The Last Word on Gay Marriage

So the last leg standing for the ‘hetero-only marriage’ crowd, and at this point I’ll say it’s barely standing, like, starting to lean pretty noticeably, revolves around the word marriage. I think most rational thinkers in this country, and everyone who works in a modern generally non-discriminatory work environment, and everyone who has ever braved going to a gay bar even if it was just because they had the best drink prices, have generally agreed on a couple of things. They have agreed that gays are in fact people, that they have rights that allow them live lives of their choosing, and that they can contribute to society in a useful way. This does not mean everyone immediately wants to adopt the stereotypical gay lifestyle, and the gays I imagine would be offended if everyone did, but it is an acceptance of the fact that the sexual preferences of an individual does not necessarily make that person invalid. Many people have taken this thought and determined that for these reasons gays should be granted the same rights as everyone else including the right to marry the person they love even if they are of the same sex.

There are some factions of people who feel differently, however. Some wish instant death on any non-heterosexual. They are usually hypocritical, confused, hate-filled people, and I don’t feel that their stance is valid and will not discuss that perspective here. There is an intriguing group of people in the western world who in nearly all cases are associated with a religious group or dogma, who have decided that while the gays should have equal rights in many respects, they should not be granted the right to marry. They should be entitled to all the same benefits that marriage brings heterosexuals to promote fairness, but apparently there is some sort of semantics issue that makes homosexual marriage a problem. So what is the problem? The last argument from the usually Christian hetero-only marriage crowd that has not been fully breached roughly goes: “fine, gays can be in love, they can buy a house together, share health insurance plans, and receive the same tax filing status benefits, but they can’t call it marriage, they need to call it a civil union because marriage is our word.” I will now explain what is wrong with this statement and why the word should not be attributed a special distinction.

First, the statement from the previous paragraph is a factually incorrect one (though nobody is to blame because I was quoting vaguely). The truth is that marriage in the English sense of the word came about it 1250-1300 CE (according to Wikipedia) and is derived from the French word with the same meaning. So the English translation of the word is much younger than Christ and the Bible, as is the entire English language. Therefore Christians cannot claim the word marriage as the word specifically came about after the sacred religious happenings and weddings had been going on for some time, and the word was definitely not around at the time of Christ. So it is not literally about the word marriage. So if the word marriage literally doesn’t have anything to do with Christianity perhaps there was something at the time of the founding of Christianity that makes marriage a Christian concept.

Unfortunately for those making it, that argument is false. The concept of marriage has been around “longer than reliable recorded history” (also according to Wikipedia) and by some has been traced as early as 20,000 BCE usually as a system to limit sexual access to women and to ensure property kept within a family through generations. Note this is well before either New or Old Testament history. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew and Aramaic and the New Testament was written in Greek. Each of these languages has a word for marriage which is known to predate the religious books. I think it is important to note that nearly every religion and every culture, regardless of whether they have ever been exposed to or practice Christianity has the concept of marriage. There is little doubt that Christians or any other religion invented marriage.

Ok, so marriage both as a word in ancient languages and a concept are something that predate Christianity and therefore cannot be attributed to Christianity, but for the last several centuries Christians have been getting married in churches and cathedrals in religious ceremonies and there is a religious sanctity to this which could perhaps be violated by granting gays the right to marry. Well, no. First of all, gays are not asking to be allowed to marry in specific churches. I do agree with the churches on this point that they should be allowed to restrict was ceremonies occur within their doors as they are private groups. But likewise, church rules should have no direct bearing on the governmental law of the land. That is the separation of church and state.

Additionally, the groups protesting gay marriage have no issue at all with atheist heterosexual couples being married. This somehow doesn’t impinge on the sanctity of marriage though being devoted to God is mentioned frequently throughout the Bible and is even an element of the First Commandment, whereas homosexuality is only condemned on a handful of occasions. So if there isn’t a problem with heterosexual atheists getting married why is it a problem if gays are married? It appears that the tradition of having marriage be a ceremony based on a particular religious sect has been broken for quite some time without too much complaint from the religious crowd. So to continue to make the claim that the religious sanctity will be broken if gays can begin to get married is not accurate, because that tradition does not currently exist.

Ok, but what is the harm if we segregate between what gays and straights can do? There’s no reason we can’t continue to segregate between marriages and unions based on the orientation of those involved if the treatment is the same, right? In the US Supreme Court ruling of Brown v. The Board of Education it was determined that “separate but equal is inherently unequal” and therefore segregation was unconstitutional. Of course that court ruling was talking about segregation of students in schools by ethnic makeup. But the exact same logic applies to the concepts in marriage versus civil unions. Here if it is determined that the parties are entitled to the same rights, and I think we’re there as a society, then whatever that right gives you should be exactly the same to all people. And if they are the same, what is the point of calling them something different? The only purpose calling these things civil unions as opposed to marriages serves is to discriminate against the group receiving the less desirable title. It is the exact same concept that the only purpose that segregation of schools served was to restrict access to the white school for black students, which was determined to be discrimination. In this case it is segregation of the use of a word marriage resulting in one group feeling inferior. 

The argument at its core is not about religious sanctity as non-religious marriages happen all the time, it’s not about the concept of marriage as the non-religious concept predates the religious one, and it is not about the word because that word is not derived or owned by religious institutions. So then, at its core, stripped away from all the talk and protests, the only thing left for the argument to be about is discrimination.