Today, I was reading this story in the Washington Post about gay, lesbian, transsexual, etc people coming out of the closet at earlier ages than previous generations. This wound up triggering some thoughts about gayness in our public sphere.
To be perfectly honest, it’s pretty hard for me to get worked up about lgbt issues. I’m not gay, and none of my gay/bisexual friends have plans to get married or join the military… so none of it really affects me per-se. Of course I hate bigotry in all of its forms, but I tend to direct my attention (and ire) towards bigotry towards atheists and Jews (as is my lineage). There is only so much righteous indignation to go around, sadly.
Getting more to the point, my normal take on Gay Marriage (the centerpiece of the so-called “homosexual agenda” for… you know… equal rights) is that Marriage is a religious establishment, and the government shouldn’t regulate it. Then I started thinking about things such as child-marriages and such, so I shied away from that extreme position. However, I thought of a new take on marriage, derived from history and tradition, that could turn the whole debate onto its ear…
Marriage, as I’m sure rational people would agree, existed long before it was written that god ordained it in the bible. Pagan religions had marriage ceremonies, and panentheistic faiths, such as Buddhism, sanction marriage. So… I think that we can safely say that Marriage is more than just a Judeo-Christian thing.
When we go about defining marriage, it is important to look at how marriages were used throughout history, and, when that is done, one reason keeps on popping up: Economics. Nobility, especially the Christian kings of medieval Europe, used marriage to expand their family’s holdings and standing among the aristocracy. Husbands were chosen based on their income, family, and holdings; wives were chosen based on their family standing and their dowries. Marriages were used by royalty to increase the size of their kingdoms and forge political alliances. In India, to give another example, parents often choose the spouses of their children based entirely on wealth and family standing, ensuring that their child(ren) will have a fiscally solvent future. To go back to the Western tradition, European Jews, throughout their history (at least to the 1800s), had “match-makers” to arrange the marriages in their villages, often seeking to elevate the standing of poor families (lest we forget Fiddler on the Roof).
Taken from its history, marriage is a business contract. Even today, where marriage for love is the ideal, arranged marriages (almost always for economic gain) happen in some circles and marriage in the US comes with tax benefits, joint ownership rights, and other perks. It is also an easy way to merge the financial assets of two individuals (such as in a joint savings account).
By labeling Marriage as a contract, we do several things: First, we disallow prohibition of Gay Marriages, because the state cannot regulate business contracts on the basis of sexual orientation. Second, we disallow marriages to minors, because children cannot consent to a contract (and the law has stepped in where contracts are exploitive of children). Also, we disallow marriages to animals and other such tomfoolery. Basically, it gives gays the right to marry each other while preempting the ridiculous slippery-slope that the right tireless throws out in response to Gay Marriage supporters.
Now, I am not advocating removing love from the marriage game–how we choose our partners is our own business. This is just a way of thinking, steeped in law, history, and tradition, that allows gays to marry so we can all go on with our lives…
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I agree with you completely that marriage can be seen as a contract. I think that one of the reasons that we’re having the problems we’re having (right-wing religion trying to regulate who can get married) is that marriage is an arena where government and religion intermingle.
On the one hand – marriage confers legal rights and responsibilities, thus putting it into the realm of government. On the other hand – marriage is a religious union (for those who are religious), thus putting it in the realm of religion.
This union of church and state leads to some interesting quandaries. On the one hand, if marriage is a legal contract administered by our government, how can our government justify denying such a contract to decent, law abiding citizens (and taxpayers). On the other hand, if marriage is a religious sactiment, how can our courts reach into our churches and dictate what constitutes a marriage.
It seems to me that the way out of this briarpatch is to separate marriage the legal contract from marriage the religious sanctiment. Let Caesar handle his part and religion handle theirs. Have a civil union contract and whatever ceremony any church or civic group wants to throw for their people is their business. This way each church or group can define marriage on their own terms, keep what is a spiritual arrangement in the hands of those who handle such things and let the government keep it’s role limited to legal administration.
It is certainly the right of any church to recognize -or not recognize – any family unit they choose to.
Additionally, I have no argument against the view of marriage as a legal contract.
However, over the past few centuries, the state (or the United States, if you prefer) has encouraged such contracts by giving tax incentives, and other benefits to such partnerships.
This is point on which I object to gay marriage. We have all agreed (here) that marriage is not really an emotionally based “declaration of love” but a contractual arrangement. If emotion is left out of the equation, what do gays stand to gain from marriage? Why bother? The answer is access to benefits (such as tax breaks for married couples)for which they would not otherwise qualify.
Thus, since the tax burden of the nation remains the same and these couples will contribute less, I will be taxed more as a result of them being allowed a status that was formerly more exclusive.
Of what benefit to me or the state is this? You may argue that the burden is so slight that I will not notice, but that is not the same as saying that it does not exist. Additionally, you have no basis on which to claim that gay marriages will remain at a minimumal level.
You are, perhaps subconciously, assuming that gay marriage is emotionally or sexually based, and that hetrosexual males or females would not choose to enter into a gay marriage. Your argument that marriage is not emotionally based but merely a contract for economic advantage weighs against you here. When I was immediately out of college and unmarried, I had a good job but, of course had debts. Were I married I could have reduced my tax burden and combined my economic earning power for better loan rates, etc, by marrying my roommate. We both would have benefited.
If either of us chose to later marry females, a no-fault divorce between us guys would be easily arranged.