THE OTHER END OF THE STICK: the History of Secular Marriage and what it means for Marriage Equality

Some Utahns criticize and condemn the federal judge’s laying aside Utah’s definition of marriage approved by 65% of 59% of Utah voters.  

I, however, decry that Utahns would just ignore the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and Article IV, Section 1 of the Constitution, "Full Faith and Credit Clause", which addresses the duties that states within the United States have to respect the "public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state." 

I chastise, in the strongest terms, those in Utah who will just ignore the needs of 5 to 10 percent of Utah’s population because there are few of them and because they do not fit into their exalted definitions of acknowledged humans with rights.                                                  

 
SAUCE FOR THE GOOSE

Utah governor Gary Herbert is on the record as saying that marriage is between a man and a woman.  In a sense the governor is like a father figure to Utah culture.    Therefore, what father among us having two sons will say to his heterosexual son, “be thou clothed in robes with your beloved and sit over here”

and then say to his homosexual son, “Be thou clothed in rags all alone and sit over there”

and then say to himself, “I am just.”

How can that father say to one son, “You get what you want by way a domestic arrangement because it is with a woman” and then to the other son say, “You cannot get what you want by a domestic arrangement because it is a with a man”   Can that man actually delude himself into thinking that he is objective or fair-minded?     Many fathers find themselves dealing with this situation in reality --- not in the symbolic abstract.

God created man to evolve.  Man’s institutions have evolved ---  particularly marriage.   This essay looks at that evolution and what government must do to promote that evolution. 

 
DEFINITIONS

Someone wrote recently this in the Deseret News to illustrate the evolution of marriage:

“The purpose of marriage isn’t to unite children with the man and woman who made them for several reasons. First, marriage should and most frequently does occur before children become involved, if at all. Second, the purpose of marriage isn’t procreation nor is the sexual act debased to the bearing of children. It serves a much higher and noble purpose. The expression of love and an intimate bond between two people who have joined together. An expression that is only a small part of that bond. It isn’t the substance nor end of that relationship. It’s the human need to have someone. One doesn’t sit at home singly thinking "I want children to spend my life with" instead they long for that someone to spend life with. Third, legal marriage recognizes the legal commitment of two people by a contract. Children/dogs/houses are a result of that intimate relationship and not party to it.”  

I have heard this sentiments and variations on it for years as a standard assumption in definitions of marriage for as long as I can remember. 

Personally, I reject that view of marriage pretty much out of hand.   Companionship is not marriage.

For years, I put myself on the written official record as defining marriage as a covenant between four entities –

1 a man

2  a woman

3a God

3b the society in which they live

4 and children, who have a right to parents of both gender in a legal protective framework.

This is what marriage should be.   However, modern marriage is yet another example of something in culture we practice that does not deliver the promise. 
Recently, those against same gender marriage have tried to claim that procreation is the point of marriage.   That strategy is too little too late.  Lawyers for the State of Utah can argue that Utah believes same-sex couples —  married or not —  should not be allowed to raise children.    The problem here is too many quotable studies —  for and against same gender marriage and / or opposite gender marriage —  do not stand up as scholarly factual evidence. 

However, human rights and civil rights suggest that a person should be able to marry the one person that person loves.   How does Utah balance this right with a child’s right to parents of both genders?


AN ASIDE -- Personally, I believe that people in general do not have an inherent right to reproduce.   Only people with monetary means to raise children have that right.  Only people with healthy genetics should reproduce.   People with healthy genetics and  monetary means, whether homosexual or heterosexual, have the right to reproduce. 

 
CIVIL RIGHTS -- HUMAN RIGHTS

The proponents of various styles of marriage can take their stands as they want.  That is their right.   However, individuals do not have a government’s obligation to balance the competing interests in a society.  

A famous observation from an early interracial marriage couple comes to mind:

“I have lived long enough to see big changes now.    But some people. . . .  Well.  Alabama did not get around to repealing its “Racial Integrity Act” until 2000.    2000.    All we ever wanted was to get married because we loved each other.   And if we hurt some people’s feelings, well — that was just too bad.  It is their problem, not mine.   I married the only man I ever love and am glad I married the man I loved.  It meant a lot to me to marry the person I found most precious, despite the fact that some thought he was the wrong kind of person for me to marry.   I am proud of our name on a court case about love and commitment and family in the face of such prejudice.   Government has no business forcing some people’s religious beliefs over others.  I support the right to marry for all – white or black, gay or straight.  That is what loving is all about."

Mildred and Richard Loving
Interracial couple of white man and black woman  
Supreme Court decision Loving vs Virginia 1967   decriminalized interracial marriage

 
EVOLUTION OF TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE

Recently I read a local editorial that noted that No one, whether gay or heterosexual, has a "fundamental right" to a legal status that is entirely discretionary with the state Legislature. (Quoted by Elise Amendola, Associated Press)

Marriage is a human institution and thus it has its advantages, disadvantages, and flaws.   For ages the heterosexuals tacked all sorts of baggage and corruption onto the marriage institution: 

History also indicates that marriage laws clearly follow what the public wants in marriage.  Look at all the features of marriage that started as ideas among the general public and became law:

    ●    Treating married women as husband's property
        then  granting married women rights in the marriage
   
    ●    Institutionalizing violence in marriage
    ●    then some places rescinding the husband's right to violence

    ●    Accepting or disallowing young marriage ages. 
  
    ●    Polyandry
   
    ●    Polygamy
   
    ●    Rich powerful men collecting trophy wives by the dozen leaving other men with none
   
    ●    Older men marrying young teenagers.
   
    ●    Regarding a relationship that really is a civil union as a legitimate marriage
   
    ●    Married men routinely having mistresses in certain cultures, including the American one, with mistresses receiving certain rights and benefits.
   
    ●    La casa grande   – la casa bonita   as they say down south. 
   
    ●    Using marriage to validate one’s worth and position as first consideration
   
    ●    Using marriage to gain wealth as first consideration
   
    ●    Using marriage to make political alliances as first consideration
   
    ●    Legalizing quick divorce
   
    ●    Legalizing no-fault divorce

In light of all this — The particular issue of gender in marriage hardly seems much of a change one way or another in the inevitable evolution of marriage.   Utah cannot just wink at and accept the heterosexual changes / corruptions to marriage and ignore changes that would benefit the homosexual population. 


THE CALL TO ACTION

When governmental law picked up one end of the stick – legalizing young marriage ages, marriage as human  validation, marriage as companionship first, recognizing civil unions as real marriages, giving benefits to mistresses, granting no fault divorce, quickie divorce — then it has to pick up the other end of the stick.    Same gender marriage. 

This development is not an opening for bestiality marriage.   All these development have precedent among humans only. 

Utah should not stand in the way of the inevitable evolution of marriage.  

Same gender marriage will be of interest to somewhere between 5 and 10 percent of the population.    This means that in the United States, we are talking of marriage for 16 to 32 million Americans.   In contrast, Utah has 2.9 million residents.     It is incredibly unlikely that it will be of interest to heterosexually oriented men. 

Marriage, like everything else in The World, is a definition that government has the right to define for the sake of good order.   Utah should not charge for licenses a fee above bare minimum and with that in mind, Utah should study the license fee to determine how much it should cut.  

I for one do not want Utah remembered as the Mississippi of Marriage Equality, alluding to Mississippi’s history in the civil rights movement back in the 1950s and 1960s.   Nor do I want the Utah governor, my friend, remembered as the Ross Barnett of the Marriage Equality movement.