legal rights to go with it.

I guess what I’m saying in all this is that I think civil union laws are the answer. To the gay community, I would say, “Stop calling it marriage, and you’ll lower the temperature of the rhetoric, and you’ll offend fewer of the religious folks.” To the vocal straight community, I would say, “Get off your moral high horse about homosexuality. In reality, it’s none of your business what other people do in the privacy of their homes, and who they do it with. The gay folks really want the same thing you want: to be able to say publicly that this person is my chosen partner, and to obtain some basic legal protections with minimal hassle.”

Consider this, with all the push for state and federal constitutional amendments to ‘defend marriage’: The basic principle of the founders is that rights are inherent, they are granted by the Creator, to paraphrase Jefferson. The job of government is to protect those rights, not grant them. A defense of marriage act would actually LIMIT a right to a certain class of people, rather than recognize a universal right.

hs-

I am playing devil’s advocate with this one but bear with me. Your definition is ‘a covenant relationship between two people, who publicly commit to that relationship.’ Since we are broadening the definition, could I, by that logic, marry my brother? Could I marry my mother? Both scenarios are two citizens, unmarried, and of consenting age. We already have many of the legal rights that are obtained through marriage, but we want the name too. I do not think that polygamist marriages or marriages with animals are next, but I think it is an interesting example to consider.

My hypothetical above was just food for thought, not an argument. My actual problem with the recent California decision is two-fold. First, judicial activism is not the role of the courts. They have slowly increased their power from their original role, that of deciding whether or not something is constitutional. Secondly, the ruling talks about the rights of ‘gay couples’. Couples do not have rights. Individuals have rights. An individual has the right to marry someone of the opposite sex, a right that is held by all. A couple has no right to marriage, it is the rights of two people at hand. The term couple is amorphous and ill-defined. It may be nit-picking, but the decision was poorly worded at best and fundamentally flawed at worst.

Well written Dana, especially given that this is a tough subject to write about and not come off as being “all for” or “all against” gay marriage.

As hs said, from a legal standpoint, marriage is nothing more than a section of the tax code. It is a merger of two entities. (This does not, by the way, make it a right like some like to bring up.) From this point of view (especially given the hassles of power of attorney for medical matters, health insurance issues, inheritence, and so forth) it makes perfect sense why two committed people would want to have that legal merger available to them.

The problem for gay marriage advocates of course is that marriage in the legal sense arose from marriage in the religious sense. Don’t forget for that most of this country’s history (and a lot of the countries our ancestors came from) we weren’t worried about immigration enforcement as nearly as much as we were growing the population of the country. Marriage and the subsequent creation of children were deemed vital to the long term health and well-being of America or any other colony. It only made sense to formally legalize marriage to encourage and protect this idea as a way to promote the population growth. Tax breaks, inheritence rules, property ownership, and so forth became added incentives to get married, if for no other reason than that they removed possible burdens to couples starting out (usually young, usually just starting to make their own path in the world).

Now I mention this obvious history lesson because it has a lot to do with the feelings of some people today. Marriage may have two aspects to it, but to many it is the religious side that is the most important. And the religious side, of course, has from pretty definitive definitions of what is and what isn’t acceptable.

The gay community wants “marriage” in part because that will (in their mind) make them more acceptable, more mainstream, to society. It will help legitimize who they are and why they are.

I think most people are like me, in that they can understand both sides of the argument and have a hard time choosing one over the other. Both sides make good points, and both sides make bad points.

hs, once again you bring up a good idea by saying that the gay community should stop calling it marriage. Some variant of legal merger (civil union as you mentioned) would appease some objections to marriage while still maintaining the same legal rights and advantages of marriage that heterosexual couples enjoy. Of course, many gays are religious too, and want that blessing from God just as much as my wife and I did, so even this idea can become a complicated one rather quickly.

Wowee your second post is also a point I have made in the past, and like you it was not made to be obnoxious or over the top, but to bring up a valid extension of an argument often used by the gay community. Your thoughts about “couples rights” is something that never occurred to me and was very interesting.

Here’s why I’m against gay marriage. I don’t believe people are born gay, straight or anything else. There is no set percentage of gays in any society due to a gay gene. Legalizing gay marriage is essentially promoting the gay lifestyle. Society needs heterosexual relationships to be the norm in order to survive.

Here’s another thought. If you do believe people are born gay or straight, then you must believe people are also born bisexual. Following that logic, you cannot limit marriage to just two people because it is unfair to bisexuals. Regardless of what anyone says, legalizing gay marriage is opening a pandora’s box.

To stir the pot a little more, , I would comment that any church is, and should be, free to marry whomever they want. The state has no business telling a church who they may (or may not) marry. If a particular church wants to marry gay folks, that is certainly an issue for the CHURCH to deal with in it’s own ways, but it is not an issue for the law to be involved in.

Thanks guys, for rational comments, and for staying away from the overheated rhetoric that is so common. To be honest, I’ve never quite understood the logic behind how banning ‘gay marriage’ is defending traditional marriage, and how a pair of committed gays living next door casts doubt on the legitimacy of my marriage.

Wowee: to go back at your devil’s advocate statement. Let’s say that marriage is a covenant relationship between two people who are not otherwise related by blood. There, that resolves your debating point.

Tim,

You say: “The problem for gay marriage advocates of course is that marriage in the legal sense arose from marriage in the religious sense.”

So what about all the atheist straight couples who have gotten married down at City Hall over the years? These are people who choose to not have a religious ceremony but to get a marriage certificate from the state. That’s all the proof in the world that CIVIL marriage is a totally separate concept from a RELIGIOUS marriage ceremony. Prop 8 would in no way, shape or form force any church to marry two people of the same sex. Some churches, such as the Metropolitan Community Church and the Unitarians, may choose to do that if they wish, though, which is something they’ve been doing (not just in Calif.) for years. Nor would Prop 8 force heterosexuals to marry people of their same sex, which seems like a ridiculous claim, but the Yes-on-Prop-8 crowd would like you to believe that. All Prop 8 does is say that since straight people have the right to a CIVIL marriage certificate in the state of California, gay people should have that right as well. And if you think marriage is not a right, try outlawing straight marriage and you’ll find out really fast how quickly straight people will call it a right.

Nick123,

Shouldn’t we outlaw marriage for Jewish people (or Catholics, or Presbyterians, or Muslims), because which church you attend or which creed you follow is a choice (unless you’re a minor and your parents force you)? Shouldn’t we force people to prove to the world that they were born Baptist, Lutheran, etc., or whatever religion the State deems to be the “one true faith”?

And while we’re at it, shouldn’t people be forced to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were born with an innate interest in rock music, rather than having chosen it as their favorite musical genre, if we feel that classical, jazz, etc. is the best (and therfore the only worthy) music to listen to? Why not base everything in life based on a choice vs. born-that-way decision, if it is anything that we happen to disagree with? Where in the Constitution does it say that we can just outlaw things that we disagree with, provided the person doing it can’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they did not conscientiously choose that way of life?

You also say: “Society needs heterosexual relationships to be the norm in order to survive.” Well what about straight couples who marry where one, the other, or both are barren / shooting blanks? What about elderly straight couples who no longer can produce offspring? What about straight couples who choose to not have kids, for one reason or another? What about couples who marry for 55 hours, a la Britney Spears in Vegas a few years ago? What about gay couples who have been together many years and have adopted children or who have children through artificial insemination? And what about a straight couple who chooses to have (or can only have) one child, compared to another straight couple who end up having 10 kids? Shouldn’t we dissolve the marriage of the couple with only one child because they did not live up to our expectations?