Let the gays marry!!

I should be working on my new site. Or cleaning. Or hell even taking a nap. But I’m all riled up now because of an article I read from NPR about the ban of gay marriage. Several states have continuously turned down proposed laws allowing gays to marry. I’m not gay obviously, but it infuriates me. It’s an injustice and completely unfair. We are living in 2010, not 1910! Hasn’t our society learned its lesson from slavery, the civil rights movement, the mistreatment of Japanese during World War 2 or even the cruel and inhuman treatment of Jews during the Holocaust? Haven’t we learned that differences in our country are what make the U.S unique? Isn’t the US supposed to be the freest land?

To me, banning gay marriage is just as bad as banning interracial marriage. I decided to do some research on the arguments for and against gay marriage. I found an article written by a guy named Austin Cline and he made so many valid points it’s as if he read my mind. Even though technically he wrote the article first, so I guess I read HIS mind..hehe. Anyway here are some excerpts from the article. Preach on Austin!

There is nothing wrong with individuals or churches treating marriage as sacred or sacramental, but this is not a debate about what individuals or private institutions should be doing. It is a debate about how the government should treat people and how the laws on marriage should be written. Is there any obligation on the part of the government to define civil marriages in a manner that does not conflict with religious conceptions of the same?

With all due respect to religious people, the answer has to be no. It doesn’t matter what their personal feelings are regarding marriage, nor does it matter how important a particular definition of marriage happens to be within their religious system. The government is separate from and independent of their religion and must define marriage in a manner consistent with the secular principles upon which the government and the laws are founded.

What if some religious groups declared that a certain type of tree were sacred — would the government be obligated to prevent anyone from cutting down that species and making furniture out of it? Some religious groups prohibit the remarriage of people who have gone through civil divorce proceedings. Should the government therefore pass civil laws that prohibit divorce, or at least the remarriage of divorced persons?

In debates over gay marriage, much attention is paid to legal rights which same-sex couples miss out on because of their inability to marry. If we take a close look at those rights, however, we find that most are about helping couples care for each other. Individually, the rights help spouses support each other; taken together, they help society express the importance of being a spouse and the fact that marrying changes who you are and your status in the community.

Marriage in America is indeed a contract — a contract that comes with more obligations than rights. Marriage is a civil right that is not now and has never been dependent upon any one religion or even religion in general for its justification, existence, or perpetuation. Marriage exists because people desire it and the community, working through the government, helps ensure that married couples are able to do what they need to in order to survive. At no point is religion needed or necessarily relevant.

Church & State
If the separation of church and state means anything, it must include the idea that people cannot be forced by the government to live according to the dictates of others’ religion. Just because one or many groups consider something sacred doesn’t mean that everyone must be forced to do so as well. Just because one or many religious groups consider same-sex marriage a sacrilege doesn’t mean that everyone else must be forced to define marriage in a way that would exclude gay couples.
It also isn’t good enough for people to argue that same-sex marriage is against God’s will — it’s fine if churches teach this, but no government is under any obligation to legislate in a manner that is consistent with what what any church interprets God’s will to be. That would be the very essence of what it means to live in a theocracy.

Marriage does not exist in order to further any mandates from anyone’s gods. Marriage does not exist simply in order to encourage and protect procreation. Marriage does not exist because it is a “natural” function. No, marriage exists because society finds that it is valuable and worthy to encourage and protect committed, intimate relationships that are pursued over an extended period of time. As an institution, marriage helps provide legal protection and stability to human relationships that might not otherwise survive problems and pressures under more informal terms. Financial and social benefits are thus conferred upon marital relationships because their long-term stability furthers general social stability.
So far, no government has suggested that any religious groups be forced to perform and recognize gay marriages - that’s the flip-side of the separation of church and state and is as it should be. Just as the government is not obligated to define marriage along religious lines, religious groups are not obligated to define marriage along civil lines.

Marriage within a religion might be conceived as having been authored by God, but that is not and cannot be the starting basis for civil society. In civil society, marriage is authored by secular laws voted upon by representatives of the people and as interpreted by the courts. Thus, we are the authors of civil marriage - religion no longer plays any essential role.


Reference
(Arguments Against Gay Marriage: Marriage is a Sacred Religious Sacrament .Gay Marriage Would Be a Sacrilege and Thus Must Be Banned?, 2010)