But this is something we do constantly. Even marriage--in this country, marriage was not a concern for those writing the Constitution because at the time, marriage was a local concern. The documentation didn't matter; if your community recognized you as a married couple, you WERE a married couple. That you probably had a ceremony in the local church (if there was one) was just a simple way of getting the community's approval.
But, as things went along, marriage became a larger concern. In Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation, Nancy Cott argues essentially that American marriage in particular is defined primarily by the notion of consent, just as our form of government is built around the consent of the people. But, the question becomes, what happens when two adults' consent to one another offends the religious beliefs of others? Marriage had been recognized publicly long before America came along--the support of it helped maintain family structure and the larger societal structure atop it... it also helped avoid what Cott calls the "vagaries" of sexual conduct, the perversions we can cite from The Bible as well as the slippery slope arguments we can lump in with them (the common two: what's next, marrying our pets? what's next, legal pedophilia?). However much Christians--while I acknowledge that other religions also take issue with homosexuality, in America, it often comes down to "this is a Christian nation" vs. two consenting adults of the same gender wanting to have the same legal rights to marriage as the rest of us do... anyway, however much Christians may not like homosexual behavior, outside of a Christian dictatorship, they do not have the right to dictate their morality upon the rest of us. When we put our morality--especially that from The Bible, if we take it seriously and entirely--upon the masses, we endanger so many advances we have made.
And, now it is my turn for a sort of slippery slope argument. If we argue ancient morality over progressive (and I do not mean Progressive, capital P) ideals, then we must reserve a place for slavery, a place for the right to not only have our wives (plural) but to beat them if they do not obey. We must reserve a place for polygamous marriage and concubines to boot. The notion of being conservative (again, no capital C) is nice--who wouldn't want to revert to a "simpler" time when the thrust of our modern world moves so quickly and so strongly in directions we not only find abhorrent but can barely even imagine sometimes. Personally, I cannot fully imagine having multiple wives. I think a good marriage in the busyness of modern life takes so much time and so much work that anything built on love (or something like it) would not fit into such a plural environment. But, not everyone necessarily needs marriage built around love, and plenty of cultures--including the central one of the Old Testament, mind you--have practiced plural marriage. In America, we didn't officially tackle that topic until the Mormons became a local, then national problem. And the Supreme Court argued that plural marriage was not a right guaranteed under the First Amendment. Yet, for those Mormons, and for those of many other human cultures, this was "traditional marriage." For Mormons, it was ordained by God. Yet, our nation could dictate it away.
And, it can dictate away the one man one woman marriage as well; rather it can add to it. And, when a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 58% of the nation supports gay marriage, why shouldn't we add to the definition? Let us assume for a moment that there is a God and he is the God of The Bible and he will punish homosexuals for their lifestyle and their marriage. What difference does this make to the rest of us? Are we so stuck on Old Testament dictates--homosexuality is an abomination there, not in the New Testament--that we also fear God will destroy our nation like he did Sodom and Gomorrah because we have officially supported a sinful behavior? If this is the case, shall the Christians (and other religious affiliates who also have gods who don't like homosexuality) among us not simply follow Lot's example and be better, be worth saving?
The Old Testament God is an angry god, just as I am an angry man sometimes lately, not because I disagree with Conservative (capital C) values or that I hate the prejudices inherent in this entire debate (or because my own life is about to be twisted around into a form I wished it was not) but because we pretend like this is a simple argument on either side. God says it's wrong, so we must keep it from happening. There is no God and homosexual adults want legal recognition so we should allow it. We must treat debated issues simplistically most of the time; we must deal in broad labels and generic examples or we would never come to any decisions. But, far too often we forget (or deliberately ignore) the fact that real people are involved here. When we--the heterosexual majority, that is--find love and choose marriage, we expect that we will be allowed to express that love in obtaining that marriage, publicly, legally. We expect that we will have certain privileges--hospital visitation, for example--and recognition. The opposition interjects here, of course, that the gays can have civil unions, they don't need "marriage." But, that is the inequality that is unAmerican in all of this. If you want to argue that none of us get marriage anymore, and there will only be civil unions, that's one thing. But, I don't hear many suggesting as much. And, if they did, then "marriage"becomes meaningless as a term. I would interject: If it is only a religious label, then why would any gay couple want it? But, then I am simplifying. Let's backtrack to my slippery slope above. If, rather than freeing the slaves, we simply redefined "freedom" to include their servitude, then nothing has changed. We are still subjugating a people over superficial differences. We are still allowing out bigotry and religious views to overrule that which is humane.
