On redefining marriage
Today I read a post at the Volokh Conspiracy talking about a ballot measure to ban same-sex marriage in Massachusetts. It has been a while since SSM crossed my RSS reader so I thought I’d take a look at the comments to see if people were still spewing the same arguments. It seems they are! Specifically the, “they’re trying to redefine marriage!” argument.
Why don’t we redefine marriage? I mean, we (as in Western civilization) have redefined it several times before: Marriage used to be a social contract between two families. Rarely was it about just two people. For thousands of years it was about allegiances, shared resources, and good will. I’m not sure when it changed (the Renaissance?) but at some point we created the following “definitions” which are world’s apart from the definition of the past:
- When a man and a woman live together for over 10 years.
- When a man and a woman love each other and go through a religious ceremony; taking vows respective of their shared religion.
- When a man and a woman love each other and go through a civil ceremony; vowing whatever they please.
- When a man and woman love each other and go through a brief ceremony by way of a sea captain; not having to vow anything in particular.
- A legally-binding contract between two parties of the opposite sex that affords them special rights and privileges.
If it weren’t for that last one—particularly the “special rights and privileges” part—the whole issue of SSM wouldn’t have been an issue at all. If it remained merely a ceremony outside of law homosexuals would not have had anything to fight for. It would not have gone to court and people would find something else to get angry about.
So why don’t we just settle this once and for all and redefine marriage to something a bit more basic?
- A specialty, legally-binding contract between two parties that covers the rights of two people regarding family affairs (such as inheritance, visitation, children, alimony, etc).
Then the religious can have their religious ceremonies, the non-religious can have their civil ceremonies, the pirates can have their rum at sea, and gay couples can attain equal treatment under the law.
5 Responses to 'On redefining marriage'
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on May 29th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
I’m agin’ it.
The way I see it, “marriage” is a fundamentally religious thing, regardless of whether the people being married or doing the marriage are particularly religious. For this reason, I feel that “marriage” should not be changed, as that would be infringing on people’s religious rights. You can’t tell the church that they have to marry gays, when the Bible (and countless bumper stickers) define marriage as (marriage) = (man) + (woman).
That said, I think we should be taking the empasis off of religious ceremonies we have no particular religious opinion on; so many people define marriage as “the ultimate expression of love,” and treat it as if it’s the end-all beat-all way to make sure your spouse doesn’t cheat on you — despite the fact that it’s currently easier to get divorced (amicably, anyway) than it is to get married in the first place. Not to mention that over half of married couples get divorced. Ultimate expression my butt.
No, I think the only solution is to let religious people have their marriage ceremonies, and KEEP THE GOVERNMENT THE CRAP OUT OF MY BUSINESS. Whew, sorry ’bout that.
People go on and on about the “benefits” of marriage. I say let’s get rid of ‘em. No tax breaks, no governmental recognition at all. If I choose to be with someone, that’s between that someone and me. If we decide we want to have some kind of ceremony then great. If not — even greater. Sure, there’re survivor benefits and whatnot, but that’s what wills are for. Rather than having hospitals only allow visitation rights for “married” people, we should just have a list of who we do or don’t want to visit.
Basically I think we should keep our hands off marriage; rather than trying to redefine it so that gays can participate, why don’t we just fix the system so that they don’t have to? If my gay friends want to have a “church wedding,” I’m sure they’ll have no problem finding a Unitarian or someone to give them one… let’s just keep the government out of it altogether. They can’t do much right in the first place, why do we think it’s still ok for them to be deciding who we can and can’t love?
Just my $0.02
on May 31st, 2007 at 10:55 am
Jer, what you’re suggesting is highly impractical. Here’s why:
Marriage doesn’t just provide “benefits” in the form of tax breaks. It also provides “benefits” like family court, child custody, inheritance, and visitation rights. If a gay couple cannot marry, how can we provide them equal rights with married couples? Remember: Marriage isn’t just about the two people who are married. It is about their children, their dependents, their financial and housing arrangements, and many other things.
