Voices from the Valley: News flash: Gay marriage is voluntary

Back in 2003, the same-sex marriage debate really got going when the state Supreme Court in Massachusetts paved the way for its legality in that state.

At the time, I was worried like many Americans, and like many others, my worry was based on unfounded fear rather than reality. You see, as a straight man, I just didn’t want to marry another man, no matter what the courts or legislatures might say.

A friend of mine finally clued me in: “Mike, you idiot, it’s voluntary. Just because they make same-sex marriage legal doesn’t mean you have to marry a guy. It just means that gay people will be able to marry their partners just like the rest of us.”

Silly me. I should have known of course. Maybe by writing this, I can help alleviate someone else’s fear. Your marriage is not being threatened.

This is the way the message is being framed these days; that we must “defend” or “protect” marriage against supposed attack. Whose marriage? What attack? I fail to understand how your marriage or mine is in any way diminished by extending the same legal rights and responsibilities to gay people. I have to assume that the people making this argument are as confused as I was.

The other argument I hear against same-sex marriage is that the purpose of marriage is for the rearing of children and since gay people cannot produce biological children together, their marriages ought not to be recognized.

While your children might like this rather narrow definition of marriage, if you had not been able to have them, would you view your marriage as any less valid, sacred or legal? If we were to use this definition of marriage, heterosexual couples who are too old or unable to have children, or who simply do not wish to procreate, would have to be denied their rights as well.

Another worry I often hear is that if we allow same-sex marriage, we must allow marriages between three or more partners or those between humans and farm animals as well. This is so laughable I need not address it other than to say that it shows a great deal about the thinking of those making such arguments.

Seriously, the problem with this issue is that throughout our history, marriage has been a dual institution — a sacred union sanctioned by various religious groups and a civil union sanctioned by the government and bringing with it literally thousands of rights and responsibilities, including the right to inherit property and visit one’s spouse in the hospital and the obligations involved in the rearing of children and management of legal matters.

The solution ought to be rather simple. We must mentally divorce (no pun intended) the legal and religious institutions of marriage. Under the law (like it or not) the two are already separate. It is not the role of the government to use any religious group’s definition of marriage or morality to make the law. At the same time, religious institutions remain free to recognize or not recognize whichever marriages they choose and the government has nothing to say about it.

The courts in California and Massachusetts have ruled that laws against same-sex marriage violate those states’ constitutions. Those rulings say nothing about how religious groups will deal with the issue; they apply only to the civil institution of marriage, not the religious one. Any church is free to recognize only those marriages they consider valid. Churches already do this based on a variety of factors including membership in a particular denomination, history of divorce or extramarital sexual activity, or willingness to undergo premarital counseling. As private organizations, religious groups are free to discriminate in whatever manner they choose.

The government, on the other hand, should have a valid reason when it chooses to discriminate against a particular group or restrict their rights and that reason cannot have as its basis the religious doctrine of any group. The role of government is to represent and uphold the rights of all groups, whether or not that group is in the majority or not, and especially — and this is the beauty of our constitutional system — whether or not that group is popular or not. In this country, the majority is not given the right to take away the rights of any minority.

Lastly, I’ll note that my friend’s reality check was very good timing. In December of that same year, I met a great woman and married her the next year. We are both thankful that we had the freedom to marry the person of our choice and that now our 8-month-old son will have even more freedom than we did. No matter what his orientation, he and the person he loves will be free to share in the rights and responsibilities the rest of us take for granted.

What could be more American than that?

-- Michael Carley is a resident of Porterville and director of research and grants at Porterville College.