I generally stay out of political discussions on the boards (and in real life), but I find this topic interesting since I just wrote a paper on it. I think what is really at the heart of this matter is the definition of what a marriage is. Getting back to the basics and leaving out the whole man/woman aspect for a few minutes and just focusing on two people: why do they want to get married?
For some, marriage is a religious sacrament. A ceremony performed in the eyes of God by a clergy member, with significance to the couple and their religion. I am not an expert on religions—I only know much about Christianity—but I’m sure that many various religions have their own close associations with marriage ceremonies. My mother always described her marriage as a commitment between herself, her husband, and God. However, not everyone chooses to be married for religious reasons.
I think people often confuse the religious wedding and the legal wedding. They are two separate entities, although they often take place in one service. The ceremony is generally based in religion. But the paper that you sign is what makes it legal. I don’t think the two have to go hand-in-hand. There can be religious unions, legal unions, or combinations of the both. My husband and I are not religious. I don’t think that our lack of religious beliefs makes our marriage any less valid. Our union is a legal one, and it works for us. I’d hate to have been told that the government would prohibit us from marrying because of our faith (or lack thereof). The United States has a policy of separation of church and state. So although a church may not recognize our marriage, the federal government does, and that is what is important to us.
Some say that marriage exists so that people can have children. Is this true in some cases? I would say probably so. Is it true in every case? Certainly not. My husband and I do not plan to have children. I know people who have children and are not married. I also know couples who got married because they were pregnant, which is a completely different argument—I’m not confusing a shotgun wedding with the arguments made earlier in this thread. Perhaps in the past (and I’m certainly no history major) marriage was a means to create a family. But society does evolve—it has done so for thousands of years. I’d say in this day and time that it is less necessary to have marriage in order to have children. The social stigma of the unwed mother or illegitimate child has greatly diminished. Do some people get married to start a family? Yes. But do they all? No.
Another reason I have heard as to why people get married is monogamy. I absolutely wholeheartedly agree that marriages are meant to be monogamous, although the statistics I have seen for both men and women who commit adultery are frightening. And marriage doesn’t actually guarantee anything—if a spouse cheats, they won’t face legal repercussions (although perhaps religious ones, depending on their faith). However, I don’t think marriage is necessary in order to have a monogamous relationship. I dated my husband for years before we decided to get married, four of those in which we lived together. We had a committed, loving, monogamous relationship the entire time.
So if my husband and I were already in a committed and monogamous relationship, we don’t want to have children, and we’re not religious, why did we get married?
First, we wanted to celebrate our love with our family and friends. Our wedding service, although beautiful to me, was short and simple. It was a means for us to make our union
legal. And that was the biggest point of it all—legal rights.
We have a partnership. I trust him. And I love him so much that I want to be sure that he is as well taken care of should anything happen to me. If I were to get into a car wreck on the way home from work today and sent to the hospital, he would have rights regarding being able to see me, discussing and making decisions on my treatment, enforcing my living will, and should anything happen to me, the right to my life insurance. Those are just a small sample of the legal rights he got just from signing a single sheet of paper and saying “I do” that he didn’t have previously.
What it boils down to is that I think the definition of marriage is really rather subjective. Different people have different reasons for marrying. For example, my friends that I mentioned above who got married because they were pregnant—do I think they should have gotten married for that reason? No, I don’t. But they were allowed to do so freely without my interference because
it is their life, not mine. We didn’t agree on that issue, and that is what makes us individuals—we’re not all the same, we don’t all do the same things for the same reasons.
Will I ever want to marry a woman? Most likely not, because I’m heterosexual and already married. But I don’t see the harm in allowing two women (or two men) to get married. It is their life and their agenda, not mine. We may not necessarily hold the same beliefs and values systems, but it is okay with me for us to be different. I think they should be allowed to do whatever they wish regardless of how I feel about it, as long as they don’t harm anyone else in the process.
What I’d really like to know, is why so many people are opposed to legalizing gay marriage. If it would not personally affect you in any way if a homosexual couple got married, why oppose it? I am genuinely curious here.
(And yes, in case you couldn't tell, I am a Libertarian
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