Marriage

Since marriage is all over the news lately because of the supreme court ruling, I decided to put my two cents into the arena. Please read thru to the end as I will piss everyone off at some point. As with everything the government gets involved with, it is a very complicated issue. First off, let me say this, as a libertarian, I believe consenting adults should be free to do whatever they want as long as it doesn’t take away anyone else’s freedom. I like to laugh and quote a comic (I don’t remember who it was so if anyone reading this can comment and let me know that would be great) who said “gay people should be allowed to get married and be as miserable as the rest of us.” But there are lots of problems with what has happened with the court.

First, there are far too many people that think the supreme court, the government, has given gay people the right to marry. That is completely against the very core of our countries founding. The government does NOT give rights. To many people, rights come from God. To non-believers, we as humans, at the very top of the evolutionary ladder, are born with them. Either way, they do not come from government. Therefore government can not take them away. So government did not give anyone the right to do anything.

Now, that point leads to the next one. Since the government don’t give rights nor take them away, why was all this necessary? Short answer, it wasn’t. If you read the Constitution, nowhere does the federal government have any authority to deal with things like marriage. Many people think it should be a state issue. We will come back to that later.

Here is where things get complicated. First we have to ask these questions: What is marriage? And is marriage actually a right? Marriage for thousands of years was a religious institution. More specifically, a sacrament. Churches were completely in control of marriage. Enter government. Now we have to go to the county courthouse and buy a marriage license. What kind of crazy bullshit is that??? We have to ask the governments permission and then pay for the right to get married. If you need to, go back two paragraphs and reread. On a side note, a license is just another word for tax.

About now, if you would like, you can interject the argument that we need government to act as a referee when we get divorced if the two people can’t come to an agreement, I won’t argue with you. But let’s look at that point a little deeper. I’m ok with the government acting as a referee but many of the reasons gay people want equal rights are things the government screws up in the first place. Almost everybody I know that has been divorced complains about getting screwed in court. So is the problem with marriage or the courts? Do you really think gay marriage is going to solve this? I don’t think so. Another complaint is hospital visitation. Partners, gay or straight have issues seeing sick loved ones. Hospitals should be able to figure out a solution to this without the government. Another problem is death. How many times do we read about someone suing to change a will or a judge decides to change one. Gay marriage isn’t going to change that. It will take changing the court system to fix that.

But lets get to the meat of the issue. Here is the cold hard facts about marriage. Marriage itself is not a right. I’ll let that sink in a minute… Its not. If you disagree, you are probably wanting to use the pursuit of happiness argument. And that’s not a bad argument but it doesn’t hold up. Yes we all should be free to pursue whatever we want to be happy as long as it doesn’t interfere with anyone else. But everything about marriage can be done without getting married. You don’t need to be married to have a family. You don’t need to me married to own property together. You don’t need to be married to have a will leaving whatever to whoever. As I said in the last paragraph there are problems with these things that marriage isn’t going to fix. Absolutely everything you do married, you can do not married. The only thing that changes is a legal piece of paper. Again I go back to the lunacy of asking the governments permission. Marriage itself is a religious idea. Two people making a commitment with whatever God they believe in to love each other. Many non Christian cultures have something equivalent to our idea of marriage but the word marriage in the English language really does belongs to Christians.

So here is my idea to fix the problem once and for all. First, do what is close to a prenuptial agreement IF YOU WANT. Not mandatory. But it would help in the event of a divorce. A legal agreement and yes if we have to pay a filing fee fine. I don’t like idea since we pay so much in taxes already but that is for another post. Anybody can make this agreement, gay or straight. I think civil union would be an appropriate name for it. But again it is only of you want to. Then we leave marriage up to the people. If you belong to a church and they are ok with gay marriage then you have your ceremony. If your church doesn’t then you have two choices, one, try and get your church to change it’s mind, but without using the government to force it, that also is a breach of the separation of church and state. Or you find a new church. If you are straight then you go to your church and have your ceremony just as you do now. The only thing that changes for you is you also don’t have to ask the government for permission.

But, there is always a but. Here is the thing about the word marriage. While my idea has taken the government out of the equation, the word is still out there. So to the non religious people, gay or straight, honestly there is nothing stopping you from getting a civil union to handle the legal bull crap and then inviting you friends and family over to your back yard or park or wherever and having a ceremony where you make your commitment to each other just like the religious people do and calling it marriage. Anyone can officiate. Nobody can stop you from saying your married and using the words husband and wife, in whatever way you want to use them. Of course religious people are not going to like that but unless the definition gets officially changed, those words are free to be used. All this with no government involvement.

I am also going to address the other big issue religious people have. Marriage to more than one person or animals. First the multiple partners. People can live with as many partners as they want now. It really isn’t any different. Yes you have a right to not like them or the gay people from using to word marriage for whatever they want. You have two choices, one get the government to officially redefine marriage as a religious union between one man and one woman, or let it go. It’s OK to think it’s wrong. you have the right to teach your kids it’s wrong, but in the end, let it go. We have far more serious issues to be concerned about. As far as animals go, unless you can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that your dog understands and gives consent, the idea of marring and animal is completely bat crap crazy. Yes there are people who are going to try it. And sticking with the idea of true freedom, if you want to have a ceremony in your back yard and marry your dog, please invite me so I know you are bat shit crazy so I can stay away from you. If you want to have sex with your pet, well we have lots of laws against that. Let the crazy’s be free so we know who they are.

Bottom line is government didn’t give gay people the right because it isn’t theirs to give. Government shouldn’t have anything to do with marriage. Gay or straight.