What is marriage?
A friend of mine recently began asking me several questions about my views on marriage. It should be obvious by now that I have fairly strong opinions regarding gay marriage. He found it interesting that I should have such strong opinions and yet not necessarily be interested in the "institution" for myself. The fact is my opinions about marriage are rather jumbled. That may be due, in some part, to the fact that most of the current discussion about "marriage" has really nothing to do with marriage. The rest of it is, I am sure, simply because I haven't really taken the time to sit down and organize my thoughts on marriage. So, here we go.
The best metaphor I can think of for marriage today is a beautiful Arabian mare that has been loaded down like a pack mule with baggage. Religious conservatives are always playing the Garden of Eden card when discussing marriage: "God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve." Well, God also didn't create Adam and Eve and Mary and Margaret, and yet he appears to have sanctioned plural marriage later on. Abraham had a couple wives; so did Jacob, a.k.a. Israel, the two fathers of Judaism and God's Chosen People. God also didn't create Adam and Hembadoon, which people through the ages have used to preach white supremacy and justify racial bigotry. However, apart from a small minority most other people consider whackos, no one today suggests that only caucasian men and women should be allowed to marry because that is how God "ordained" it. The reality is--personal beliefs notwithstanding--God did create Adam and Steve, he just didn't put them in the Garden together.
So already our Arabian has extra baggage that doesn't seem to be evident in Genesis. There is also constant talk of marriage being the glue that holds society together. I'm not sure how you get that out of Genesis. I'm sorry, but you can't call one man and one woman a "society." Even if we wanted to stretch the definition of society to include one man and one woman and a few kids, that is hardly how society looks today. Society has changed and evolved, grown, collapsed and rebuilt itself all independent of marriage. Society has often co opted marriage for its own ends, however. In Rome it was a privilege afforded only to citizens. Slaves were not allowed. For that matter slaves in the United States were not allowed to marry either. In the feudal era, marriage was turned into a political tool for expanding power and ratifying treaties. Some duke was a lot more secure from attacks by neighboring duke, if the duke of the first part had the daughter of the duke of the second part as a hostage...I mean, daughter-in-law. Always marriage has been used as a means of managing societal relationships and defining an order to society. Wealth and status were and are often used as a means of defining an "appropriate" marriage. Religious groups only sanction marriage within their own little society. Marriage was and is granted as a privilege of citizenship. Denial of marriage rights has been done to slaves and "inferiors" of all ages. It's being done to homosexuals now. Can you honestly tell me that is what God intended when He put Adam and Eve in the Garden together? He intended marriage to be limited to certain classes of people? Not the God I know and love.
Also absent from Genesis are priests and judges. Adam and Eve's relationship was between themselves and God. Period. The bonds that create a family exist in the love that is shared between each of the parents and between the parents and the children. That love exists without the blessing of a priest. It exists without the ratification of a judge. And neither of those two acts creates it. The love that exists between two individuals, love strong enough to weather the hardships of life and the difficulty of raising children is what sanctifies a marriage.
And yet, people talk about the sanctity of marriage as if it is the government that sanctifies a marriage. Of course no one comes out and says it that way. In fact, many a religious body would take exception to such a statement. Religions tend to reserve that privilege for themselves. In fact, if you want to get technical, most religious only tolerate marriages performed by a civil authority. Still, people continue to talk about the baggage while pointing at the horse. The conservative right has been blowing a lot of smoke to capitalize on this misdirection and to keep the definition of marriage deliberately vague.
For example, I was at lunch with a very good friend of mine. He and his boyfriend/partner/live-in-love-slave have been together over two years now. With all the hubbub in San Francisco on my mind, I asked him, "If marriage were and option, would you and Ryan get married?" He thought for a moment and said, "I think we would opt for a civil union." What he was really saying is they would be perfectly content with a civil marriage and not seek or feel the need to have their union solemnized by some religious body.
I have never heard anyone who went to a court house and was married before a judge call their relationship a civil union. They don't say, "We are unionized." They say, "We are married." Now, there are a whole host of cases where there might be parties who would disagree. A Catholic priest would say they are not married "in the eyes of God." Mormons would view the marriage as one inferior to a marriage performed in their temples. In some cases even the parents of an estranged child might refuse to acknowledge the marriage. However, despite any personal opinions to the contrary, as far as the law is concerned they are married. End of story.
Religious debate has never been a part of marriage as defined by the U.S. Government. Nor should it ever be. If people object to homosexual marriage, they are free to do so. Each religious community is free to give or withhold their blessing of a homosexual marriage. Parents and family are free to do the same. It's not really about any of them anyway. Marriage is between two individuals and God, just like it was in the Garden.
Marriage is not "an institution." It's a thing of beauty. Do I need a priest or some other ecclesiastical authority to bless the love I share with my future partner? No. Will a marriage license strengthen my commitment to him? No. Will I want to have a party and celebrate when he and I make the decision to share the rest of our lives with each other? Very likely. Will God smile upon us and celebrate with us? I believe that He will. Do I expect the government to acknowledge our commitment with the same privileges and rights it grants heterosexuals who make the same decision? Damn right I do.
It seems to me that our poor Arabian mare is holding up fairly well for all the baggage she has been laden with. In fact, if she is appearing weak and shaky, maybe we should be relieving her of some of the burden of ages past and not adding more to it. Toss the idea that marriage is a duty. Discourage marriage as a means of escape. Help people escape in other ways. Don't tell (force) people to get married to hide mistakes. And above all, end marriage's abuse as a tool for enforcing social order. Man seems to have a knack for complicating things. We should have left marriage the way God made it: pure, simple and beautiful.