There’s so
much buzz in the air these days about gay rights. It’s one of the primary concerns of the
presidential candidates—some people consider it the only reason for their
choice between Romney and Obama. And
whoever you ask seems to have a very strong opinion about it. But I can’t help but wonder if our government
has a right to control this.
I see articles and images all the time talking about “the sanctity of marriage.” It seems strange to me in today’s culture,
where so little is considered to be sacred.
Religion is not a powerful force in society, at least not openly—it’s
one of those things most people don’t normally discuss outside of their own
circle of friends. And where the
government is concerned, it’s something that shouldn’t be discussed. I quote word for word from Amendment I—as in,
the first and arguably most important amendment—to the Constitution of the
United States: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” (View a transcript of the Bill of Rights here.) Therefore, if we consider marriage to fall
under the domain of religion—as the word “sanctity” implies—it is
unconstitutional for the government to pass any laws about it.
On the
other hand, marriage is also a civil concern, as the joining of two people to
form a family unit (from Merriam-Webster: “a contractual and consensual
relationship recognized by law”). Marriage
gives the married couple certain rights, including next-of-kin, release of
medical information, shared assets, etc.
Okay. Surely this is fair game
for the government to regulate? I’m
not so sure. Certainly the first
amendment has nothing to say about this side of marriage, but something about
the suggested marriage laws still sits wrong with me. Removing the religious concerns, what reason
do we have to prohibit gays from getting married? If a marriage as a civil union is “a
contractual and consensual relationship”, why should the law not recognize it
between two people of the same sex? Remember, we've already knocked out the religious element, so you can't say anything about what the Bible says. The only arguments that remain (that I can think of) are these: first, that marriage in the past has always been between a man and a woman; and second, that marriage is meant for the creation of children. Well, the latter doesn't hold much water when you think of how many children are in foster care: more than 400,000 last month according to www.childwelfare.gov. If same-sex couples can offer children like that a stable home, why should they not be able to? As for the concern of "traditional" marriage, while it's hard sometimes to argue against tradition, tradition alone is not a very logical or convincing argument.
Having gone through the reasons in support of marriage regulation, now I'd like to take a look at the reasons against it, or at least the one most pressing reason, which is this: if we do prohibit gays from getting married, are we taking rights from them
that they otherwise deserve to have? Let’s head
back to the words of the founding fathers, who in fact were very smart men in
my opinion. Maybe there’s nothing in the
constitution that speaks one way or the other about same-sex marriage, but what
about the Declaration of Independence? Again
I quote: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed with certain unalienable rights, that among these
are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” (View a transcript of the Declaration of Independence here.)
If choosing
to tie your life to that of someone you love is not the pursuit of happiness,
what on earth is?
So here we
have, in the very first words of the first document that made this nation what
it is, a promise to its people that their most basic rights will not be taken
away—that it is the duty of the
government to protect those rights.
Similarly, in the first amendment of the document on which we base all
of our laws and government regulations, there is a promise that we will not be
ruled by a religion not our own through the government. So how in the world can anyone claim that
federal regulations on marriage are right and just?
If there’s
even one thing that is sacred to our government, it should be the freedom of
the people. The minute we start taking
freedom from our people, we cease to be the nation that our founders hoped we would
be.
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