The Definition of Marriage

John Corvino is Chair of the Philosophy Department at Wayne State University in Detroit:

The History of the Right to Marry

Matt Baume of the American Foundation for Equal Rights gives the history of Supreme Court jurisprudence on the right to marry.



The Supremes may decide this Friday which of the several cases regarding marriage equality they will consider this term, so stay tuned for big developments. For one thing, If they decline to hear the Prop 8 case, marriage could be legal again in California almost immediately.

Update:   Do go read Brooklyn Law School professor Ari Ezra Waldman's summary of the possible outcomes of tomorrow's Supreme Court conference regarding the DOMA cases and the Prop 8 case. He concludes with this note about timing:

The conference happens tomorrow and though we could know as early as tomorrow afternoon (sometimes, the Court notifies us of its grants immediately), it is more likely that the Court releases its grants on Monday, starting at 9:30 AM. After that, the briefing clock begins. The normal procedure -- 45 days for the party seeking reversal of the lower court decision, 30 days for the respondent to respond, and 30 days for the response to the response -- may be altered, but it will generally look something like that. This puts briefing done by the middle of March. A hearing will be scheduled for shortly thereafter. And, we should expect a decision by the very end of the term.

But, don't forget, if the Court denies a hearing on the Prop 8 case, marriages in California can begin almost immediately.

Update, Friday, November 30:

Veteran Supreme Court reporter Lyle Denniston blogs at 2:16 p.m. Texas time:

The Supreme Court, after taking most of the day to prepare new orders, took no action Friday on the ten same-sex marriage cases now on the docket. . . .

The next opportunity for the Court to issue orders will be at 9:30 a.m. Monday. Nothing has ruled out the possibility that some actions on same-sex marriage could be announced at that time, although there is no indation that that will occur. It may be that the Court needs more time to decide what it wants to do next on any of the cases.

See also this detailed, nuanced summary of possibilities by Denniston, as well as this summary "in plain English" by SCOTUSblog editor Amy Howe.

Marriage is a Contract

Texas marriage license and certificate, 1879; the couple was married by a justice of the peace, not a clergyman - which made it a legal marriage just as good as any celebrated in church.

I've blogged about this a time or two before, but since a couple of you fellas have touched on this point in some recent comments, seems a good time to put the legal definitions out there so everyone can make use of them as need be.

One big huge ginormous problem with the whole marriage debate is that our oh-so-holy religious kin, friends, and neighbors have got the idea so strong in their heads that marriage was invented by the Christian Church, and is thus The Will of God and eternally unchangeable - and moreover has always and everywhere been exactly the same thing it is right now, except of course for those nasty, perverted, pagan places like Spain, Canada, and Massachusetts.

Wrong.  Dead wrong.  Even your Bible shows you, knucklehead, that people were marrying long before Jesus ever walked the earth.  "Well, the Hebrews started it then, when God gave them the Ten Commandments."  Wrong - don't you ever go to Sunday School, you heathern?  Jesus himself said, "in the days that were before the Flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark" (Matthew 24:38). Before the Flood. You ain't a-gonna argue with the Lord, are ya bubba?  Though there is some folks I've knowed who was just so bullheaded, they would argue with Jesus Christ hisself.


So then, going just strictly by the Bible, you see there was plenty of marrying going on away long before the time of Christ, long before the Ten Commandments, long before Moses or even Abraham.  Long before there was any notion whatsoever of a Christian Church, and long before there was any idee of a Hebrew religion, even.  You can check out Genesis for more references to marriage and husbands and wives, including ol' Noah hisself, who natcherly took his wife along in the boat with him - not to mention his sons and their wives.  You do remember that story, don'cha bud?

There was also marriage going on in every other place on the face of the earth too, whether God liked it or not - you remember who tempted Joseph, don't you?  That's right - the wife of Potiphar, an Egyptian woman.  So marriage wasn't something the Hebrews dreamed up all on their own. 