There is no reason that a homosexual couple should not also expect the privileges and recognition that comes with marriage. There is no reason that a homosexual couple should not be allowed to marry just like the rest of us. It's flippant and simplistic, but a group of photos I saw online a few days ago comes to mind. One photo was a couple who, the caption tells us, were drunk and in Vegas and decided to get married. The second photo includes a woman who, the caption tells us, got bored of being alone so found herself yet another husband to marry. The third is a homosexual couple who is not allowed to marry because they live in a state where it is not legal. We value the first two "marriages" the larger caption tells us, but we do not value the third. Personally, as long as marriage has legal ramifications, I value all types of marriage between consenting adults, just as we would "value" all legal partnerships between them. As long as there is some "traditional" aspect to marriage, some "religious" notions attached, as long as our culture believes in love and the allowance that we can build partnerships based thereon, then there is room for debate. But, we choose to fight over superficial differences like gender rather than what we might truly value within marriage deeper within ourselves--or that we perhaps don't actually value that much, which may be why we don't debate it as much. In those photos just cited, maybe we don't value the drunk Vegas wedding, but we DO allow it. That is de facto valuing of it, even if we think little of it, even if it is annulled a day later. And, what is wrong with marrying repeatedly because the alternative is loneliness? And, what is wrong with marrying the love of one's life, regardless of what genitals that person may have? If we are reductionist about it and say marriage is strictly for the purpose of procreation, then there's a whole new slippery slope to go down, forbidding the marriage of anyone who is not fertile. But, we don't go there. Well, some of us may. I try not to.
I try not to make the slippery slope leaps unless at the same time labeling them as such, as I did above.
That being said, I must address the slippery slopes that come from opponents of gay marriage. To leap from gay marriage to bestiality and pedophilia and the downfall of our "Christian" nation is simplistic, misrepresentative, and patently ridiculous. Two consenting adults is in no way the same thing as an adult and an animal or an adult and a child. If I need to elaborate on that point further, then you reading this are too far gone to understand most of what I've already said and you should probably move along... and now I'm being rude. I don't mean to be.
As I mentioned, I am angry. And, I am sad. The idea that a nation supposedly built on equality can ever pick and choose who gets to be equal or how they get to be is a depressing thing to me. That we have already subjugated blacks, slaughtered natives, and still so often operate under the idea that women are inherently inferior to men is similarly depressing. The idea that we cannot change for the better, to be more inclusive--that is something far worse.
If one's behavior does not hurt another, then it should not be illegal. If a couple's behavior does not hurt anyone... personal offense excepted, then it should not be illegal. It's strange, but it seems like the same people who would say to liberals (no capital L) like me, if you hate America so much why don't you leave, are the same people that don't understand that if they don't like gay marriage so much, they can simply turn away from it. If you turn out to be correct about God and sin and all that, He will punish those sinners. You do your part, be a good person who doesn't hate, who doesn't reduce others beneath human levels over personal offense. You be a good "Christian" and let the rest of us be good, well, good whatever we happen to be. We can actually all be good people, even if we disagree on some of the specifics. There's plenty of common ground on what is good. And, there is certainly some objective standards to what works FOR society rather than against it. Let us all do that. And, when it is, as they say, behind closed doors, let us do whatever we want as long as those involved are able to consent.
And, let us save our rage for things that actually hurt other people, not just things we don't like.
