Sanctity of Marriage

In Sunday's Kingman Daily Miner I read a rather long piece submitted by the pastor of a local Christian Church who discussed his views on the pros and cons of gay marriage.

We all are well aware that gay marriage will again be the big divisive in the November elections if the Republicans have their way - anything to avoid facing the other problems our nation has and the dismal failures in all venues during the Republican administration. And there will be much fanfare as more states amend their constitutions to protect the ‘sanctity of marriage'.

His piece was well written without scriptural quotes and he even seemed to take the middle road of his argument which still ended up with the expected result. Unfortunately the piece was too long for me to copytype and post here but basically it was about the unacceptability of homosexuality in the marriage contract. What he wrote bothered me and I worried about it.

At 4AM I was sleeping beautifully and for once, painlessly - it seems that I had taken the right dosage of pain killers earlier for my arthritis - then I awakened in the midst of composing in my mind a rebuttal to the pastor's arguments. I knew I'd forget it all like a dream by the time I normally get up so I padded from bed into the den and entered my words into the computer.

Then, of course, I went back to bed and slept until eleven AM. Unfortunately by then the pain killers had worn off...

What follows is what I wrote and after a bit of window dressing, e-mailed to the paper for publication:

Gay Marriage?

Pastor Walt Roberts, (Miner, July 9), presented a reasonably balanced account of gays and marriage as far as he went. However, like the iceberg which sank the Titanic, he described the highly visible tip floating in these murky political waters and neglected to tell us, as Paul Harvey would say, "The rest of the story!"

With less than one person in twenty who may be considered gay in either sex, it is hard to believe that this group could, as even the good pastor doubts, "...mean the end of civilization as we know it."

Yet, the perception of homosexuality as a rather disgusting abnormality by the vast majority of voters, has allowed ‘sanctity of marriage' legislation to be passed easily by many states and with more to come. Although it is something like killing a fly with a sledgehammer!

I have yet to read an expose' of this conspiracy even from the so-called liberal press - but then, neither did the crew of the Titanic see their disaster in time.

So what am I talking about?

Every piece of legislation presented and passed so far says in effect that "Marriage" has to be between a man and a woman. This is advocated by Pastor Roberts, most of the religious community and many others. Which is fine! Certainly religion has a 1st Amendment right to believe as it wishes - and it does indeed entertain some interesting concepts!

There is no reason to deny marriage from the churches modeled as they see fit providing that the churches don't promote practices which are culturally out of bounds such as those of the FLDS. However, there still must be secular alternatives codified by law, such that marriage may exist outside the purview of religion.

The problem is that the ‘sanctity of marriage' legislation also very slyly includes prohibition against the secular alternative to marriage generally referred to as "domestic partnership." This prohibition steps on the toes of the secular community and many constitutions which guarantee equal rights to all citizens. With such prohibitions how can government handle the highly economic aspects of social relationships and families? Especially when in recent years and for many reasons, large segments of the mostly heterosexual community has soured on traditional marriage.

This is the most dangerous subsurface part of the iceberg. But lets back up a bit and consider a little bit about our society and some of its biology. For example, I read a few weeks back that about half of all men over forty have erectile dysfunction! That surprised me, but if true, I'd hazzard a guess that more than half of all women in that age group also suffer from erectile disinterest!

Perhaps it is perfectly natural that those below the age of forty are focused upon nest building, family creation and living life to its fullest and those of us well over forty are more interested in politics, genealogy and keeping things the way we think they should be - in other words, the way they were when we were building our nests.

It is not the homosexuals we are actually legislating against but rather those non-voting, under forty, heterosexual nest builders who prefer to cohabit - perhaps because they object to the legalities and servitude imposed by marriage.

It seems to be human nature for people to pair off and create families regardless of religion. After all, babies can't raise themselves. Thus we find a huge community of unsanctioned and therefore uncontrolled families which is growing at the expense of marriage. Couple this with the divorce rate of those who actually try to comply with marriage and the fact that the success of marriage appears to be inversely proportional to the size of the wedding.... obviously, it is the institution of marriage which is in trouble and it has nothing at all to do with homosexuality!

This is the fear of the conspirators mentioned above, both religious and secular alike, that society as we know it is getting out of control. This is the reason for the highly emotional, gay bashing legislation being proposed by many of our states and the federal government. We persist in thinking we can control people through legislation - the problem is that we will end up with revolution instead.

As our children and grandchildren age, they will become the ones in charge and who eventually learn to vote. It will be they who legislate the new society they have created - certainly not the broken one we are busy defending today.

Consider also that in the Massachusetts ruling, the state Supreme Judicial Court said same-sex marriage may be irreversible because it is now part of the "fabric of the equality and liberty" guaranteed by the state constitution. A constitutional lawyer for the state of Massachusetts recently presented his opinion that if the state specifically outlaws gay marriage and domestic partnerships that the state will eventually be required to not recognize any church or secular marriages in the state in order to satisfy the equal rights guaranteed her citizens!

Here in the western states such as Arizona which are influenced by Spanish law rather than English, the elimination of marriage for example, would among other things, force the elimination of community property laws. Remember that as couples age, they usually acquire valuable estates such as a home and savings. Community property rights are obviously very important to an aging widows' financial independence.

So my question is: Are we going to recognize the deeper problems our society faces involving marriage and family or sink into the muck - like the unsinkable Titanic? Are we going to continue blaming minorities for the misfortunes we bring upon ourselves? Are we going to trample the rights of others only to face the ultimate loss of our own?