Gay marriage
In light of the whole New Jersey thing, I thought this might be a good time to just briefly elucidate my thoughts on the whole gay-marriage issue, my stance on which should surprise exactly no one.
Here's the thing: when we talk about gay marriage, and the legality thereof, the difficulties come about because people on different sides are having terminology problems, because marriage means a couple of different things.
Marriage exists as two entities: the traditional institution, and the legal proceeding. The traditional institution and all its moral and spiritual trappings does not exist as a legal entity. Any values-related overtones to marriage are entirely optional and totally up to the people getting married. There's no requirement that straight marriages be monogamous, or based on love, or sanctified by some clergy, or attended upon by cakes and dresses and ring-bearers. That stuff is really, really irrelevant. Legally, all that's required is a declaration that you don't know of any reason why you can't enter into this agreement, that the person standing next to you is the one you want to marry, and that you're doing so willingly.
When we talk about legalizing gay marriage, what we're talking about is marriage as a legal proceeding no different than forming an LLD partnership or buying a house. This is admittedly a non-romantic view, but consider that for most of modern history, marriage wasn't terribly romantic. The grand romantic notion of marriage as a union between two souls for mutual exclusivity and deep passionate love is a very recent invention, after all. Whether or not it's moral, or supported by the Bible, or whether or not you think marriage is a man/woman thing or a having-children thing, is not important. Legally, marriage has nothing to do with morality. It's a contract between two individuals. Therefore if you are over 18 and pay your taxes, you ought to have access to it.
All other discussions about family values and traditional families and yadda yadda is just so much reactionary bullshit, in my view. Depriving homosexuals of marriage rights is no different than depriving them of the right to take out a mortgage or buy a car. You don't see people attaching all kinds of moral underpinnings to those proceedings, do you?
Then again, I'm one of those people who thinks that each one of us is responsible for our own morality and no one else's. This debate is full of people who believe that it's their responsibility to impose their own idea of morality on others. That's an ideological chasm that in many ways can't be breached.
Here's the thing: when we talk about gay marriage, and the legality thereof, the difficulties come about because people on different sides are having terminology problems, because marriage means a couple of different things.
Marriage exists as two entities: the traditional institution, and the legal proceeding. The traditional institution and all its moral and spiritual trappings does not exist as a legal entity. Any values-related overtones to marriage are entirely optional and totally up to the people getting married. There's no requirement that straight marriages be monogamous, or based on love, or sanctified by some clergy, or attended upon by cakes and dresses and ring-bearers. That stuff is really, really irrelevant. Legally, all that's required is a declaration that you don't know of any reason why you can't enter into this agreement, that the person standing next to you is the one you want to marry, and that you're doing so willingly.
When we talk about legalizing gay marriage, what we're talking about is marriage as a legal proceeding no different than forming an LLD partnership or buying a house. This is admittedly a non-romantic view, but consider that for most of modern history, marriage wasn't terribly romantic. The grand romantic notion of marriage as a union between two souls for mutual exclusivity and deep passionate love is a very recent invention, after all. Whether or not it's moral, or supported by the Bible, or whether or not you think marriage is a man/woman thing or a having-children thing, is not important. Legally, marriage has nothing to do with morality. It's a contract between two individuals. Therefore if you are over 18 and pay your taxes, you ought to have access to it.
All other discussions about family values and traditional families and yadda yadda is just so much reactionary bullshit, in my view. Depriving homosexuals of marriage rights is no different than depriving them of the right to take out a mortgage or buy a car. You don't see people attaching all kinds of moral underpinnings to those proceedings, do you?
Then again, I'm one of those people who thinks that each one of us is responsible for our own morality and no one else's. This debate is full of people who believe that it's their responsibility to impose their own idea of morality on others. That's an ideological chasm that in many ways can't be breached.