Right is Wrong on Marriage

I have become increasingly convinced that we on the right are taking the wrong approach on the homosexual marriage issue. In fact, I think we have taken the wrong approach on marriage altogether.

First, let me say that I find the concept of homosexual marriage morally outrageous. Homosexuality is perverse and de-humanizing. Leave aside, for the moment, the fact that it is an abomination before God (as if that wasn't bad enough), it is reprehensible for a segment of society to identify themselves via a bodily function. Can we possibly sink to a lower common denominator?

However, I think the whole socio-political issue of homosexuals being allowed to legally marry has achieved its prominence because the American political right has taken the wrong stance. We on the political right need to change our position and take a stance on removing government involvement in marriage altogether. Government, Federal, State, and Local, has no business regulating or even recognizing the institution of marriage.

Marriage is an institution created by God, whose purpose is aptly explained by Jesus in Mark, chapter 10: "But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." Side note: All you biblical revisionists please note the explicit reference to marriage as an institution joining males and females. Having the government involved in marriage at all is a dire mistake. In fact, I think we can amply show that original intent is violated by government interference in marriage with more words from Jesus himself, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."

The only reason homosexuals have an interest in "normalizing" marriage for their fetish is to gain certain legal and tax benefit. Imagine with me, for a moment, the upside and downside to removing government involvement in marriage.

The government issues marriage licenses in every state. Some states have marriage clauses (sometimes known as common-law marriage) that allow couples who have cohabitated for some period of time to be married de facto, but these are a minority. Consider the purpose of a marriage license. What? You say there is none? Exactly so. In the curiously circuitous logic of the bureaucracy, you need a marriage license to prove you are married in order that the bureacracy can classify you according to your marital status. Today, the only purpose of this classification is to receive certain tax benefits and, in fewer and fewer cases, allow an employer to provide you with family benefits. I say fewer and fewer cases because allowing benefits for "domestic partners" has become the norm with most large corporations. In any case, this is a private sector issue not germain to my argument.

Furthermore, the marriage license business is simply a precursor to the exceptionally lucrative divorce business. It's one of those wonderful lawyer loopholes (worm holes? black holes?). Because the government issued you a marriage license in the first place, obviously the government needs to be involved in nullifying that license, should the parties so decide. This is the kind of situation that makes lawyers salivate. In an irony that few seem to notice any more, all it takes to get a marriage license is a set of active hormones and about fifty American dollars. However, it takes a battery of lawyers, judges, clerks, and sometimes law enforcement officers to nullify the license. As in all such situations, the end result is that no one is happy and the attorneys end up with all the money. And people think Shakespeare was cynical when he wrote, "First we kill all the lawyers..."

So what have we derived from all this? Marriage as a legal standing is little more than a bureaucratic classification and a contract. This is what happens when you render to Caesar what is actually God's. I can almost hear Lucifer laughing. If the government was no longer in the business of certifying and recognizing marriage, would that make those of us who undertook it as a sacrament any less married? If, for tax purposes, we simply continued to certify that there was some sort of dependency relationship between two people, would that lessen the sanctity of marriage? I think not.

Some will say that governmental recognition of marriage also serves as a basis for certain trust systems, adoption, for instance. Supposedly, those who have gone through the bureaucratic process of certifying their married-ness are somehow going to make better adoptive parents. In what bizarre alternate universe did this thinking arise? It wasn't true a hundred years ago, it certainly isn't true now. Supposedly those who are in an officially sanctioned marriage are more likely to pay their bills, discipline their children, and brush their teeth. Sure. Right. Absolutely.

Imagine a society in which marriage was left as the religious sacrament of its original intent. I can't think of a single negative impact. As much as I would like to assert that it would put a dent in the booming divorce business (something about starving lawyers just brightens my day), I don't even see that happening. People who still feel the need to have the government sanction their cohabitation can sign "buddy" agreements, housemate contracts, or whatever they need in order to give attorneys rightful future claims to their income. The tax man has no business giving tax breaks to people based on whether or not they are legally having sex (another issue entirely!). Even adoption agencies need to base their decisions on the quality of their applicants rather than whether they have a government "chit" saying they are good people.

Of course I see little chance of this ever happening. The marriage "business" is keeping far too many lawyers and Elvis impersonaters in business, politicians in power, and journalists in ink. But I can dream, can't I?