On the Definition of Marriage

And I ask myself, should I really go here? I have a variety of thoughts on the subject and the knee-jerk reaction to my definition by someone who does not read thoroughly is "my gosh - he's anti-homosexual". So I am not even sure if I should address this topic, but what the hell.

First, I don't care what you do with another consenting adult (or group of consenting adults, for that matter) - within certain parameters of public safety and public decency. One should not, for example, hold an orgy on one's front lawn. The public safety bit is a little more difficult to pin down, but hinges on not trying to kill each other during sexual activity. Beyond that, what you do in the bedroom (or any other room for that matter) is nobody's business but the people involved, and anyone else they want to include in the conversation.

But once the term "marriage" gets involved, everyone gets their panties in a twist. Lets try to look at this from a historical perspective first, then move on from there. Both sides of the gay/traditional marriage try to co-opt the history for their own movement, but I am afraid that the heterosexuals win out on the history angle.

But don't throw your hands up in exasperation (if you are for gay marriage) or exultation (if you are for "traditional" marriage) just yet. While the historical precedent for homosexual marriage is really nowhere in any society, save for a few Roman Emperors and other Roman upper echelon folk (where it was clearly an exception to the norm), there is a lot of precedent for homosexual long-term committed relationships; they were simply never called marriages.

In ancient Greece, particularly, it was common for men to take male lovers, because, though you were expected to marry and have a wife who bore you children, women were thought of in many circles as less than men, and only another man could truly understand love (this was not the position of Socrates, interestingly enough, and the way Plato describes it, he had some issues with Athenian men as a result, but that is for another time).

History is rife with examples of this kind of relationship, but it has never been granted the status of "marriage" in any but those rare Roman cases (in one case a male emperor reputedly married a male eunuch who he forced to impersonate the wife that the emperor had killed - I believe that is how the story goes). Marriage has always been a man and a woman, a man and several women, or more rarely a woman and several men.

And this is where I take a bit of an abrupt turn. In all of this discussion, polygamy has a much stronger history than either gay marriage or "traditional" marriage. And yet this is completely excluded from the discussion. Why is it disallowed? Utah was forced to drop polygamy before it was allowed to become a state. There are laws against bigamy all over the place, and yet there is no hue and cry to undo these, even though they are clearly discriminate solely based on a lifestyle choice.

Of course, were polygamy allowed, it would foul up the tax code something fierce - they would have to have different scales for three and four and five adult person households, etc. There are several fairly easy ways around this, but it would take a pretty significant revision of the tax code to deal with it.

The reason, historically, that marriage has been defined as it has is that the family is intended as a medium for procreation and passing on mores, social norms, and customs. Up until recently, this was outside the purview of the homosexual couple. With artificial insemination and adoption being much more available now, as well as homosexuality no longer being considered a mental illness, this is changing. Marriages and families are no longer solely for the generation of children, and there are a number of modern day issues that are important for married couples. The issue of visiting in a hospital and potentially making life-and-death decisions for a spouse is terribly important. Inheritance and jointly owned property and rights upon the death of a spouse are also crucial issues, as are citizenship issues.

But the real problem comes down to the word. Marriage is a religious ceremony, and has sacramental connotations. A church can and should have its own rules about who can or cannot marry (incidentally, the Catholic Church will probably never allow gay marriage until priests are allowed to marry - the celibate priesthood is the one place a devout gay Catholic male can go, and if gays could marry, you would see a radical decline in men becoming priests). The problem becomes severe when the state issues "marriage licences". Of course, a stable family unit is the basis for any society, and this is why the state has always intermingled itself in the marriage business. Especially as the society gets more complex, the legal ramifications of marriage and divorce become extreme.

But here is the real problem: marriage now implies love, even with the state licence. You aren't supposed to marry for the tax benefit (if there is one), and you certainly are not allowed to marry just to grant someone citizenship (this is illegal, I believe). But why not? The state should be involved in only the contractual obligations involved in a marriage - the so-called "civil union" aspects of it. The issue would get a lot clearer if the state just issues civil union licences and gets out of the whole marriage business. Leave that to the churches - the state does not issue Reconciliation, Anointing of the Sick, or any other Sacrament, Catholic or otherwise (and obviously, I am Catholic, which is why I am using the term "Sacrament"). If people have fiscal reasons for engaging in this contract, let them. Of course, what about polygamy? Liberals are going to duck that one forever, because it makes them way more uncomfortable than gay marriage - gay marriage panders to a voting bloc of theirs, polygamy does not.

Long story short, the state should not be in the marriage business, but it should deal with the appropriate legal ramifications of any union in terms of property rights, etc., and the state should provide equal protection to the citizens that make it up (according to the US Constitution), so there is no reason to oppose the state such licences - the term marriage, however should be reserved for the churches, and if the church of which you are a member does not recognize your relationship, join one that does.

Personally, I need neither the state nor a religious institution to validate my relationship - we do that ourselves (with some help from family and friends).

By the way, while I spent a lot of time on the history of marriage, and the heterosexual nature thereof, history itself is not a sufficient reason to be for or against something. History provides context, but it does not provide answers, and we should have the courage to embrace history when it serves us, and discard it when it does not.

A perfect example are the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights. These were codified and written out precisely because there was not much historical precedent for them, and the ratifying states wanted guarantees that the Federal government would not overreach.

Both sides of the gay marriage argument want history to be on their side, but it does not matter a whit. What matters is the rights of the individuals involved, and right now the state does a good job of fouling everything up by inserting itself in a religious matter.

That is enough for now, not like anyone will ever read this.