Also, your argument doesn’t make sense at all if some religions allow gay marriages while others do not. Since religions like this do exist it would be highly unfair to only provide marriage status to those couples that meet the requirements of other religions. In effect, by allowing gay marriage you’re not forcing anyone to do anything but by disallowing gay marriage you’re providing greater legal benefits to one religion over another. Besides being a violation of the establishment clause of the Constitution it violates the very idea of equal rights for all (not to mention a few civil rights laws).
To “fix the system” as you say, we’d need to get rid of a whole slew of laws that were put into place to protect people from abusive spouses, inequitable distribution of family wealth, and children’s rights.
-Riskable
“A closed mind cannot open another.”
on May 31st, 2007 at 7:27 pm
My system doesn’t discriminate between religions allowing or disallowing marriage, because the government will be out of it all together. If one person’s religion wants to marry you, then great — you’re married. The government just doesn’t have anything to do with it. That marital status wouldn’t tie you to any rights, priveleges, or protections.
You’re stuck in the “the government needs to run things” mentality here… In my utopian vision, all the things you listed, whether it be custody, inheritance, visitation are not handled by the government. You don’t need marriage to enforce those things — that’s just the lazy, closed-minded way we’re doing it now. Every one of those things can be adequately handled with appropriate legal documents — in fact many gay couples currently handle them this way.
All I’m saying is that you can redefine marriage until you’re blue in the face, but the only way it can ever be handled fairly is to keep the government out of it altogether. That way you’re fair to the people who don’t want to take part in a religious institution. Why should I have to go through a stupid mumbojumbo-filled ceremony in order to ensure that my kids are protected? I shouldn’t, but that will never change as long as people keep just expecting the government and marriage to handle that stuff for them.
That’s all I’m saying. Marriage is religion. Government is supposed to not be involved with religion, right?
Obviously there are hurdles to work over, I just really think people need to stop treating marriage as if it’s something it’s not.
on May 31st, 2007 at 7:30 pm
Er… When I said “In my utopian vision, all the things you listed, whether it be custody, inheritance, visitation are not handled by the government.” I meant to include “through marriage.” Obviously “legal documents” would still be the government running things. As libertarian as the side of me that likes frosting is, I just can’t see a way to keep them out ENTIRELY
on June 1st, 2007 at 8:14 pm
I see several problems with your method:
1) Lawyers are much more expensive than marriage licenses. Not only that, but the amount of legal documentation and paperwork necessary to get the equivalent of marriage would be staggering.
2) You’re assuming that people can even afford a lawyer to get these documents written up in the first place. Let’s face the reality: People won’t bother and then who will be stuck mediating custody, inheritance, and every other legal thing typically associated with marriage? The government, that’s who. And it will be a hell of a lot more complicated. You could just say, “Screw em. If they didn’t bother with the paperwork it is their own fault.” but that wouldn’t be particularly fair to the children who’s mother just died or the wife who’s left with raising two kids after the husband walks out. Have fun convincing all men everywhere to sign their name on the dotted line indicating that they’ll pay alimony.
3) You need the government to get involved anyway so why not keep things as simple as possible? Simplicity means efficiency and efficient governments are cheap(er) governments. Every couple will have their own custom documents that will have to be carefully examined and interpreted by judges, lawyers, and it judicial precedent won’t be much help.
4) It still doesn’t solve other “rights” problems. No matter what two couples sign they still can’t get in to see their loved ones in a hospital without an easily-proved “family” relationship. I know this is due to other (extremely complex) government regulations but those regulations (HIPAA) were put in place because the private healthcare system wasn’t “doing the right thing” when it comes to patient privacy. Rather than redefine this and thousands of other laws to include gay couples wouldn’t it be much more efficient to allow gays to marry?
5) Marriage isn’t religion it is cultural. It is easy to confuse the two but there’s an important distinction. It should be obvious if you consider that non-religious people have been getting “married” for thousands of years. My wife and I had a beautiful ceremony that didn’t involve even the slightest hint of religion.
-Riskable
“If you truly believe your religion is without flaw
You will have no desire to make it the law”