The marriage issue

The HillBoyz, in their inimitable way, have put the alternative-marriage issue into its proper perspective. Since this gem may well be lost in the archives in short order(they're insanely prolific writers), I'm quoting it here.

Because we can’t resist putting this out there, but Larry King is now being divorced for the 8th time.

Meanwhile, the argument against two guys who love each other and want to commit, or two women who want to stay together and spend their lives taking care of each other, is that it would ruin “the sanctity of marriage” and “render marriage a joke”.

So, what do straight people like Larry King do to marriage when they keep divorcing their wives and moving on to younger, fresher, less experienced models?

What does that do to the sanctity of marriage when a wife gets too worldly and smart, and stops putting up with someone like Larry King’s garbage, so he dumps her and soon marries his yoga instructor, Candi, with an “i”, who wants to go shopping so badly she doesn’t mind sleeping next to someone who should rightfully be in a sarcophagus? In a museum.

We bet gay guys would only get married, at most, once in their lives before breaking up and getting divorced. Most lesbians would probably stay together forever and be married only once themselves. It’s impossible to imagine a gay version of Larry King or Elizabeth Taylor ever existing. Well, on drag nights, the latter, maybe. And the former on Halloween, but only if a makeup artist is good enough to capture his goblinesque features grotesquely enough.

If American society allows people like Larry King to make a mockery of marriage, then Americans need to reevaluate just how big of a mockery the gay community could make of the same institution — if given the same spousal rights and allowed to have their own ceremonies, on fabulous roof decks or on decked-out ocean liners or wherever, with almost none of us wanting anything to do with cathedrals or churches of any kind.

Just saying.

And reminding you there are millions of gay men and women who would do just about anything to have the right Larry King so frequently uses — a right he does not seem to deem sacred in the least.

Do remember, folks...for eons, there was no such thing as a "marriage license." If two people wanted to marry, they got together with friends and family in front of a religious official or Justice of the Peace, a ceremony of some sort was performed, and they were married.

Then one day, some bigoted jerks got all up in arms over the fact that human beings of different colors were marrying each other. And some folks wanted to marry more than one person(ie; the original Mormon Church). To put an end to these practices, the bigots, citing their own interpretation of "God's Law," demanded that marriages be approved by the state. Thus, the marriage licence.

Thankfully, the shameful laws regarding interracial marriages were struck down in fairly short order. But the state retained the authority to define who, and how many people, could be married. And this, folks, is a prime example of the Law of Unintended Consequences.

The minute "marriage license" went from concept to reality, marriage became a secular institution. And the law, to be fair to all, cannot exclude any consenting adult, or any number thereof, from entering into any arrangement they choose. To those religious folks out there who are offended by the concept of two men/two women/two men and two women/etc. entering into freely chosen marriages...well, sorry. The intolerant among you jacked it up for everybody. If they'd left other people alone, I doubt there'd be nearly the flap over the issue that there is today.

The only way to seal up this can of worms is to separate marriage from secular law entirely. This protects religion as well as the individual, since churches will not face the possibility of being commanded by the state to violate their religious conciences. They can define a marriage for themselves, and decide who they will and will not marry. That way, the Mormon Fundamentalists and Muslims can have multiple wives, the Catholics can continue to only marry one man to one woman, the Pagans can handfast polyamourous folks, and the First Atheist Church of Wraith can oversee the marriage of Bear to his '79 Superglide...and no one gets any special treatment, financial or otherwise, under the law.

Everyone will be happy except those who can't keep their noses out of other people's business, and those types are simply looking for excuses to be offended anyway. Win-win.