gay marriage

“Marriage is not about love. It’s about a love that can bear children.” — Todd Akin, Republican Congressman from Missouri

What is marriage? We like to talk about it here at Queercents because marriage is not only about love but it has a lot to do with money too. We’ve had guest posts and guest interviews on the subject that link to helpful resources.

My friend, Gary, sent me this email yesterday:

“Recently, I watched a Katie Couric interview with Condoleezza Rice on ’60 Minutes.’ Part of their conversation caught my attention:

Katie Couric:
Would you like to get married one day?

Condoleezza Rice:
Oh, wouldn’t we all love to find somebody that you’d want to live the rest of your life with? Sure.

Condi directly associated marriage with spending one’s life with someone. Her response would be forgettable if there were not so many people and resources devoted these days to restricting millions of gay Americans from the right to marry the one they want to live the rest of their lives with. Foes of same-sex marriage want to protect children. I do not doubt that there are things that can harm America’s children, but marriage equality is not one of them.

Of course, not everyone wants to be married. But if you ask people, straight or gay, if they would like to have the right to get married, do not be surprised if they echo Condi, ‘Wouldn’t we all?’

What is marriage? Marriage is a binding commitment… the Economist elaborates, “The case for allowing gays to marry begins with equality, pure and simple. Why should one set of loving, consenting adults be denied a right that other such adults have and which, if exercised, will do no damage to anyone else? Not just because they have always lacked that right in the past, for sure: until the late 1960s, in some American states it was illegal for black adults to marry white ones, but precious few would defend that ban now on grounds that it was ‘traditional’.”

“Another argument is rooted in semantics: marriage is the union of a man and a woman, and so cannot be extended to same-sex couples. They may live together and love one another, but cannot, on this argument, be ‘married’. But that is to dodge the real question”why not?”and to obscure the real nature of marriage, which is a binding commitment, at once legal, social and personal, between two people to take on special obligations to one another. If homosexuals want to make such marital commitments to one another, and to society, then why should they be prevented from doing so while other adults, equivalent in all other ways, are allowed to do so?”

This isn’t a new stance for the Economist. They published this article ten years ago, “The state’s involvement in marriage is both inevitable and indispensable. Although many kinds of human pairings are possible, state-sanctioned marriage is, tautologically, the only one which binds couples together in the eyes of the law.”

“By doing so it confers upon partners unique rights to make life-or-death medical decisions, rights to inheritance, rights to share pensions and medical benefits; just as important, it confers upon each the legal responsibilities of guardianship and care of the other. Far from being frills, these benefits and duties go to the very core of the marriage contract; no church or employer or ‘commitment ceremony’ can bestow them at one blow. If marriage is to do all the things that society demands of it, then the state must set some rules.”

“Just so, say traditionalists: and those rules should exclude homosexuals. Gay marriage, goes the argument, is both frivolous and dangerous: frivolous because it blesses unions in which society has no particular interest; dangerous because anything which trivializes marriage undermines this most basic of institutions. Traditionalists are right about the importance of marriage. But they are wrong to see gay marriage as trivial or frivolous.”

“It is true that the single most important reason society cares about marriage is for the sake of children. But society’s stake in stable, long-term partnerships hardly ends there. Marriage remains an economic bulwark. Single people (especially women) are economically vulnerable, and much more likely to fall into the arms of the welfare state. Furthermore, they call sooner upon public support when they need care”and, indeed, are likelier to fall ill (married people, the numbers show, are not only happier but considerably healthier). Not least important, marriage is a great social stabilizer of men.”

“Homosexuals need emotional and economic stability no less than heterosexuals”and society surely benefits when they have it.”

Rock on! My heart and purse couldn’t agree more.