I was flipping through the channels the other day and I came across a show on PBS that caught my eye. It was a broadcast of a class from Harvard. The name of the class was "
Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?" and it was taught by Professor Michael Sandel. The class was more of an open discussion about some of the issues that are the most divisive in our society right now -- affirmative-action, gay marriage, and religion to name a few.
The discussion involved the professor making some introductory statements and then inviting the class members to stand up and provide their opinion on the matter. To be sure, not everyone was in agreement. The point of the class was to show that you could have meaningful and calm discussions about these topics without them turning into shouting contests. The class attempted to show that each side has a valid position and that we need to work together to find the common ground.
Of all the parts I watched, the one that interested me the most was when they were talking about Gay Marriage. During this discussion, one of the students stood up and questioned why the government was in the business of marrying people anyway. That is an interesting point. As I watched the rest of the show, I kept thinking back to this one statement over and over. Why does the government marry people? What if the government stopped recognizing all marriages?
Before I get into that, let me digress for a moment and review the most common reasons that people say they are opposed to gay marriage.
The biggest argument against is that it diminishes the sanctity of marriage. That is, the good name of marriage itself is tarnished because two people of the same sex are married. This argument disregards all of the other things legal things that people do that fly in the face of marriage -- divorces, Vegas-weddings, adultery.
Another argument is that by legalizing gay marriage, the government will be forcing churches to marry people they would not otherwise marry. To generalize, Catholics think homosexuality is wrong and fear that the government will start forcing them to perform marriages for gay people.
Now, let's get back to the discussion about why the government marries people.
Few will argue that marriage is, at its core, a religious institution. In fact, when people argue about the sanctity of marriage, they often site the Bible as justification for their position. That being the case, if the constitution clearly forbids the government from endorsing a religion, why does the government have to endorse marriages. The government does not have any requirements with regard to baptism or communion or confirmation. Why does the sacrament of marriage require government intervention? Simple answer ... money.
There is no change to tax status when someone is baptised, confirmed, or has their first communion. But when you are married, now you are operating almost like a small business. What was once two sole proprietorships is now a partnership. There are all kinds of financial issues that need to be dealt with. In addition there are legal issues that must be addressed when one of the partners dies, becomes sick, or leaves. The government has a process in place to deal with such mergers at a purely legal level. They are called civil unions.
From the government's point of view, two people in a civil union are now a single enterprise with all of the rights and privileges that a married couple would have. If you take away the religious considerations, everyone that is married is really just engaged in a civil union. And here we arrive at the point of this post. Rather than fighting for the government to recognize gay marriage, why don't we fight to say that the government should not recognize ANY marriage?
Consider this. When you get a marriage license, it simply gives you permission to get married by a qualified individual. That person could be a justice of the peace or a minister or a ship's captain if that floats your boat. In essence the marriage license has formed a civil union between two people and those two people can then go and get married in whatever way they see fit. Why not just call it a civil union license?
That would certainly address the first issue surrounding gay marriage. If the government only performed civil unions, then each religious organization could define marriage however they want. The government would have no say in the matter and it would have no reason to get involved. There would be no cries to protect the sanctity of marriage because each church would decide for themselves whether two people are married. The government is completely removed from the equation.
Some might argue that it is impossible to separate the government recognition of marriage and a church's recognition of marriage. But this separation already exists today and it leads to the second argument people use against gay marriage.
If I was baptist, I could not get married in a Catholic church. The church would not perform the ceremony. Many Rabbi's will not marry two people unless both are Jewish. If anyone has an issue with this, they either change to conform to those requirements or they find another church or synagogue. No one raises this as an issue to the supreme court. And why not? Because it is not the government's business to dictate what a church does. All the government cares about is the marriage license and the legal aspects of the process.
This addresses the second argument against gay marriage. If the government does not force a Catholic church to marry two Baptists or force a Rabbi to marry non-Jews, then why should there be any expectation that the government would force a church to marry two gay people? To me this is a non-issue and something people use to stir up more debate.
There is one other side of this. Some people oppose even allowing civil unions between homosexual couples. To me, this is just pure discrimination. This does not have any religious aspects to it. This is simply someone saying I do not want you to have this because you are different. This has no place in our society at all and should not even be debated.
If we dig down into the core of the gay marriage debate, I think we will find that we are fighting the wrong battle. Let's all just get Civil Unions from the government and then choose for ourselves if, and where, we wish to be married. I know it is a long shot, but I thought it was an interesting angle.
