I am confused by the controversy over
gay marriage. Indeed, I am wearied by it and wish to settle my opinion and move
on.
From the point of view of a secular
society --- which, properly speaking, is the only point of view permitted any
state save a theocracy --- "marriage" is entirely a matter of
contract law. The duties, rights, responsibilities and privileges attendant
upon "marriage" are wholly civil matters. In granting a
"marriage license" the State acknowledges the intent of the
applicants to enter into a specific binding contract definitive of such duties,
rights, responsibilities and privileges and simultaneously indicates that it
will recognize the validity of such a contract and administer it as it does any
other contract freely entered into, as a matter of civil law. The State,
therefore, is itself responsible for the current confusion and controversy by
virtue of its continuing to issue "marriage licenses," a
demonstration of its failure either to understand or to clearly express the nature
of its interest and authority.
As its interest in and administration
of this contractual arrangement is exclusively civil, the State can only issue
licensure for entry into a Civil Union. This limitation on its authority holds
regardless of the gender of the contracting parties, and the State can only
decline to issue such licensure, again regardless of the gender of the
contracting parties, to the extent that the applicants fail to meet the common
criteria of age, rationality, and free volition requisite by law for entry into
any contract. The resolution of the conflict, then, lies in the State's ceasing
to issue "marriage licenses" altogether and, in accord with its
proper authority, to issue only licensure for Civil Union. As the State's
interest is confined solely to reality under law --- to the contractual nature
of the union --- it has no stake in the semantic squabble; parties bound
contractually in such a union are free to refer to their joined status as a
marriage if they so choose, whether it is formalized before an exclusively
civil official --- a judge, magistrate, justice of the peace, etcetera --- or
sanctified by a religious body in accordance with the dictates of its communal
conscience.
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