a pro-gay marriage stance on the federal government’s involvement
some of you may have seen this huffington post article i posted on facebook. basically, gay rights groups are upset that the supreme court last week overturned a gay marriage case at the federal level. the couple was challenging 1996’s defense of marriage act which “prevents couples in states that recognize same-sex unions from securing Social Security spousal benefits, filing joint taxes and other federal rights of marriage.” part of the frustration is that obama has pledged to try to repeal this act, and many see the ruling as inconsistent with this promise.
i am a gay marriage supporter. i am staunchly (STAUNCHLY) opposed to DOMA. i want equal rights for all people. and i support the supreme court’s decision last week. here’s why:
1). the government needs to get out of the whole marriage thing - not further into it. i agree with the supreme court in this case for the same reason i disagree with DOMA: the government does NOT need to be getting into the business of who’s married to who and why. they should support equal rights for everyone through partnerships or civil unions or some other such institution. churches should then be responsible for the religious aspects of a relationship - some churches would allow gay marriage and some no doubt wouldn’t and, as i’ve said before, that’s fine. as private institutions they have the right to make this decision. as a public institution, the government does not.
this is why, in our current system, i am adamantly pro gay marraige. for now, the state CAN decide who can and can’t marry (i’m getting angry just typing this …) and as long as that’s the case they should allow it for everyone. but we should be moving FURTHER away from this scenario, not toward a more all-encompassing system that the federal courts would provide. just like DOMA should NOT be able to legislate - on a federal level - what each state can recognize as marriage, so should the same be true when gay marriage is on the line. which brings me to my next point:
2). we’re forgetting our system. i’m not saying it’s without flaws and i’m not saying we shouldn’t fix it, but it’s there for a reason. no one should have to be pro- any one thing to such an extent that it leaves no room for logic and other scenarios. this is what frustrates me about the movements’ reaction to this decision in terms of obama. many are reacting as if he let them down and is therefore a bitter disappointment. (being a president has to be the worst job ever because of this.) there are a couple things - in my limited knowledge - going on here.
first, the justice department spokesperson had this to say: “Until Congress passes legislation repealing the law, the administration will continue to defend the statute when it is challenged in the justice system.” yes, it sucks but DOMA is the law now and we must first work on getting THAT repealed before we can move on to other issues.
secondly, the federal courts should NOT just be able to over-rule something that a state has already set up as law. it may sound good to us now, when OUR cause is on the line, when it’s something WE care about.
but what about when it’s not? which brings me to my next point:
3). do we really want to set this kind of precedent? if all it takes to over-rule what voters sanction, what state supreme courts have upheld, what previous laws re-inforce, is to go over the heads of all these people and laws and governments involved to the highest court so they can bring down (what we would consider) a favorable ruling, THAT is a flawed system. not the one we currently have (although it is flawed in many, many other ways). things work the way they do for a reason, to protect a lot of other reasons and when we start trusting that drastic changes be made from the top down - ie from the government to the people - instead of from the bottom up - from the people to the goverment - we should be far more afraid than joyful. i do not trust any president or government or politician - no matter how much i support them - with that kind of power.
i’m afraid that this post will make it sound like i’m arguing against gay marriage (i’m not) or that i’m ignorning the governmental injustice being done to an entire swath of people (i’m very much not). what i DO support is a consistent system that treats people fairly. attempting to get this in a way that is UNfair is not only unwise but inconsistent.
June 14 2009 08:22 pm | marriage and politics and religion and san francisco and soapbox and the city
June 15th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
your post doesn’t sound anti-gay marriage
i completely agree with your first idea (not that the others aren’t worth agreeing with!) and have argued this very point with my dad.
needless to say, it didn’t go over well. especially when i pointed out that none other than cs lewis himself suggested the same thing in mere christianity.
my dad’s argument was “did he mean that when it comes to gay marriage? no.”
… regardless of intent, it seems he really did mean to have two types of “marriage”… one sanctioned by the government for purely taxational (behold, word creation!) reasons and the like, and one sanctioned by the church if you are a religious person. two ceremonies perhaps, or one ceremony with added words, or whatever… the point is, the government shouldn’t really have any say in marriage except “please file the paperwork so we can verify your household for taxation purposes.”
in a way, this would even make the DOMA people happy, because we could call the government sanctioned “thing” *not* marriage… and then marriage could be retained by the church, if they so desire.
June 15th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
bravo, yes. i would be happy to be “domestic partners” or “civil union-ized” (ah ha - more word creation!) if it meant that it was THE SAME across the board. the fact that we have a FEDERAL law that states “No state needs to treat a relationship between persons of the same sex as a marriage, even if the relationship is considered a marriage in another state” is completely unintuitive. and further proof to me that the so-called “religious right” only wants the government out of their lives and their religion in as much as it benefits the type of life THEY want to live or the type of religion THEY espouse.
one more inconsistency to add to the list, i guess …
July 9th, 2009 at 6:51 am
[...] tackled this subject before as i believe the federal government should leave itself out of the marriage thing altogether. in my [...]