While Facebook is still all abuzz about the Supreme Court
decisions from yesterday, it is a good time to think about what marriage
equality means and think about our path from here as a nation and a society.
For some, the Decisions represented a new era in justice for
all couples. For others, it was the
turning point in the path towards the destruction of Western Civilization. For
others, it was less important than the Aaron Hernandez saga or the over hyped George
Zimmerman trial. What this moment means
for history is yet to be seen, but one thing for sure, things are
a-changing…and yet they need to change even more.
Let me get one thing straight at the beginning…no matter
what side of the same-sex marriage issue you are, we should all agree that the
Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was terrible legislation. It was an overreach of the federal government
and an attempt to legislate a certain brand of morality. As a committed Federalist, it was
governmental overreach because marriage is one of those things controlled and
defined by local municipalities (such as the Constitutional understanding that
Education is a power for the States). And
even though the government legislation affects morality (i.e. abortion,
marijuana, and environmental policies), it has never been the job of the
government to define morality in a way that advances the cause of one group
over another (this is the key to the 1st Amendment).
Another thing that needs to be stressed at the beginning is
that “state” marriage and “church” marriage are two different things. Marriage in the state is a legal contract in
which the government represents the relationship between two or more
individuals. Church marriage is
sacramental and covenantal by nature and the laws of the Church usurp the laws
of the State when it comes to governing who can and cannot be married to one
another. If and when the State tries to dictate the Laws of the Church, the
Church will need to decide it’s course of action, but the actions of the
Supreme Court have no jurisdiction in the Ecclesiastical Courts of the
Church. For the purposes of this
discussion, we will be using ‘Marriage’ as the State’s definition of marriage.
But with the Court’s decision, the country’s and culture’s
path is no murkier and less equal than it was under the previous
understanding.
Marriage is a very personal and very volatile subject. My goal here is not to cast any side in a bad
light or to discuss which side of the marriage debate is correct. I respect and love people on all sides of
this debate and want to represent their sides fairly and accurately. The underlying assumption I am working with
here is that we need a federally recognized consistent understanding of the
legal definition of marriage. While the
old school way of doing things did this (although many viewed it wrongly),
yesterday’s decisions make things more complicated for us.
Marriage has generally been held as an archaic institution
from times past to ensure proper bloodlines and property rights. Under the old understanding, everybody was
equal to marry: (a) one person, (b) of the opposite gender, (c) of a certain
age, (b) that they were not biologically related to. The reasoning for these restrictions on
marriage had to do with the understanding of the purpose of marriage.
Marriage was seen as a the proper and legitimate way to legislate
the furtherance of the society. The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day saints fought many Court battles in the
late 19th Century in order to overturn the restriction on one
person. The Courts came back and
determined that marriage needed to between only two people in order to maintain
a proper culture. Perhaps the Courts
were too limited in their thought, but they were basing their decisions on the
older understanding of marriage.
Property rights and inheritance laws were also central to
marriage. So called “legitimate” heirs
were those heirs who sprung from the legal contract of marriage. The government also claimed the health and
well being of society when it limited the definition of marriage to
discriminate against close relatives who wanted to be married. They argued, largely from an evolutionary
point of view, that incest affected the gene pool in a negative way and
impacted society at large in a detrimental way.
The concern for marriage in the past was the way that it
shaped and formed the society around them.
As society changed, our understanding of marriage
changed. Rather than seeing marriage as
a way to propagate the species and create social harmony and order, people
began to view marriage as a way to express ‘love.’ We moved from a societal understanding of
marriage to an individual understanding of marriage, one that was not concerned
so much with bettering our culture, but with satisfying our emotional
needs.
And so now the concern in marriage is for individuals to
express their love and individuality.
Romantic “love” has proved a less stable way of viewing
marriage. The divorce rate has sky
rocketed and the birth rate has plummeted.
The number of couples who are together for more than five years (both
heterosexual and homosexual) is at all time low and marriage is seen by many as
a temporary situation that will last as long as ‘love’ is present. This is not always the case and both
homosexuals and heterosexuals are populated with long term couples, but the
norm for both expressions of sexuality has become short term relationships that
are easily broken up.
But ‘love’ is now the new bedrock for the State’s understanding
of marriage. That is fine and completely
within the scope of the State to do so.
But now it is doing so in a way that creates inequality among people.
Homosexuals and Heterosexuals are now free to marry any one
person they love. But this excludes
certain other populations. For instance, what about a Mormon who may be in love
with two women? This may seem contradictory to our current understanding of
marriage, but polygamous societies often thrive under the concept of loving
more than one person. What about a
brother and sister (or brother and brother or sister and sister) who find
themselves attractive and want to spend the rest of their lives together. (while this may seem like a particularly
acute example, it has happened in the past and now there is no ground to deny
them a relationship). What about a
thirty year old and a fifteen year old who love each other. This has happened and seems to be on the
rise.
Neither should representation in the population be an issue.
While only 1.4% of the population of Utah (about 40,000 people) live in
polygamous families[1],
it should be noted that the LGBT community makes up about 3-4% of the entire
population (about 9 million people)[2]. Research on incestuous relationships is hard
to come by, but we can imagine that the number is relatively small. But if we are going to grant the same rights
to a small percentage of the population, we should make sure that all people
are covered and once again ‘equal.’
The position about polygamy is not on the fringe,
either. Since 2005, in Canada, the
Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre has been advocating for the
decriminalization of plural union relationships.
The Supreme Court Decisions yesterday were huge wins for the
LGBT communities, but they represent more fuzzy thinking in our culture.
In order to clear up the confusion, we need one of two
things to happen.
The first would be a federally recognized, universal and
consistent definition of legal marriage.
This means that across the board, the Federal Government needs to define
marriage and the benefits (if any) that should come from it. This may mean a shift in our thinking as to
who can claim who on tax forms, visit in hospital rooms and receive property
rights. But in our new age of
technology, we can easily accomplish this.
This would ensure that people are protected across the board
universally.
The other option would be to simply abolish marriage
altogether and to abolish the financial benefits that come from it. This would make the playing field level and
ensure that no type of relationship can be discriminated against at a
governmental level. This would also save
a great deal of money as communities would no longer have to issue marriage
forms.
At this point in my life, I feel that given our current
social upheaval, the second option represents the best approach to this
difficult and complex situation.
Eliminate legal marriage and we have the basis for a more free and equal
society.
Whatever our country decides in regards to marriage, it needs
to be uniform, consistent and EQUAL.
This is the true meaning of marriage equality.
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