"Oh well it doesn't matter, because marriage has always been the same, and I want to keep it just like it was in the Bible."  Izzat right, friend?  Well now, how 'bout you consider the fact that Abraham, Jacob, Gideon, David, Solomon, and a lot more of them old boys had several wives, and concubines too - and nobody thought a thing in the world about it, including God himself, who actually encouraged that kind of thing with some of them. 

"Oh but Jesus changed all that." Well now if you're a-gonna start quoting Jesus, how about this saying from his own mouth: "Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her. And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery" (Mark 10). But say, bubba, that didn't stop you from trading in your old lady for that purty little blonde you got a-stirring your grits now, did it? And you ain't felt a minute's guilt about any o'that, have you bud? Still setting up there in the pews, front and center ever Sunday morning, pleased as punch with yourself, ain't ya?

So enough with "thuh Bye-bul says" routine; it's plain as day from your own scripture that marriage - of all kinds and stripes and shapes - was going on long before there was ever a Christian to be seen on the face of the earth, and also that you straight boys have done just exactly as you please with the rules of it, in every century and in every clime.  So just sit down and shut up about it now.  You might learn something.

Continued after the jump . . . .

Thoughts on Marriage

I.  Ted Olson eloquently sums up the whole case for marriage equality in this short interview.  Andrew Sullivan says, "I've been making these points for many many years. I cannot express how affirming it is to hear such a distinguished conservative jurist defend the civil rights of gay citizens - especially such a fundamental, core right as civil marriage."



Sullivan also writes a longer post today on this topic.  Excerpt:

The church - even in its current High Ratzinger phase - opts for inclusion over exclusion. It allows the infertile to marry. It does not remove the Sacrament of Matrimony from those who do not produce kids. It even annuls countless marriages, many of which have been consummated, in enormously large numbers. It marries those past child-bearing age. It treasures adopted kids, even though they violate Ross's parent-procreating "microcosm of civilization" ideal. And that's only the Catholic church. The Protestant churches freely allow divorce and contraception - breaking both the monogamy and the procreative elements of Ross's ideal (which is to say all of it). So in the religious sphere, the Church breaks its own ideal with regularity, and the other churches have long since given almost all of it up. And yet the Catholic church still insists that its ideal be enforced as an act of civil exclusion in the secular sphere, even on people who are atheists.

On what conceivable grounds, if you pardon the expression? Look at how diverse current civil marriages are in the US. The range and diversity runs from Amish families with dozens of kids to yuppie bi-coastal childless couples on career paths; there are open marriages and arranged marriages; there is Rick Santorum and Britney Spears - between all of whom the civil law makes no distinction. The experience of gay couples therefore falls easily within the actual living definition of civil marriage as it is today, and as it has been now for decades. To exclude gays and gays alone is therefore not the upholding of an ideal (Britney Spears and Larry King are fine - but a lesbian couple who have lived together for decades are verboten) so much as making a lone exception to inclusion on the grounds of sexual orientation. It is in effect to assert not the ideal of Catholic Matrimony, but the ideal of heterosexual superiority. It creates one class of people, regardless of their actions, and renders them superior to another.

II.  David Boies wipes the floor with Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, co-founded by the infamous George Rekers of rentboy fame:



Have to say, it's gratifying but really surrealistic to this old shitkicker to see these straight men defending gay rights so passionately - something that simply Does.Not.Happen down here in Jesusland.


III.  On a completely different line of thought, Andrew Brown writes in the Guardian about wedding-day extravagance and pretentiousness:

The modern wedding, with its stupendous cost (£20,000 on average) and duration, is really a celebration of the participants. They really are unique and precious snowflakes, just as they have suspected all along. In fact, they are each and both of them just the unique and precious people they would like to be. Everyone pretends that for the day the couple really are starring in their own film: following the conventions of modern films, that means nothing really bad can happen to them.

