Prop 8 passed in California. This, for those of you who don’t know, bans marriage between gays and lesbians. They still have the option for a civil union though. My question is this, why is the government even involved. The role of the government in relationships is generally to agree that a contract is binding or not. They have no other role. Whether you call it a civil union or marriage, basically it is a contract between two people to share their property, money, and any other assets. If there are children, pets, or other items that need caring for, the two people involved also agree to split the responsibility for taking care of them. That is as far as the government should go, granting people these contractual rights.
I have a simple solution to the whole matter, eliminate the term marriage from government documents and replace it with civil union. That is what the government is endorsing anyway, a contractual obligation between two people. This infers that that the couple have the right to form the contract they desire and they receive all the rights and benefits the contract entitles them to receive.
The argument for using the term marriage is a religious argument anyway. Evangelicals read the bible and interpret it a certain way. Marriage is a covenant that God has set out for those who follow him. For them it is an abomination for two people of the same sex to engage in sexual acts. Believing God has condemned these sexual acts, they believe that anyone who follows God should not engage in these acts. Inside marriage, sex is allowed and encouraged. Therefore, if it is an abomination for homosexuals to engage in sex acts, then they must not be followers of God, therefore they should not be allowed to marry. Those that support gay marriage see the bible differently. They believe God does not condemn people. He is a God of love and as long as people serve him, then their sexual preference does not matter. He will always love them. Therefore, marriage is okay because God doesn’t condemn.
Which ever side you fall on is your choice. But the government shouldn’t be taking sides on any religious matter. By recreating the contract we call marriage, into a civil union, the government removes itself from the religious argument. The civil union license could then be the governments acknowledgement that the contract the two people are entering into is valid. As long as two people or one government official, say the Justice of the Peace, witness the couple agreeing to the contract, it then doesn’t matter if there is a ceremony involved. Then the debate of whether to call the union a marriage or not falls to the churches to decide. If one church will perform a ceremony for a gay couple, that is their choice, as the interpret the bible. Another church, who interprets the bible differently, can then choose not to allow a gay couple to marry in their church.
Besides, the ideal marriage should be between two people who love each other and God. Marriage then becomes a matter of your conscience and your religious beliefs.
I agree. The same Christians who support these sorts of measures should take some time and think about how they’d feel if the government started to restrict the right of heterosexual couples to marry in some way based on a simple majority vote. As Gerald Ford once said quite aptly, ”[a] government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.”
The simple fact is, there is no good reason for government to be in the marriage business … outside of recognizing the contract entered into by the people gettin’ hitched.