Thoughts on Gay Marriage

Or, you know, marriage.

This will be rambletastic, you have been warned.

For a long time, probably over a decade, I have thought that consenting adults should be allowed to enter into legally binding, and respected, agreements.  This has progressively changed from allowing "Civil Unions" with all of the rights of marriage to my current position of just calling it what it is, marriage.  I have asked people who are against it to provide me with one non-religious reason for disallowing it, and the one that I heard most recently was that he did not want to have to explain to his grand daughter why two people were doing something that they thought was immoral and the government was condoning it.

Really? Outlawing the ability of two people who love each other to care for each other because you can't talk to children about how different people have different views of what is immoral? Though I suppose that is how prohibition started too. Of course, this is still a religious argument.

Even before I was married, I held the opinion that two people of the same gender getting married would in no way devalue my marriage.  If two people who love each other, and who happen to be of the same gender, get to marry, and this somehow has a deleterious effect on my marriage, that says a whole lot more about my marriage than it does about the gay couple who love each other.

In terms of the national good, I would think that allowing gays to marry each other would actually stimulate the economy, at least a little, as there are more people employing reception halls, DJs, bakeries, and everything else that goes with a wedding, whether or not the ceremony proper is held in a church.  Though I guess more lawyers will probably be getting paid too as the inevitable divorces come through.

That of course points us to the "sanctity of marriage" argument. I'm not certain of the current statistics, but I was under the impression that it is still something like 50% of marriages end in divorce. In this country marriage hasn't been sacred for quite some time. When a celebrity has been married for over 10 years we applaud them. When non-celebrities are married for more than 30 years, we, as a society, marvel at their matrimonial longevity.

Maybe I should have made this post yesterday, or many days ago. Regardless, the members of the Supreme Court will not see it prior to their decision, nor should online essays sway their decision one way or the other. They should base their decision on their interpretation of the Constitution, including the part which provides equal protection under the law.

This also brings up my final thought, the only place the word "faith" shows up in the original Constitution has the effect of saying that marriages between same-sex partners performed in New York have to be upheld in Utah.  The full faith and credit clause. Though the word faithfully shows up 2 places, one in an oath for the President, and the other stating that the president will ensure that the laws are faithfully executed.