[Vision2020] gay marriage and bananas

[Joan Opyr]

Doug takes issue with my logic regarding gay marriage on grounds that 
should, by now, be familiar to all of us.  He asks, "If Wilson does not get 
to impose his morality on homosexuals, then why do the homosexuals want him 
to be able to impose it on polygamists?"

I don't want you to impose your morality on polygamists, and I certainly 
don't want to impose mine.  I have no moral or philosophical objections to 
polygamy.  I can, however, see some practical difficulties if it were 
practiced in the United States.  Which spouse would get your social security 
and retirement benefits?  How would we determine ownership of community 
property?  Which wife would get to pull the plug should you wind up in a 
persistent vegetative state?  These are not insurmountable obstacles, but 
they are obstacles nonetheless.  The difference between me and thee is that 
I view this as a matter of law and not morality.  Polygamy would be fine by 
me if we could guarantee it was practiced willingly, fairly, and with the 
consent of all involved.  (This is not the way it's practiced in the wilds 
of South Idaho and Utah, where multiple child brides seem to be the order of 
the day.)  That said, I nevertheless maintain that gay marriage does not 
lead inevitably to polygamy.  That's another debate for another day -- along 
with whether or not me marrying Melynda will lead to Timmy marrying Lassie.

In this country, marriage is about the determination of one's heirs and the 
choosing of one's next of kin.  You're free to believe that God has joined 
you together, but in all fifty states, the law can put you asunder.  (From 
your writings on marriage and divorce, I gather you'd like to rectify that.  
I doubt you'll succeed, but I'll keep tossing pennies into the Friendship 
Square Fountain just in case.)  Although states like Louisiana and 
Mississippi are experimenting with so-called "covenental marriage," the law 
generally makes no distinction between heterosexual couples who are married 
by Doug in Doug's church and those who are married by an Elvis impersonator 
at the Drive-thru Chapel in Las Vegas.  And it shouldn't.  The law is an 
ass, and I see no reason why an ass should decide whose vows are true and 
Godly and whose aren't.  It should only determine your legal rights and 
obligations.

You ask, "By what standard do we make decisions about marriage law?  Is it 
religious?  Secular?"

Secular, darling, secular.  I think the state ought to get out of the 
marriage business altogether.  Offer civil unions to everyone -- the chance 
to designate your next of kin, your partner, the person who has access to 
your car keys and your checkbook -- and leave marriage to the consciences of 
the individuals involved.  Melynda and I will call ourselves married -- you, 
the state, and Fake Elvis be damned.  But we know others, both gay and 
straight, who are equally committed to one another who would rather die than 
use the word "married" to describe their relationship.  In many cases, 
they've done what we've done, executed a complicated and expensive series of 
legal documents that as near as possible give us some measure of the rights 
and privileges of state-sanctioned marriage.  How much better (and clearer) 
for all of us if we could do this via the shorthand of civil unions.

Joan Opyr

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