Feeling unique and treasured and valued for yourself is exactly the point of being in love, and it's very nice. But it's not realistic. In particular, it's a disastrous attitude to bring to a wedding. There will be times when you appear – and are – not in the least bit treasured or valued, and when you'll be unlucky to be thought unique: everyone going through a divorce is convinced for a while they were married to the absolutely worst spouse in history.

The great point about completely impersonal ceremonies, whose form is the same for everyone, whether these are religious or entirely civil, is that they remind us that the problems and difficulties of marriage are universal. They come from being human. They can't be dodged just by being our wonderful selves, even all dusted with unicorn sparkle.

Of course, it's your privilege to do as you like on your "special day," whether that involves gold lamé or faded denim.  But your Head Trucker has never thought much of expensive spectacle at a moment when a sober, solemn vow is the central idea - which partakes of the sacred in some sense, even if exchanged by two atheists in front of a county clerk.

Nor do I favor the hippie practice of writing your own vows - for one thing, the vast majority of folks who are not trained writers have a tin ear for language, and produce something sickly-sweet that grates on the nerves like fingernails on a blackboard.  For another thing, it's embarassing to witness the uncensored little-girl fantasies on display in such vows, full of totally unrealistic notions drawn from fairy tales, pop songs, and romantic movies.  As everyone who has been married - or at least as nearly so as is possible without benefit of law - knows, there is a very good reason why the Dunmow flitch has rarely ever been claimed.

Which is why your Head Trucker, if the occasion ever arose, would much prefer to use the simple, ordinary words of the traditional marriage service - which to my mind, creates a connection, a spiritual union, between the couple and all the countless other couples who have come before to this sacred moment - all pledging the same troth, or truth.  To me, a lovely, sterling idea, more precious than anything money can buy.

In the Name of God, I, N., take you, N., to be my husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death. This is my solemn vow.

But as all that is getting to be an entirely moot point at this late age, your Head Trucker will just shut up now and go back to tending his own garden.


IV.  Male sexuality is really and truly different from female sexuality, whether we're talking heteros or homos.  It has taken many years for this to really dawn on your Head Trucker, and it leads me to some interesting conclusions about what fidelity really means in practice and in the heart.  But more about that another time. 

For now, I'll just say that looking back, there were times when I went nuclear over things - very human things - that in retrospect were not worth the subsequent anguish on both sides.  I was following a script learnt by heart from old movies and Victorian novels - both of which genres were quite consciously crafted so as not to offend the sensibilities of little old blue-haired church ladies who, when duty demanded, gritted their teeth and thought of England or whatever; but that was a false model for me in many ways. 

With age comes, if not wisdom, then at least clarity, you know?

Marriage: What Exactly Is It We're Fighting For?

I'm not going to try to keep up with the professional bloggers and news outfits who will be covering the Perry case day by day; you can catch all that coverage from the links under "Russ Recommends" in the right-hand column if you like - and I just added a new blog there, the daily Prop 8 Trial Tracker from the folks at the Courage Campaign out in California.

But I do feel a need here to remind my readers and Truckbuddies of just what is at stake here, and offer some observations on marriage from my own experience and reflection, for whatever it may be worth to anyone.

Of course, I am strictly an amateur writer on this subject; readers who care to know the actual facts of what they are talking about - as opposed to the mentally lazy slackers to be found in great numbers all over the blogosphere, on the left as well as on the right - as well as in the mainstream media, I might add - thoughtful readers would do well to consult the works of reputable, professional historians and jurists.  For example, Harvard historian Nancy F. Cott has been testifying at the Perry trial the last couple of days, and you can see excerpts - not the entire work, alas - of her book, Public Vows:  A History of Marriage and the Nation, here in Google Books.  It's well worth reading; and you gotta love a historian who quotes Mae West in her introduction.

