Friday, March 29, 2013

Truth & Democracy: Why Gay Marriage Isn't

It was one of those calls that was a long time in coming, but I knew it would.

As a leading young Republican politician, Andrew Trumbull had the media watching every move and writing down every word. I had heard some of this thoughts on this controversial subject before, but he, like every other politician, was being pushed to make a clear public statement. The time for vague, elliptical remarks was over.

"This would have been easier in the 19th century," Andrew said on the phone. "You could count on people reading more than one paragraph. Now, if it's not a ten-second sound bite, there's no chance of getting a fair hearing, and, damn it, some issues are too complicated for sound bites."

I had always been sympathetic to this view, but felt it was something the politicians had brought on themselves. Since JFK, they had been too ready to pander to the media, and now with 24-hour news, politicians had forgotten how to think and only remembered how to run on at the mouth.

"I'll take this slowly," Andrew began. "Stop me when you think something's unclear. When I go public, it has to be right. They'll crucify me anyway, but I have to give it my best shot."

"Go for it, Andrew," I said.

"I believe in equality and I am against injustice," he began. "I will work with local, state, national and international organisations and governments to further those ends.

"However, marriage is something that goes beyond governments. It came before governments. Marriage has its roots in religion - all religions - and as a result, marriage pre-dates and transcends all governments.

"As a matter of political and ethical philosophy, governments have no authority in matters of marriage. All governments can do is acknowledge marriage.

"Are you still with me, Commander?"

"I am."

"What governments have done is given a civil context to marriage and extended that context to civil ceremonies that have come to be called marriages but were not marriages in original concept, but rather contractual, legal arrangements for the convenience of both the participants and the state.

"This was done to keep order, enable practical record keeping, give a legal basis to other contracts entered into by those who were civilly joined and enable the administration of taxation and benefits."

"That's a mouthful," I said. "I understand it, I think; you're saying there are two types of union."

"Yes," he agreed. "Think of it, when a couple wants to get married, they have to get a marriage license. In the US, the state accepts the forging of a civil union by the religious organisation, but has nothing -and can have nothing - to say about any religious or spiritual aspect of the union. In some states, they insist of couples getting blood tests before they marry - that's nothing to do with any spiritual aspect of marriage. In Britain, the state even sends a state-appointed registrar to the religious ceremony and the couple have to sign the legal registration document during the ceremony.

"For civil ceremonies, it is only the legal part of the union that is involved."

"So what you're saying is that the state or government has authority over the legal arrangements, but not over what has for centuries been regarded as 'marriage.'"

"Exactly! The government can regulate the contract all it wants; that's in its competence; but it has no authority over marriage - and never has.

"It is an historical accident that civil unions have come to be called marriages, as in the ancient understanding of it, it was something different."

"So we're back to Lincoln and 'calling it one doesn't make it one."

"You've got it! Of course, it was the Romans who brought all the legal trappings into marriage and when the center of Christianity went to Rome, it got all tangled up in legal terms rather than its original phenomenological ones."

"You have been reading your philosophy again," I said. "So the bottom line for gay marriage?"

"There is a good legal argument for treating gay individuals as couples for the purposes of administrating the law and levying taxes. Just as there are good reasons for extending those privileges to siblings who have lived and grown old together in their parents' houses: there are good reasons why spousal inheritance tax rules should be extended to them."

"Legally, constitutionally, I don't have a problem with extending these legal arrangements to gay couples, though it will further reduce the tax-base," Andrew concluded, "but it's not marriage."