Politics - Marriage

This week, California courts struck down the referendum-voted Proposition 8, affirming the definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman. This leaves the largest state in the union open to the option of homosexual marriage. This is, to my mind, a huge step in the right direction. For those who say that it’s against the traditional concept of marriage, I’ll point out that the traditional concept has changed radically over the past two-hundred and fifty years, and even over the past half century. Many of those changes have been positive and victories for human dignity. For those who would insist that homosexuality is unnatural, I’d point them in the direction of antique literature and art depicting the longevity of the habbit. Failing that, the number of unnatural acts committed by the average citizen in the average day certainly add up. From eating food with ingredients we can’t pronounce, going running when there isn’t a carnivore chasing us, or sitting in front of a computer monitor for hours on end, as a species we do many things that don’t fall into category of natural behaviour. For those who would say that marriage is a sacred bond, or that the state has no business interfering with a religious magisterium, the fact remains that the state has the obligation to marry people, even if some religions object to the participants. Same-sex marriage is concept whose time has come around, and is finally here. We’d best get used to it.

Family
Family means different things to different people. Many people see family as being only the nuclear family of the parents and two point three children; maybe a dog. In much of the world, it also includes adult siblings, extended families of cousins, patrilineal clans, and many call close friends “brother” or “sister.” For soldiers in war, the term “Band of Brothers” is generally considered more than an expression, and the concept of “sisterhood” is more than cheap words among many women.

For purposes of hospital visits, why should an estranged blood relative have rights that supersede those of a true life-partner. Why can a distant cousin contest a will based on consanguinity against someone who lived and loved the years away with the deceased? For purposes of work, is there anyone left who would have no problem with someone being fired for their love-life? The idea of gay rights has finally met the threshold of mainstream. Even those who are most uncomfortable around the concept of male homosexuality (for some reason always more controversial than that of its female counterpart), there is a tolerance of these basic rights of human decency.

The inclusion of same-sex marriage into the legal cannon guarantees these rights, and strengthens families. It expands our current definition of the term to one more inclusive of the social reality in the modern world.

Tradition
I like to say that I also come from a non-traditional marriage, in that my parents chose each other rather than be bartered over by their parents until the right price of livestock would change hands to seal the deal. Until the 1970s, there were still many places North America where a white woman and a black man could not marry, but that tradition changed. When we see that kind of racism elsewhere in the world, it rightly rouses our sense of indignity, that such small mindedness is still tolerated. We forget how violently this development was resisted in our own backyard.
Growing up in a protestant society, I’m reminded that traditional marriage among the working classes is what we today would call common-law. Common-law marriage is now viewed passively as marriage-light or shacking up, but by most Anglo-Saxon standards, this is the traditional form of marriage for 90% of the population. In times past, most people could not afford to pay for a full mass to be said in their honour. Such lavish pretensions were reserved for the wealthy. Marriage certificates were not issued among the poor, and why were they needed among the rich? In Sixteenth Century England, marriage was the sole prerogative of the church. There was now reason for the state to involve itself in such issues.

More recently, in the small towns of Quebec, Mexico or Russia, young couples would be publicly seen as a couple, move in, and when the itinerant priest finally showed up on his yearly circuit, he would say his prayers, and then the marriage was official.

The modern concept of universal marriage, where all couples will have a big festival to announce their betrothal, be married by a priest, minister or rabbi, is really a post World-War-Two concept. Prior to that, it didn’t matter if the state recognized the coupling, nor did it matter if there was an immediate divine recognition. The modern wedding, like the modern marriage, is a middle-class tradition that’s newly descended to the working classes. It has its traditions, but they don’t date back to time immemorial, and they are subject to change.

Sacred
It’s oft said that marriage is a sacred bond. This argument is the most violent. A secular wedding, officiated by a judge or stamped by a clerk at the city records office has no digestion for the sacred or the profane. There is no more need for a religious injunction on a marriage than there is on a religious injunction on a traffic light.

The last time I attended a wedding in a church, the priest officiated the service, and then the bride and groom signed the register, I signed on as a witness to the act. The registration document was a secular certificate, that took no time at all out of the Anglican service. Unlike the bible or the hymns, the prayers or the benedictions, the paper certificate was irreligious. It was present, but not the focus. The secular document in no way interfered with the religious service. When I married the love of my life, we were married by a judge and we signed the document before retiring to a reception with family and friends. Both services were equally legal.

The reason that I was married by a judge is because I have no religion and my wife is Muslim. She would have preferred a marriage by an Imam, but no imam would perform the service. In Saudi Arabia, no Muslim woman can marry a non-Muslim man (though a Muslim man may marry a non-Muslim woman). In the Republic of Ireland, a Protestant marrying a Catholic was not permitted until the 1970s. In Canada and the United States, when a Catholic and Protestant seek to marry, they may have difficulty finding a Catholic Priest to officiate the ceremony, or a Protestant Minister to MC the event, but a secular wedding certificate exists to supersede the rival house-rules of the religious.

Churches, mosques and synagogues may still keep whatever rules that they wish for overseeing their ritualised couplings. No law has ever been or ever will be passed to prevent that; despite the fear-mongering tactics of the opponents of same-sex marriage. A civil ceremony protects the civil rights of everyone, even the religious, from the pressures of any individual stream of dogma. It is essential in a multi-cultural society to protect civil ceremony from undue influence emanating from those who would seek to redefine the authorities at play. This is an important point for same-sex and opposite-sex couples, as well as any person from any religious background who seeks or is open to any concourse with anyone of any other religious tradition.

The Vote
As John Adams was fond of saying “Facts are stubborn things.” The fact remains that the people of California voted against same-sex marriage by a percentage that you could count on a single hand; 52.25/47.75 is hardly a resounding support for either side. There are many who would accuse the judge who ruled against Proposition Eight of overstepping the bounds of judicial authority in the face of a clearly demonstrated decision by the electorate. This would be ignoring two important facts.

Fact One: The courts have a constitutionally mandated duty to strike down unconstitutional laws. That’s the job of the judicial branch of government. The balance of powers between the legislative, judicial and executive is built on this constant jockeying for position, that no single branch manages to trump all others. This story and debate are far from over.

Fact Two: Democracy is not the rule of the mob. If you asked the South to vote on slavery in 1850, I’m sure they would have voted to support it, that wouldn’t make it right. In many parts in Africa, it is believed that diseases are caused by witchcraft. Should that belief be respected over the beliefs of the much smaller doctor community? Constitutionality should be ruled and judged by constitutional experts; the opinion of a single judge is NOT equal to the opinion of a single factory worker.

The arguments of defending traditional marriage fall thin when you accept that we’ve already done away with a traditional marriage. Our tradition is new and constantly being reinvented. The sacredness of the institution as between a man a woman and their god is in no way violated by accepting same-sex marriages. Divorce is a more palpable threat, and there is no large-scale movement against that assault on traditional marriage. The fact of the plebiscite on the issue is a thorny one, but with such a minor difference in the outcome, in twenty years time there will be conservatives claiming that they were always on the side of keeping the government out of the bedrooms of the nation with the same enthusiasm with which they now lionize MLK. The arch of history bends towards liberty, and the defeat of Proposition Eight is the blade of that arch, cutting a path towards a freer society for all.