I've also blogged on this subject, and in particular on the history of marriage, with links to other sources here and here.  And in light of the present court case, it's worth reposting Dan Savage's remarks on what the institution of marriage means:



Now to follow up what Dan said, here are your Head Trucker's thoughts:

1.  Marriage is not about declaring and celebrating your love in a public ceremony.  That's a wedding.  Lots and lots of people have the two concepts totally mixed up.  If the two are not clearly distinct in your mind already, please stop and ruminate on them until you figure it out.

2.  If this applies to you, please get over that juvenile, narcissistic, hippie attitude that "oh, we don't need a piece of paper to prove we love each other."  Guess what, chum - nobody but you and your partner fucking cares whether you love each other or not.  Your friends and family know, but are usually too polite to say, that the person you are mooning over so dreamily today might well be the total bitch/bastard you are cussing tomorrow.  Happens all the time; and you know it does, because you've watched the same goddamn thing happen to all of them, isn't that right?

3.  Marriage is not about love and romance, not at all:  it's about money and property, houses and cars, pensions and taxes, and all the other concrete, real-world stuff that so many misty-eyed romantic types just can't be bothered thinking about - until it's all snatched away from them, and then they rage and scream and cry and whine about how terribly unfair the world is.

4.  Marriage was invented - go look it up, I'm not in a mood for research at the moment, but you can trust me on this - to protect the couple's rights to their property and wealth, and the rights of their children, if any, to that property; and in some cases, the rights of other family members.  Love has nothing to do with it, bud.

5.  Civil marriage is the name we give to a legal contract - just as much a contract as the one you sign when you buy a new truck or a house or take out a credit card - a legal contract that specifies both the rights and the responsibilities/obligations of the individuals who marry.  This is a matter of law, not romance, and not religion.

I can just hear some Abercrombie princess saying right now:  "Oooh, law - how boring, and anyway I'm not into materialism . . . ."  Well you better grow up and get over that attitude, Mary.  Try to think with your big head here.  Suppose you've been shacking up with that hot number you finally convinced to move in with you a few years ago.  Who has been steadily getting less and less hot, and grayer, and bitchier, and with a noticeable beer belly now.  Well, it beats trawling the bars, so you hang in there with him.  Then one day you get an email or a text message that reads:  "I can't deal with your shit anymore, adios asshole."  And come to find out, Mr. Used-to-be-so-hot has cleaned out the fifteen thousand bucks in your joint checking account, as well as run up a similar amount on your joint credit cards, taking his new stud to relocate in Hawaii.  And sold "your" car - which was in his name because he found a great deal and you weren't around to sign the papers at the time.

He couldn't get away with all that if you two were married; if you ain't married, and you don't have fifteen thousand more dollars stashed away somewhere to pay for a damn good attorney, you can kiss all those material goods - which you did say you didn't care about, right? - fucking goodbye.

Or let's take a different example.  Just like me and my Cody, his family is so welcoming, so kind, so nice - "Oh, we love you," they say . . . "you're part of our family."  The two of you are always included in family gatherings, always front and center at every birthday party, Thanksgiving, Christmas, weddings, anniversaries, and Sunday dinner every week.  All well and good - you think.

But then one day, your partner ups and dies, boom, just like that.  Now who are you and where do you fit in?  Honey, you are nothing and nobody to his family, and you belong nowhere.  The house was in his name - well, better get your shit packed in a hurry, because his parents own it now.  You have no right to be there; they can call the sheriff at any time to set you on the street with just a few days' notice, you're merely a tenant there.  His car?  They sold that yesterday while you were at work.  His bank accounts, that you were a signer on?  They cleaned those out the first morning after he died.

And what about the china and the silverware, the crystal figurines, the window treatments, the Monet print, the hand-painted lamps, the TV and DVD player, the gas barbecue grill, the riding lawn mower, the brand-new microwave, the king-size bed, his computer, his books, his clothes - and even the little dog?  Get your queer hands off all that, honey, none of it belongs to you.  Not a teacup, not a pencil, not a shirt button - nothing you can't prove you bought with your own money.

