Marriage is, as defined by Wikipedia, “an interpersonal relationship (usually intimate and sexual) with governmental, social, or religious recognition. It is often created by a contract or through civil processes. Civil marriage is the legal concept of marriage as a governmental institution.”
The problem with marriage is that the civil, religious and social aspects have become intertwined. When many people consider gay marriage, they take this holistic view of what “marriage” is and isn’t in their eyes, as opposed to what “marriage” looks like in the eyes of the government. Even many critics of gay marriage support the idea of civil unions for homosexual couples – but are reluctant to call it “civil marriage” because of what that means to them.
I have a simple, if controversial, solution to this. We should simply remove the emotional baggage of “marriage” from the equation and make this separation explicit. Going forward, the government should recognize a commitment between two parties that has contractual and civil rights through what it calls civil union. Marriage then becomes just the religious and social recognition of the union, at which point it’s fine for social and religious groups to interject their own morals and values into the mix.
As I discussed in my analysis of the Goodridge case, the idea of extending civil union to homosexuals – and marriage only to heterosexuals - is troubling. “Even if the rights are the same, the mere fact that they must call it something else is in and of itself discriminatory. As [the judge] pointed out, ‘the history of our nation has demonstrated that separate is seldom, if ever, equal.’”
Furthermore:
The other point to keep in mind here is that we are discussing the civil construct of marriage - that is, as recognized by the government. It is important to separate the moral and religious underpinnings that are closely associated with what many normally think of in terms of marriage. Freedom of religion is an essential First Amendment right, and the separation of Church and State is critical to properly preserving this right.
A good example of this is divorce. Catholicism does not allow divorce, but the government does. Allowing same-sex marriage does not mean that their Church must necessarily accept those vows - only that the government does.
Obviously, this would be fairly controversial and I don’t think it would actually work in practice – but hopefully it at least frames the debate in terms of what the issues really are. We’re talking about the civil aspects of marriage – the property ownership, visitation rights, medical benefits – not the religious, moral and social aspects. In that sense, the government should treat all citizens equal, regardless of whether it is a choice or not.
Note: While I would definitely love to have rational discourse on this topic, I will absolutely not tolerate any hateful comments on my blog. Any such comments will be deleted, so don’t bother leaving them.