Unrelated cupcake picture, Boston, 2007.
As you may have noticed from the last post, I’m none too happy about this whole Prop 8 kerfuffle. See, it pisses me off not just because of the hate, or the apparently comfort a certain segment of the population has with creating a fascist theocracy, or even the balls that some people have to act as if THEY are the ones who should be offended that they are being held responsible for their actions. See, I am also frustrated—and, to be honest, have been for quite some time—because there are so many more important things to do than try to assimilate with a worn out heteronormative religious institution . . . but man, those fucking Mormons have to ruin everything, don’t they. So I’ve come up with a solution for everyone:
Ban STRAIGHT marriage.
I’m serious—this isn’t just a “how do you like it when we try to tell you how to define your family!” revenge bullshit. I’m (usually) better than that. But as the main argument against gay marriage appears to be the whole “God” thing, (since “Eww—icky!” isn’t really an argument worth responding to) I say let’s take that to it’s logical conclusion. Ok, so you think that God doesn’t like teh gayz, and that letting Ellen and Portia get hitched offends His Dudeliness. But what frustrates the hell out of me is that the anti-gay-marriage types seem to be (deliberately) confusing the religious institution of marriage with the purely secular state-sponsored legal arrangement that happens to share the same name. Because no one* is suggesting that religious organizations are going to be required to acknowledge any marriages they don’t personally approve of.
But last I checked, we live in a secular democracy that mandates that all citizens must have equal protection under the law. And that’s what we’re talking about here: the law. Not abstract ideas like “tradition”; actual tangible rights such as inheritance, hospital visitation, child custody.
So, let’s just say that we accept this “equal protection” clause written into our Constitution and agree that any two consenting adults should be able to enter into the same legal agreements as any two other consenting adults, regardless of sex. (N.B., in resolving this conflict, it’s important to remember that no one has a right to not be disagreed with, or to not be offended.) If the hangup is really about the whole not wanting to share the “marriage” thing with those deviants, lest their sometimes questionable fashion sense and love of musical theater be contagious, let’s just scrap it. Gays can’t get married, but everyone needs to be treated equally under the law. Thus no one can get married. Q.E.D.
Now this isn’t to say that people can’t enter into legally binding contracts dictating the terms under which they choose to define their mutual responsibilities to each other. I propose a national, gender-neutral domestic partnership framework. Thus, as far as the state is concerned, any two consenting adults can go to their local government office and sign what, in my opinion, would just be a pre-approved legal contract with an a la carte list of elements that individual couples could choose among: hospital visitation/next of kin/medical decision-making; inheritance rights; custody of children; etc.
Now if, in addition to signing a legal document with the partner of his or her choice, a particular couple wanted to also have a religious ceremony in the house of worship of their choice, and they wanted to call that religious ceremony a “wedding,” well then more power to them. But in the same way that having a government-issued birth certificate is not predicated on a religious baptism ceremony, the wedding ceremony shouldn’t be related to the legal distinction of domestic partnership.
See how I fixed that? And there is actually much more benefit to be gained from this type of structure than just resolving the whole gay marriage thing—since I don’t personally believe that the traditional heteronormative Ozzie and Harriet nuclear family is the ideal default format under which our culture should be organized—but this post has gotten too long as is, so I should just call it a night.
* Actually, some anti-8 campaigns did in fact suggest that this would happen, but that is such a ridiculous, blatant lie that it’s not really worth including in an intellectually honest discussion, as if gay marriage would be treated any differently than the way a synagogue would never be forced to perform an interdenominational marriage that didn’t jive with their particular interpretation of their religion, or a Catholic church wouldn’t ever be forced to perform a marriage for a couple who had been divorced.
