One solution or compromise on the issue of gay marriage...

[Flying FuManchu]

A Gay-Marriage Solution: End Marriage?

By Michael A. Lindenberger


When a Jewish boy turns 13, he heads to a temple for a deeply meaningful rite of passage, his bar mitzvah. When a Catholic girl reaches about the same age, she stands in front of the local bishop, who touches her forehead with holy oil as she is confirmed into a 2,000-year-old faith tradition. But missing in each of those cases — and in countless others of equal religious importance — is any role for government. There is no baptism certificate issued by the local courthouse and no federal tax benefit attached to the confessional booth, the into-the-water-and-out born-again ceremony or any of the other sacraments that believers hold sacred.

Only marriage gets that treatment, and it's a tradition that some legal scholars have been arguing should be abandoned. In a paper published March 2 in the San Francisco Chronicle, two law professors from Pepperdine University issued a call to re-examine the role the government plays in marriage. The authors — one of whom voted for and one against Proposition 8, which ended gay marriage in California — say the best way out of the intractable legal wars over gay marriage is to take marriage out of the hands of the government altogether.

Instead, give gay and straight couples alike the same license, a certificate confirming them as a family, and call it a civil union — anything, really, other than marriage. For people who feel the word marriage is important, the next stop after the courthouse could be the church, where they could bless their union with all the religious ceremony they wanted. Religions would lose nothing of their role in sanctioning the kinds of unions that they find in keeping with their tenets. And for nonbelievers and those who find the word marriage less important, the civil-union license issued by the state would be all they needed to unlock the benefits reserved in most states and in federal law for married couples.

"While new terminology for all may at first seem awkward — mostly in greeting-card shops — [it] dovetails with the court's important responsibility to reaffirm the unfettered freedom of all faiths to extend the nomenclature of marriage as their traditions allow," wrote Douglas W. Kmiec and Shelley Ross Saxer. Kmiec voted for Prop 8 because of his belief in the teachings of the Catholic Church and his notion of religious liberty but has since said he thinks the courts should not allow one group of Californians to marry while denying the privilege to others.

Their idea got a big boost three days later, during the March 5 oral arguments before the California Supreme Court, which is expected to issue a ruling soon in the case brought by gay couples and others who argue the constitutional amendment passed by voters last fall should be invalidated. Justice Ming Chin asked attorneys for each side whether the idea would solve the legal issues connected to gay marriage — issues that at their core revolve around the question of whether allowing some couples to marry but not others violates constitutional guarantees of equal protection under the law. (Check out a story about the state of marriage and divorce in America.)

Both sets of lawyers agreed that the idea would resolve the equal-protection issue. Take the state out of the marriage business and then both kinds of couples — straight and gay — would be treated the same. Even Ken Starr, the Pepperdine law dean and former Whitewater independent counsel who argued in favor of Prop 8, agreed that the idea would solve the legal issues, though he said it was a solution that lies outside the legal authority of the court. An attorney for the other side, Michael Maroko, didn't expressly endorse the idea, but he told Chin, "If you're in the marriage business, do it equally. And if you're not going to do it equally, get out of the business."

The two Pepperdine professors are arguing that the court should use that line of thinking in crafting its decision in the case before it, short-circuiting the need for a new referendum. Their proposal is aimed at helping speed a resolution on the issue in other states — gay marriage is heating up in Iowa, Connecticut, Vermont and elsewhere — and at the federal level. All sides on the debate expect the issues bubbling up out of the state courts and legislatures to eventually gain traction in federal courts too, ultimately leading to a case before the Supreme Court or efforts to amend the U.S. Constitution or both.

But as Solomonic as the compromise seems, giving up the word marriage may be impossible. For many couples joined in matrimony, having the state no longer call them married may make them feel as if something important had been taken away — even if it's hard to define just what was lost. And for many others — the folks who feel most strongly about marriage and most passionately supported the expensive campaign to defeat gay marriage — the issue of nomenclature is only the beginning. They are against not just gay marriage but also gay couples — and especially against government sanctioning of those relationships, no matter what they are called.

