Gay Marriage, Civil Unions and the Role of Religion
I must say that I am perplexed (but not surprised) about the uproar over California's legalization of gay marriage. Reports have already surfaced that county clerks are refusing to issue marriage licenses or preside over them because they believe it would effect "administrative and budgetary concerns", but others are at least honest in saying that it would conflict with their religious beliefs, a premise that I believe is misguided. Let me explain.
Religious people contend that marriage is a sacred religious institution, and with regards to their particular religuous beliefs, it in theory is. But religious institutions are private entities removed from the state. A "traditional" marriage in those terms is an institution defined by the tenants of your particular religion,with little intrusion from the state. Legal instruments are atheist (or at least agnostic) in their design and conduct.
State sanctioned "marriage" is not a marriage at all.. Going to a courthouse and filling out an application and paying a fee is no different for obtaining a marriage license than it is for reassigning a car title at the DMV. Clerks that regard their duties to sign marriage licenses only for traditional couples are in fact annointing themselves as clergy, which I think is an illogical and unwarranted expansion of their mission and power. They seem to imply that somehow the rights to purchase health insurance for a partner or transfer property to another party in the event of death are codified in religious texts, reserved only for straight couples. Its been a little while since I picked up the bible, so forgive me if I fail to cite which passage deals with filing a joint tax return.
Whether you agree or not, in the eyes of the state, all state sanctioned marriages are civil unions. They are simply contracts which hold us to legal standards of a freely democratic and secular state. People are only married within a private religious institution that exists within our existing social framework and thus your are held accountable by the deity (or deities) of your respective religion. Clerks are bureaucratic administrators, not religious leaders. Thus, it is difficult for them to say that their role as a clerk conflicts with their religious beliefs. Could you imagine if they started denying the legalty of wills or stopped issuing driver's licenses to gays? We would (or should) understandly be outraged. How dare their beliefs intrude on the private lives of others?
To me, refusal to issue a state sponsored marriage certificate is inconsistent with the belief in individualism and limited government intervention. This seems to be the hallmark of our current iteration of conservatives. They are fine with allowing the various robber barons of the day to have their way with the citizenry.... but if two gay people want to have a loving relationship, then they seem to revel in directing the state to intervene and seperate them like a teacher at a middle school dance. To me this seems both contradictory and malicious.
There are only two reasons I can identify why people would oppose gay marriage. First, people do not want want to lose the social status of being "married".By denying alternative structures of "marriage" they can help promote themselves and their religious institutions as being the dominant value structure in society. Secondly, people believe that validation of the legal framework for alternative marriages will promote them and undermine "family values". But there is plenty of information out there that refutes the idea that sanction is an effective deterrent to alternative lifestyles.
In the most extreme case.... despite the threat of execution, there appears to be a bustling, though secretive gay population in Iran. So it is perhaps not a phenomenon that is conditioned by its environment. As for family values, how can week seek to promote love and understanding in a society that does not view them as legitimate values? Not giving gay couples the right to enter into government sanctioned contracts is not going to dissuade people from being gay, if anything it empowers their struggle for acceptance. As gays are estimated to constitute perhaps 10% of the population (though a difficult population to gauge) the population is too sizeable to simply ignore (could be over 30 million). I would also have to question the commitment of the moral majority on the "sanctity of marriage" argument on an institution that ultimately fails over half of the time.
Perhaps it is merely a question of semantics. Nearly 60% of Americans are in support of "civil unions" but constitutional bans on "gay marriage" are likely to pass in even in the most liberal states (ex. California passed Proposition 22 in 2000). This is highly unusual, as perhaps the only difference between the two would be the title on the application. Any student of policy diffusion can see the writing on the wall that these court decisions and gay marriage licence provisions will be interpreted as equal protection under the Constitution and disseminate out into a larger number of the states over time. Its just a shame that millions will be denied the exercise of basic civil rights until the rest of America progresses enough to live up to its principles.
Religious people contend that marriage is a sacred religious institution, and with regards to their particular religuous beliefs, it in theory is. But religious institutions are private entities removed from the state. A "traditional" marriage in those terms is an institution defined by the tenants of your particular religion,with little intrusion from the state. Legal instruments are atheist (or at least agnostic) in their design and conduct.
State sanctioned "marriage" is not a marriage at all.. Going to a courthouse and filling out an application and paying a fee is no different for obtaining a marriage license than it is for reassigning a car title at the DMV. Clerks that regard their duties to sign marriage licenses only for traditional couples are in fact annointing themselves as clergy, which I think is an illogical and unwarranted expansion of their mission and power. They seem to imply that somehow the rights to purchase health insurance for a partner or transfer property to another party in the event of death are codified in religious texts, reserved only for straight couples. Its been a little while since I picked up the bible, so forgive me if I fail to cite which passage deals with filing a joint tax return.
Whether you agree or not, in the eyes of the state, all state sanctioned marriages are civil unions. They are simply contracts which hold us to legal standards of a freely democratic and secular state. People are only married within a private religious institution that exists within our existing social framework and thus your are held accountable by the deity (or deities) of your respective religion. Clerks are bureaucratic administrators, not religious leaders. Thus, it is difficult for them to say that their role as a clerk conflicts with their religious beliefs. Could you imagine if they started denying the legalty of wills or stopped issuing driver's licenses to gays? We would (or should) understandly be outraged. How dare their beliefs intrude on the private lives of others?
To me, refusal to issue a state sponsored marriage certificate is inconsistent with the belief in individualism and limited government intervention. This seems to be the hallmark of our current iteration of conservatives. They are fine with allowing the various robber barons of the day to have their way with the citizenry.... but if two gay people want to have a loving relationship, then they seem to revel in directing the state to intervene and seperate them like a teacher at a middle school dance. To me this seems both contradictory and malicious.
There are only two reasons I can identify why people would oppose gay marriage. First, people do not want want to lose the social status of being "married".By denying alternative structures of "marriage" they can help promote themselves and their religious institutions as being the dominant value structure in society. Secondly, people believe that validation of the legal framework for alternative marriages will promote them and undermine "family values". But there is plenty of information out there that refutes the idea that sanction is an effective deterrent to alternative lifestyles.
In the most extreme case.... despite the threat of execution, there appears to be a bustling, though secretive gay population in Iran. So it is perhaps not a phenomenon that is conditioned by its environment. As for family values, how can week seek to promote love and understanding in a society that does not view them as legitimate values? Not giving gay couples the right to enter into government sanctioned contracts is not going to dissuade people from being gay, if anything it empowers their struggle for acceptance. As gays are estimated to constitute perhaps 10% of the population (though a difficult population to gauge) the population is too sizeable to simply ignore (could be over 30 million). I would also have to question the commitment of the moral majority on the "sanctity of marriage" argument on an institution that ultimately fails over half of the time.
Perhaps it is merely a question of semantics. Nearly 60% of Americans are in support of "civil unions" but constitutional bans on "gay marriage" are likely to pass in even in the most liberal states (ex. California passed Proposition 22 in 2000). This is highly unusual, as perhaps the only difference between the two would be the title on the application. Any student of policy diffusion can see the writing on the wall that these court decisions and gay marriage licence provisions will be interpreted as equal protection under the Constitution and disseminate out into a larger number of the states over time. Its just a shame that millions will be denied the exercise of basic civil rights until the rest of America progresses enough to live up to its principles.