Lieutenant Arcot Ramathron wants to know. Right meow.
Hi there! I return to my blog after a nearly 10-month absence to shit on everyone's misleading-headline-fueled parade.
Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued dual opinions dealing with how the federal government regulates marriage. If you are among the majority of Americans who get their news from social media and/or the major networks, you probably could not be blamed for thinking the Court pronounced gay marriage a national virtue and injunctively ordered Congress to declare war on the Vatican. Naturally, the text of both opinions is far more nuanced than that. Here, read:
Hollingsworth v. Perry, No. 12-144, slip op. (U.S. Jun. 26, 2013). (Proposition 8).
See?
It seems like the real winner in this final week of the Court's 2012
session is actually the Tenth Amendment and states' rights, but this is all very much beside the
point. In all the hubbub surrounding yesterday's decisions, I have read much commentary - most of it staggeringly unsophisticated and deeply sanctimonious - contending that the Windsor decision was a "step in the right direction" but that the royal "we" "still have lots of work to do." The implication is of course that the ultimate goal is federal recognition of gay marriage. It strikes me
as counterintuitive, however, that advocates for the absolute right of individuals to
solemnize their love with the person of their choice would still crave federal
laws defining precisely who is (and by default who is not) eligible for a marriage license and its attendant benefits. If we are to accept the premise that marriage is an absolute right between consenting adults - and I think this is necessary for the purposes of supporting gay marriage - how can we possibly accept that any state actor is endowed with the authority to regulate, let alone issue licenses for the practice of such a fundamental right?
Forgive me for briefly engaging in the banality of defining terms, but I feel I must in order to avoid "mincing words here," as His Venerableness BHO might put it. Black's Law Dictionary defines an absolute right as "[a] right that belongs to every human being...that cannot be denied or curtailed..." A license, on the other hand, is "a permission, usually revocable, to commit some act that would otherwise be unlawful...[and/or] the certificate or document evidencing such permission." If the two concepts seem logically incompatible, it's because they are.
Again, if we accept the premise that marriage is a right not to be denied, we cannot logically or ethically suggest that it is also subject to revocable permission from the state. It seems, therefore, that the only logically consistent and ethical policy is to either eliminate or significantly attenuate the power of the state to regulate marriage, and to certainly revoke its power of issuing marriage licenses. Our society does not, and I hope would not, tolerate licensure for the practice of other absolute rights such as speech and religion; it does not make sense that we should accept it for something as deeply personal as solemnizing our love.
It may be rebutted that marriage laws are needed to define who qualifies as a spouse for purposes of government benefits. But again, if we believe that marriage is a right not to be curtailed, we cannot logically or ethically accept the state's exercise of influence over couples' decisions to marry through pecuniary incentive. This would be like - and in fact is - the state rewarding the expression of certain opinions it likes over others it doesn't through tax benefits. Those who support gay marriage tend to do so in part because they do not believe
it is the province of government to have a say in whom and how they love.
Indeed, this thinking makes complete sense: I suspect I am not the only person who has never made amorous decisions with an eye towards what would most please my government.
Finally, abolishing marriage licensure would give us perhaps the greatest gift of all: individuals would be free to define marriage as they wish-- they would not be bound by the definitions of the federal government, state governments, the Human Rights Campaign (shit, they made the equal sign more famous than a teacher can), the Catholic Church, or anybody else with whom they did not freely choose to associate. If an individual believed in a religiously based definition of marriage, he could do so without worrying about whether his church would be sued for not conforming to the federal government's standard. This would be the true definition of tolerance.
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