And as Chin considers whether he can craft a compromise with his fellow justices that would both uphold Prop 8 — and therefore the right of the people to amend the state constitution — and assert the right of gay people to be treated equally, he may find that the folks who cling hardest to marriage are gay couples. After all, what was the most sweeping part of the May 2008 decision Ming and his colleagues issued that granted gays the right to marry? It was the idea that the word marriage is so strong that denying it to gay couples violates the most sacred right enshrined in the state constitution: the right for all people to be treated with dignity and fairness. Just 10 months later, gay couples — whether or not they are among the 18,000 who married in the state before Prop 8 stopped the ceremonies — are loath to lose a word for which so many fought so hard and so long to have apply to themselves.

But the Pepperdine idea puts into a play a new way of thinking — and whether it's part of the court's decision in the Prop 8 case or whether it makes its way into a new referendum, the idea of getting governments out of the marriage business offers a creative way of thinking about a problem that is otherwise likely to be around for a long, long time.

Sounds like the way to go. Call all marriages civil unions. Thoughts?

 

[Irvine511]

just let gay people get married. if certain churches want to treat them like lepers, so be it.

 

[TheShootist]

I am not pro-gay marriage, but I cannot back-up any of the typical arguments against it because so many heterosexual couples have made such a mockery of marriage that it would be hypocritical to make the typical arguments against gay marriage.

 

[Tiger Edge]

So what's your original, non-typical argument against it?

 

[diamond]

*Ahem* for the record:

I'll be in the Bay Area this weekend attending a wedding between some clients and friends of mine and my wife's. The cpl happens to be straight-but who's counting?

The Pastor performing the ceremony is a Gay man and 60% of the attendants are gay and the majority of wedding party lean Left.

Being a man of the world I've learn to mesh comfortably in different environments-keep hope alive.

<>

 

[Irvine511]

*Ahem* for the record:

I'll be in the Bay Area this weekend attending a wedding between some clients and friends of mine and my wife's. The cpl happens to be straight-but who's counting?

The Pastor performing the ceremony is a Gay man and 60% of the attendants are gay and the majority of wedding party lean Left.

Being a man of the world I've learn to mesh comfortably in different environments-keep hope alive.

<>

 

[DrTeeth]

Like a modern day Ghandi...

 

[TheShootist]

So what's your original, non-typical argument against it?

That is clever in so many ways. The backwards engineered question always shuts me down in my tracks.

 

[Flying FuManchu]

just let gay people get married. if certain churches want to treat them like lepers, so be it.

I think that is part of the main premise of the article except for the churches treating gays as lepers part. The "conservative" wing or the evangelicals seem to place such a great emphasis on the word and institution of marriage and claim that they (not all right wing evangelicals, mind you) have no problem with civil unions, in terms of gay rights. Why not take government out of that equation, and call heterosexual marriage a civil union as well (especially in terms of the paperwork). Let marriage truly become a religious institution as the right/ evangelicals claim they want it to be and use civil unions to handle the legal issues and government benefits associated with "marriage." People, who love separation of religion, and state may appreciate this idea, IMO.

 

[Flying FuManchu]

I am not pro-gay marriage, but I cannot back-up any of the typical arguments against it because so many heterosexual couples have made such a mockery of marriage that it would be hypocritical to make the typical arguments against gay marriage.

So what do you think of the solution that is laid out in that article?

 

[Bluer White]

Flying FuMan...good article.

 

[Irvine511]

I think that is part of the main premise of the article except for the churches treating gays as lepers part. The "conservative" wing or the evangelicals seem to place such a great emphasis on the word and institution of marriage and claim that they (not all right wing evangelicals, mind you) have no problem with civil unions, in terms of gay rights. Why not take government out of that equation, and call heterosexual marriage a civil union as well (especially in terms of the paperwork). Let marriage truly become a religious institution as the right/ evangelicals claim they want it to be and use civil unions to handle the legal issues and government benefits associated with "marriage." People, who love separation of religion, and state may appreciate this idea, IMO.

i see no need for this. just let gay people get married. people in support of gay marriage don't seem to have a problem with the religious aspect of marriage, and there are very religious gay people out there as well.

this makes a very, very simple issue needlessly complex.

 

[deep]

This argument may become more prevalent as gay marriage becomes legal in more jurisdictions.

D C just past an ordinance today that makes it legal in 30 days (I think) unless Congress can muster enough votes to stop it.


It will be nice when marriage is legal for all couples in the nation's capital.

