Many people who disapprove of homosexual behavior also defend marriage, and some marriage neutering advocates apparently have this is mind when they demand that we stay out of their bedrooms. In doing so, they are confusing the issues.
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One need not disapprove of homosexual behavior to see the importance of resisting the neutering of state marriage licensing.Maintaining marriage does not interfere in anyone's bedroom. Adults of any sexual orientation are legally free to engage in cohabitation, casual sex, and other sexual and general social interactions and voluntary arrangements.
A more relevant challenge is posed with something like this:
Who cares if a couple of guys want to marry each other?
Nothing is stopping consenting adults from sharing a home, bed, and life together; having showers and parties; entering into contracts (in some places, domestic partnerships); having a ceremony with consenting clergy, wearing dresses or tuxes, holding flowers, making vows, exchanging rings, stomping a glass; having a reception with gifts, a cake, bouquet-tossing, garter-tossing, and dancing through the night; taking a honeymoon vacation; changing names; calling themselves married; requesting that others consider them married; and celebrating anniversaries.
This has been going on for several years now, it is all legally permitted, and there is no serious movement to pass legislation to change this.
It is when someone requests a marriage license (or a domestic partnership or civil union) from the government, which operates on behalf of the governed, that it becomes my business and the business of any citizen. State licensing is a public issue.
This isn't about what two people get to call their relationship - it is about forcing the rest of us to affirm brideless or groomless pairings as marriage, and prevent us from distinguishing between marriage and the pairing of two men or two women. The state is YOU and ME. It isn't as though, when the state issues a marriage license, it is "someone else".
We have seen the shift in activism go from "stay out of our lives" to "you must participate in our lives in the manner in which we demand." Well, I will gladly stay out of your bedroom. Please keep your hands off of my ballot.
I think we should use the force of law to prevent statutory rape, prostitution, dangerous bondage, incestuous sex, human-animal sex, and attempts at same-sex procreation, cloning, human-animal procreation, and creating genetically modified people.
ReplyDeleteAll of those things are very bad and call for sending police into the bedroom or lab if they suspect that the crime is taking place. All but the third might create a new person under unacceptable unethical circumstances, and all of them degrade the individuals involved when it occurs and society in general were we to stand by and allow it.
But other than those things, I don't think we should send the police in even if we suspect a crime is taking place, like illegal drug use, sodomy, fornication, or adultery. Those things should still be illegal, but the need to feel secure in our homes and do some illegal things outweighs the need to try to eradicate those things. They couldn't be eradicated completely anyhow, even if we tried. But just because we have made the decision to tolerate private illegal activities doesn't mean we have to legalize them.