Are you getting this picture?  Don't give me that "I don't care about material things" crap.  You will care very damn much when you wake up one morning and find yourself, for all practical purposes, a homeless man - and an utter stranger in the eyes of the law.  If you aren't married, then when your partner dies you have no more rights than the dog.

6.  In addition to money, real estate, and personal property rights, the federal government confers 1,138 specific rights and benefits on married couples that you have no access to whatsoever if you aren't married.  And each state confers several hundred more. 

I won't try to list all of them here, but consider just two:  for example, if your partner were killed by someone else's negligence, say in a car wreck or plane crash - if you were married, you could sue for damages for the loss of your spouse.  But if you two were just shacking up?  Tough.

Also, suppose somebody were to sue the two of you sometime, or even just one of you.  If you're married, you cannot be compelled to testify in court against your husband.  Oh, you aren't married?  Then raise your right hand and repeat after me . . . .

Plus of course such things as being able to draw social security or veteran's benefits when your spouse dies; which can make the difference between a comfortable old age or miserable poverty.

7.  Another big point of confusion that I've blogged about before:  the Christian church did not invent marriage.  Did not, did not, did not.  Even a cursory glance at your Bible shows that people were getting married long, long before the birth of Christ; and in fact, as you should remember from Sunday school, many of those Old Testament marriages were, in fact, polygamous.

And the Old Testament is the record of just one rather tiny nation.  Marriages of one kind or another, often polygamous, and sometimes incestuous even, were occurring all over the rest of the world too.  The Greeks and the Romans were pretty much monogamous, and were getting married many long centuries before there was a Bible as we know it, or a Christian church of any kind.

So don't pay a bit of attention to all the ignorant dipshit rightwingers who mouth about "oh marriage has always and everywhere been the same."  It just fucking has not, and the proof is right there in those Bibles they love to wave about.

As Dan says in the clip above, straight people have continually been changing and adjusting and reinventing marriage all down through the centuries and millennia to suit their own agendas and purposes and desires; and now in our civilization, marriage is an egalitarian institution from which there can be no rational reason to exclude gay people.

Because not only does marriage protect your individual rights, as well as bestow certain obligations - it also does two other very important things for each individual.

One - it means you are a fully grown up, fully competent and fully free adult.  Children are not allowed to marry because they lack the maturity to fully understand, and thus give legal consent, to such a contract.  And in the past, slaves could not marry because they also were considered legally incapable of giving free consent, for the obvious reason that they were not free, but the actual property of another.  And the laws may have changed in some places nowadays, but I do know that historically, mentally incompetent people - the insane and what used to be called retarded - were also not allowed to marry, for the same reason.

Two - it makes you legally related to your husband's family, and thus part of the network of relationships that make up society.  And before you start spouting all that hippie crap about "well I don't care what society thinks," just remember:  until you guys say "I do" and sign that piece of paper, you are only just "the boyfriend" in everybody else's eyes.  No fucking matter what they may say - you aren't really, truly "part of the family" until you man up enough to make a permanent, public, legal commitment to being one of them.  Which is terribly important not only for the material reasons I mentioned above, but also for the social and emotional reinforcement of your and your husband's bond:  the public as well as familial acceptance as being a true part of the group, the clan, the tribe, the country.  It ties you into the rest of society in a way that mere shacking up or just getting your rocks off with a hot trick never can.  It links you in, makes you part of the long, complex molecule, if you will, of humanity, rather than just a free atom bouncing around all by yourself.

If you don't think that's terribly important, just stop and think one damn minute:  even though you might appear to act the same on the outside, isn't the real truth of the matter that you have an entirely different attitude on the inside towards your sister's boyfriend - as opposed to your sister's husband?  Well, then just turn it around, bud, and consider how all the rest of the family thinks about your boyfriend, who is not your actual husband.

