marriage
- Friday, November 19th, 2004 at 3:40 PM
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- Daily life
While visiting thundercake.com because the owner reviewed 3till7.net, I noticed a button linking to this petition, which I signed. I also added my own little button to the left column under ‘Support’.
Anyway, this prompted me to ask Trinity what her opinion on marriage is, if she thinks that there should be any amendment (nationally or in state constitutions) describing marriage as a union between a man and a woman. I decided to write up a summary of my opinion on the whole deal here.
I think there should be governmental control and regulation over unions between two people. Part of these unions should be the legal benefits and protection that being married gives. I don’t see that the government should have any say in who those two people are. That there is debate over a man marrying another man or a woman marrying another woman is extremely bizarre to me.
I discussed this with a friend of mine and she believed that marriage should be solely between a man and a woman, but that for gay couples there should be civil unions that have the same legal benefits as marriages. My big question there was, so the only difference between a “marriage” and a “civil union” is the terminology? It seems remarkably silly to be arguing semantics but it made me wonder if one of the problems people have with the idea of homosexuals getting “married” is that their unions will be referred to as “marriages.”
Another plausible reason that goes along with that idea is that the word “marriage” has religious connotations in the minds of many (most?) people in this country. By “religious” I’m mostly meaning “Christian” but it applies to other religions that view homosexual relations as wrong, too. I realize that the majority of this country identifies as Christian but I disagree with the fact that religious beliefs are crossing over into governmental rule. Just because some religions, even this country’s main religion, belief that homosexual relationships are immoral does not mean that our government should. I’m all for separation of church and state. The government should be entirely and indisputably neutral in terms of religion. Now, if complete separation from religious ideals is possible or not I don’t know, since, after all, the government is made up of individual people who may have religious beliefs deeply ingrained in them. I think it would be quite hard for everyone in the government to be completely objective and not let their religion influence their decisions and actions when doing governmental tasks.
Not to get “religion” and “morals” confused here: I firmly think that a person’s morals should influence their decisions and actions, just not that person’s religion. We vote for elected officials based upon the morals they have displayed, through actions and words, so that they might support things in the government that go along with those morals. Merriam-Webster defines “moral” as “of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior”. Belief in Jesus Christ is not a moral. Believing there is an afterlife is not a moral. Belief that there are no deities is not a moral. Rule by governmental figures based upon morals is good while rule by governmental figures based upon religious particulars is bad.
I hear a lot of people talking about the right of marriage. Who ever said marriage was a right? It’s not enumerated in the Bill of Rights. Certainly the framers had no desire of making same-sex marriages or unions protected by the Constitution.
Of course I realize that rights are not protected or given by the government. And that just because it’s not mentioned in the Constitution doesn’t mean it isn’t a right. Just something to think about.
Ideally, marriage should be a state issue, as it has for the history of the republic. In fact, it is legal (or at least not strongly enforced) to practice Polygamy in some western states.
The problem is, we have a lot of judges who like to make laws from the bench. And say things like “If a same sex marriage is legal in one state, it is legal in all states.” This imposes the rule of one people over a different people who hold no political power in the former jurisdiction. This is bad.
This is why some federal amendment is needed. It should not define marriage as between a man and a woman (though states should be free to do so), but it should clarify that such arrangements are at the state level, and affect only the state which legislated them.
That, or marriage should be privitized. In other words, there is no legal status as marriage. People can get married in a Church if it makes them feel better, and people can live together however. People can start corporations or partnerships to obtain joint legal rights. No reason to call it something special.