Mawwidge

| 3 Comments

Look, I don't honestly give a flying fuck about states being ordered to let LGBT people "marry".  Because I don't think the state ought to be involved in marriage, in any case.

The problem I have with non-traditional marriage -- by which I mean anything other than one man one woman -- is that there are people out there who hold traditional religious beliefs who should not be required by the state to change their attitude regarding same.  There is that little thing called the First Amendment, after all, and it means that the government has no say over your religious beliefs.  If you want to worship Satan, that's your kink, just don't wave it in my face.*

The counter-argument is made, of course, to the effect that the majority wave their sexuality and religious beliefs in the minority's face all day every day 24/7/365 world without end amen.  And yeah, that's true; before about 10 years ago, most folks producing popular culture understood that the 97% of us who are straight have little or no interest in major characters in every TV comedy and drama being gay and out of the closet.  Lately, though, you'd think gays were at least 50% of the population, because every show has a flamer or two who get a lot of attention.  (Modern Family, I'm looking at you.  Just as a 'f'r'instance.)

The counter-argument goes on to point out that there are straight couples out there who 1) don't have children and 2) even if they do, they can't manage to stay together and end up divorced.  I don't really consider #1 a problem, not just because my marriage fits that description, but also because the fairy-tale shit about finding your soulmate when you're in your 20s and young enough to consider settling down and starting a family doesn't always come true.  I did not find my wife until I was 40 and she was 42.**  We were not about to start a family at that age.  (Good thing, too, because we'd have teenagers now and be looking at putting them through college when we'd really rather be thinking about retiring.)

#2, divorce, is a real problem, but I think it exists primarily because the previous generation was quick to pull the trigger on ending marriages that ended up being "inconvenient" (mostly because the woman decided she didn't need the husband, just his money) and the courts were far too amenable to agreeing to let the divorces proceed.  I know a couple of women who had children and then divorced their husbands because their husbands, quite reasonably, expected them to take care of the children to the detriment of what they considered to be their career path.  Abuse was claimed (mental in all cases) but I suspect that what was considered to be abuse was simply an old-fashioned expectation of motherhood being more important than a career.***

Anyway, gays point at these two problems of heterosexuality in the modern age and clamor for the same right to marry (and I assume, to divorce) as straights.  If marriage doesn't require that the female have children, and if marriage can be dissolved at just about any time for just about any reason, then gays may have a point, even if it's ill-made.

What is truly sad about the whole situation, though, is that being married without children is a pretty big burden.  There is that little thing known as the "marriage penalty", and it's meant that my wife and I have had to pay the government thousands of dollars in taxes over the past decade and a half that we would never have paid had we remained single.  I keep joking, in fact, that we really need to get divorced for tax purposes.  My wife doesn't laugh but it really isn't funny, the moreso because it's true.

Because the actual benefits of what we call marriage today are primarily civil and not religious in nature, I would argue (as I have done at the beginning of this article and as I have done before, fairly consistently) that it is time for the state to get out of the business of sanctioning marriage.  Let all "marriage" simply be a contract between two people, sex-neutral, wherein responsibilities (including those of child-raising) of each party are defined, merging of assets is delineated, and provision is made to redistribute those assets should the contract be terminated (divorce).  This could be reduced to a standard form, similar to the Jewish ketubah (which does in fact include provisions for divorce).

Once the relationship between two people is reduced to a contract, which can be handled by lawyers and recorded with the county recorder for a modest fee, any ceremony of solemnization becomes optional (one assumes that the lawyers for both parties, as officers of the court, could be empowered to handle that) and the religious community is then off the hook and may perform whatever ceremonies that it sees fit upon couples who fit its requirements for same.  No longer would a priest, minister, or rabbi**** feel cornered or coerced into performing ceremonies that their scriptural constitutions forbid, and their congregations could rest easy in the expectation that the two gay boys (or girls) who wanted to be married in their place of worship had no case whereby to sue them into compliance with some politically-correct statute.

Mark me well -- If your particular denomination smiles on gay marriage, party on.  That's your cross to bear, and you can defend it when you're called to account at the end of time.  The important thing to me is that you stop trying to tell MY particular congregation or creed that it MUST accept marriage between anything other than one man and one woman.  And the way to start putting an end to that is to remove marriage from the realm of government sanction and make it simply a legal contract between two people -- not between two people and the government.

_______________

* Don't start with me about peyote buds and ritual sacrifice and that kind of shite.  Civil code covers most of that.  Murder is still murder, whether or not it was done to satisfy some elder god or suchlike.

** Yes, for me, the answer to the question of life, the universe and everything was 42.

*** We could go into the whole idea of women seemingly dominating the workforce in a day and age when an awful lot of breadwinner-type men are out of work, but I know too many strong and independent career-minded women who would probably kick my ass if I bitched about that. So never mind.  But as has been said many times, the future belongs to those who show up for it, and choosing not to have children -- particularly if you could have done when you were young enough to build a family -- does potentially have consequences.

**** I've left "imam" off of this list because I can't think of anyone of LGBT status, even some of the more liberal nutbag gays, who would have the balls to walk into a mosque and ask an imam to marry them.  Which is another problem for another day.

3 Comments

Exactly right on all counts.

Except then those with an agenda could not use "discrimination" to push their beliefs on those who disagree. People can do as they please in the bedroom, as long as both parties consent, and children are not involved. Why does anyone need my approbation? There are many in the LGBT community who demand societal approval when most of us just don't care.

Yeah, youre another gay hating poopy head like me. Except not. But never let that stop people from assuming you are.

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