Thoughts Aloud

â—„Daveâ–º says:

Now you have done it. One shouldn’t get me started on this one. How could you possibly dispense with such a target rich subject with a mini-rant? If allowed free rein, my rant would be a mini-book; but I’ll try to hold back.

First, marriage itself is best described as the antidote for love. If one falls hopelessly in love, and cannot get over the affliction any other way – get married – that will cure the ailment soon enough. It would seem cruel to deny our gay neighbors access to such a potent elixir.

Then, if intelligence is defined as the ability to learn, much can be inferred from the number of times one has been married. Cohabitation with modern liberated women is certainly a challenge, for chauvinistic romantic throwbacks inclined toward monogamy. Personally, I have failed to convince one to put up with me for longer than 10 to 15 years, making my life a series of monogamous relationships; but it is a minor source of pride that only the first one ever talked me into marriage. 🙂

Next, marriage is fundamentally a religious sacrament, which the government has no business involving itself in. There are plenty of modern churches that will consecrate a gay marriage. Indeed, anecdotal evidence suggests that gays are over represented among the clergy in America’s churches. Gays desiring marriage should hire a preacher, have the ceremony, exchange their vows, throw a party, and then shut up about it.

Which brings us to the civil marriage license and contract. License? Really? Do we somehow need the formal permission of government to sleep with our lovers, just as we need a license to share our homes with a pet dog? How utterly demeaning – to loving spouse and faithful dog alike! Yet, more insidiously, the act of applying for such a license enters lovers into an implied perpetual contract. The purpose of a contract is to establish ahead of time, the penalties for breaking an agreement between the parties, when one may doubt the honor and integrity of the other’s handshake.

Yet, in a marriage contract, both the agreement itself and the penalties for a breach, are indeterminate. Not only are they established by law, rather than the parties involved, and tend to favor the female, they can and do change at the whim of politicians, or simply by moving into a different jurisdiction. It is the only contract I can think of, which can change after it has been executed, and still be binding on the parties who signed it, no matter how onerous the new terms. Needless to say, no man thinking with his large head, would be foolish enough to sign such an open-ended contract.

It would seem prudent for all lovers, gay or straight, who mistrust their partners, or think they need a contract to maintain their loyalty, to opt instead for a prenuptial agreement. That way they get to establish the terms themselves, which will remain constant no matter where thy choose to live, or what whimsical politicians think they ought to now be. Then, if they think they need the consecration of their church, and/or the status of ‘married,’ they can simply avail themselves of their church’s sacrament. Problem solved.

Finally, it drives me nuts that so many conservatives, who claim to be Constitutionalists, get so worked up over the definition of marriage, in regard to national politics. There is nothing in the Constitution giving the Federal government any power to regulate the living arrangements of citizens. It is patently none of the Federal government’s business what the word ‘marriage’ means, or who can claim that status. If a man wishes to call his favorite ewe his ‘wife,’ that is his business, not Washington’s. If he wishes to marry the McGuire sisters, his State may prohibit bigamy; but not the Feds.

The only Federal action that needs to be taken, is to add marital status and number of dependents, to the ever growing list of conditions the Federal government my not discriminate against or for. There should be no ‘marriage penalty’ in the tax code; but there should also be no deductions for dependents. A flat or ‘fair’ tax could end such unfair discrimination.

Of course, the same could be said about abortion. Roe v. Wade needs to be overturned as flawed law on Tenth Amendment grounds; but that just puts the question of the legality of abortion back into the hands of the individual States, where it belongs. The federal government is not empowered by the Constitution to legislate on the matter at all. If the citizens of New York wish abortion to be legal, and the citizens of Oklahoma wish it to be illegal, that is their business, and their legislatures can pass the appropriate legislation. But, it is no business of either one’s citizens to concern themselves with what is happening in the other’s State. None.

Fundamentalist activists shoot themselves in the foot, by forcing their national political candidates to publicly take a stand on these social issues, when there is nothing in their job description giving them the slightest power to regulate morality. All it does is alienate moderate swing voters, who might otherwise have voted for the conservative candidate, had he been allowed to simply say he had no public position on a subject that was immaterial to the job he was seeking. â—„Daveâ–º