 

[Irvine511]

D C just past an ordinance today that makes it legal in 30 days (I think) unless Congress can muster enough votes to stop it.

the general consensus amongst the 'mo's up here -- or, at least the ones i know -- is that Congress will deep-6 the bill.

but we'll see.

 

[martha]

Sounds like the way to go. Call all marriages civil unions. Thoughts?

NO. I like being married.

 

[A stor]

i see no need for this. just let gay people get married. people in support of gay marriage don't seem to have a problem with the religious aspect of marriage, and there are very religious gay people out there as well.

this makes a very, very simple issue needlessly complex.

I am a heterosexual, married woman, who attends mass. For spiritual reasons, only. And I have no problem, what so ever with gay marriage. Who are we, to tell other folks, whom they can love?

 

[Irvine511]

NO. I like being married.

but, martha, you realize that this is like saying that you're no better than a gay person.

 

[martha]

DAMMIT!!!!

fcl

 

[yolland]

people in support of gay marriage don't seem to have a problem with the religious aspect of marriage, and there are very religious gay people out there as well.

this makes a very, very simple issue needlessly complex.

For me it's not so much the religious aspect that's salient here, it's the social aspect. Our wedding ceremony took place in a synagogue of course, but probably half the attendees weren't Jews; they were everything from Hindus to atheists to Lutherans, and they certainly weren't there as graciously tolerated visiting foreigners or something. An integral part of the meaning of the ceremony or rite of getting married is that the two of you get up and take those vows to each other before an assembled community of friends, family, colleagues etc., who bear witness to the moment and thereby welcome and give their blessing (or if you prefer, extend their goodwill and implicit pledges of support) to this entry of the two of you, together, into a new joint relationship to the rest of your community. And vice versa--the ceremony and reception which follows it aren't a celebration of you, they're the two of you thanking and honoring all the assembled for kindnesses already shown and for those yet to come. The great thing about civil ceremonies is that they give couples who subscribe to no particular organized religion a space in which to do this--and of course, many heterosexual couples in fact choose to. That didn't seem to be a problem for anyone before, so why need it be one now? I can't think of any morally worthy reason for the sudden change.

 

[coolian2]

marriage isn't sacred. if you can get married in a fucking shopping mall or casino in vegas or whatever, that's not fucking sacred. and people who do that have more right to be legally married than a gay couple who genuinely care for each other and have thought long and hard about getting married?

what a fucking joke.

 

[martha]

marriage isn't sacred.

It is if the two married people treat it as sacred. And it isn't if they don't.

 

[BVS]

It is if the two married people treat it as sacred. And it isn't if they don't.

It is on the micro, but not the macro...

I like how this subject was treated like it was some brand new idea that no one had thought of before...

I will be happy when this is no longer an issue and social conservatives are placed in the books as being on the wrong side of history once again.

 

[coolian2]

It is if the two married people treat it as sacred. And it isn't if they don't.

yeah, i meant to put in that qualifier. if i didn't feel that way i wouldn't be getting married myself.

 

[martha]

It is on the micro, but not the macro...

A lot of micros can change the macro.

 

[Irvine511]

That didn't seem to be a problem for anyone before, so why need it be one now? I can't think of any morally worthy reason for the sudden change.

because we have to remain firm that, while we are not intolerant, objectively, it is a sin. and God gets sad.

 

[Vincent Vega]

He'll get over it.

 

[JanuaryStar]

because we have to remain firm that, while we are not intolerant, objectively, it is a sin. and God gets sad.

Wow you seem to be pretty sure about that. Objectively, so it is a worldview then?

 

[yolland]

He was being sarcastic.

 

[JanuaryStar]

As am I

 

[maycocksean]

because we have to remain firm that, while we are not intolerant, objectively, it is a sin. and God gets sad.

It's interesting how you managed to sum up so accruately how a lot of Christians feel on this issue. I do think that people who feel this way are in a better place to change their thinking than those who are more emotionally worked about the issue.

I know this, because I was one of those people at one time. What changed things for me was the cognitive dissonance just got more and more severe as several people close to me came out, including my students. That, and Melon's providing me with some other ways of looking at those sticky scriptures.

If people can change their views on race, they can their views on this. Keep up the fight, my friend.