Laddies and gentlemen, I give you George Carlin: “The original seven [dirty] words were, shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits.” Obviously, these words have specific connotations that aren’t acceptable in society, but why do they have such an effect on some people? Well, arguably because much of America is prudish, at least by world standards.
Anyone pay attention to the California general election last Tuesday? Proposition 8? Earlier this year, the CA supreme court overturned an appellate court decision banning gay marriage, which obviously allowed the marriages state wide. In this past general election, the CA people vote in favor of proposition 8, which was a general ban on gay marriage. So what happens now? Protests, lawsuits, and general stupidity. If any law was violated in the passage of this law… I’m not sure it should matter much since a large majority of CA citizens voted for it (that is assuming the accusations of Mormons from out of state aren’t true). Although, they may have considered that CA is one of the most liberal areas of the nation and if the homosexuals can’t get what they want there, they might just be SOL.
You might be wondering what the two preceding thoughts might have in common. Everything. This battle is over one word… Marriage. For (likely thousands of) years, churches have joined their believers in unions under the (presumptive) blessing of their god(s). Through the evolution of society, these unions have become known in all faiths as one thing… marriage. To a person of faith, the word marriage implies something very specific: it implies a joining of two people sanctioned by god. This implication is made even more powerful when most mainstream faiths today consider homosexuality a sin. Unfortunately, this word became much more complicated during the “New Deal” when FDR came up with a number of social programs to bring our economy out of the toilet. Most relevant, the Social Security Administration and Internal Revenue Service were created. Why? Taxes! The new system of federal taxes quickly realized that most married couples had children and that a married couple with children spent more per-capita than a single person so the SSA and IRS began to recognize marriage as a lawful construct so that they could use it as a deduction on taxes to that families could more easily support themselves.
So whats the problem? Churches want to maintain the meaning of the word marriage; Homosexual couples want all the rights that a heterosexual couple has (which I support - “separate but equal” was rightfully done away with decades ago); The US government has annexed the word “marriage” to mean something in law. The first two ideas are put into direct conflict because of the third.
I have a solution, and to be honest, I’m somewhat surprised no one has (publicly) proposed this. Christians have been arguing for some time to give gay couples a civil union instead of marriage. The issue for (most - I hope) Christians is maintaining the sanctity of marriage, not denying homosexuals fairness under tax and family law (yes, that second point is definitely arguable). My solution is to go through all federal and state documents and laws and perform a find/replace on the word “marriage” with “civil union”. Force everyone who wants to be recognized officially by the government as a united couple to have a civil union (and obviously grandfather all current marriages) thereby allowing churches/faiths to individually decide how to control marriages in their own faiths. Which is really how it should be… the government controlling who can be legally joined because of moral, not ethical, reasoning is akin to the government supporting religion, and we all know that is specifically forbidden.
Sorry for yet another politically related post… I’m just sick of the news concentrating on this. Although, its nice to see less of McCain and Obama.
