MIND YOUR OWN MARRIAGE: Marni Soupcoff

...If I am so certain the government is unnecessary to meaningful marriage, that the institution can best be handled by parties non-political, then why am I choosing to have my own union via a bureaucratic blessing?

Because I can.

While I am not especially religious or traditional, I take the idea of marriage seriously. When it came time to embark upon it, I, therefore, wanted to give my union as much of an "official" sense as possible. I also wanted to distinguish my volitional choice to make a commitment from the government's arbitrary "common law" designation, which was imposed upon me without my say-so, when I shared living quarters with my fiance for over year.

In other words, I may not think much of the government, but while they're offering a legal stamp of approval for my choice of marriage, I'm inclined to take it.

This tells me two things. First, the status quo in the United States, and most of the rest of the world where marriage is legally restricted to a man and a woman, is no good because it amounts to a legal form of discrimination against homosexuals, who should at least have the same option of getting the government's blessing that heterosexuals have, even if that blessing shouldn't be necessary. Some of my most government-loathing friends and I have proven that when the chips are down, we grab the government's okay when it is available to us.

Second, this tells me that an environment like Canada's, in which the government recognizes marriage between heterosexual couples or between homosexual couples, is also unacceptable because it still invokes a moral discriminatory judgment against individuals who are not posing a danger to others -- a polygamist woman is still not free to marry two husbands, and The Simpsons' Willie is still not free to marry his beloved tractor.

The only equitable solution is for government to refrain from handing out permission slips to marry. This would create multiple benefits.

The obvious one is that it would end a pattern of government applying its rules unevenly to people based on their personal predilections. We would take a step closer to having a society in which everyone is truly equal before the law.

But even aside from that plus, government absenting itself from marriage would force us, as a society and as individuals, to be clearer about our beliefs and values.

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posted by Eve at 3:41 PM | link

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