And one more reason - not everybody needs to be married, that's a fact.  Some are simply too immature, some are simply too narcissistic, some are too irresponsible (though of course none of this has ever stopped anybody from trying).  But for most people, it's the mature, fully grown-up thing to do - to take the awful leap of faith with another person, to man up and actually commit yourself, for better or for worse, to another person.  If you both chose wisely, and if you both do the work it takes, you will be better men, and bigger human beings, than if you stay stuck in the sexual fantasies of adolescence.  As too many gay men do.  Which of course, until just the last few years, there was no incentive to do anything else, was there? 

8.  I haven't even mentioned here the whole idea of parenting, which is another reason for marriage.  Your Head Trucker, once upon a time when he was much younger, wanted to be a father very much - something I've rarely mentioned even to my closest friends.  But when I came out, I realized I would have to let that dream wither, bury it underfoot.  Loving another man and having children - it just did not seem at all possible thirty years ago, boys.  So, as much as it hurt me to let that idea die, I did.  I don't know about you guys from other parts, but for us Southerners, that idea, that desire, for the renewing of the blood is a deep, strong current inside.

A loss I will carry with me to my grave.  My son - my daughter - who were never born - I never saw their faces - never held them in my arms.  You understand?

Now, of course, it is indeed possible.  Too late for me.  But possible now for millions of gay couples in time to come; a very happy thought.  And your Head Trucker is old-fashioned enough to believe that if you are going to have kids, you damn well ought to be man enough to marry their other parent.  Enough said.

Well I guess I've said all I needed to say today, at least, on this subject.  It's just very important to be clear-minded on what this court case, and the whole movement for equal marriage is really about.  It's not about tuxedos and cake and a fabulous honeymoon - hell, you really don't need a piece of paper for all that, guys - you can throw a fucking party any damn day of the week you please, if that's all you think marriage means.

But that's such a little-boy, grade-school idea.  Marriage is about so much more, and is so much deeper than all that.  It's worth fighting for - as long as it takes, no matter how many defeats we suffer along the way.  We can't give up on this fight, boys, not hardly.

You aren't equal - you aren't free - you aren't grown up - until you have the right to marry, just like everybody else.  Case closed.

The Big Court Case

It's about your right to exist.  To exist as a free and equal human being like every other mother's son.  Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - you know, all those things you thought you were buying into when you said the Pledge of Allegiance every morning in school?  It's about whether you are as good as anyone else - or just a misfit, a reject in the scheme of things.

Perry v. Schwarzenegger commenced yesterday in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, and you should pay attention to it, fellas, because either way it goes, it is sure to have a huge effect on your life for many years to come.

In a nutshell:  The case seeks to invalidate Prop 8 out in California on these grounds:

• Violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. ["no state shall . . . deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws".]
• Violates the Due Process Clause by impinging on fundamental liberties.  ["No person shall be . . . deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law"]
• Singles out gays and lesbians for a disfavored legal status, thereby creating a category of “second-class citizens.”
• Discriminates on the basis of gender.
• Discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation.

Theodore Olson and David Boies, the attorneys for the two California couples who are plaintiffs in this case, are determined to take the case all the way to the U. S. Supreme Court if necessary.  Many gay-rights groups have criticized the case as being inopportune:  a victory would, of course, require California and perhaps other states to extend marriage to same-sex couples; but a loss in the Supreme Court would set us back a long, long time, as did Bowers v. Hardwick in 1986, when the Supremes ruled 5-4 that the Constitution did not confer "a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy."

Thus, sodomy laws in thirteen states remained in effect in 24 states at that time; not until seventeen years later, in 2003, when the Court reversed itself in Lawrence v. Texas, were sodomy laws invalidated throughout the country; 13 states still had sodomy laws at that time.  In fact, the law is still part of Texas statutes, though now unenforceable; the Texas Legislature has never seen fit to remove the law, which is still on the books here.

Thus, many who are well-versed in the legal aspects of civil rights and same-sex marriage fear that an unfavorable Supreme Court decision could set our cause back for many years to come.  It is a truism that the Supremes rarely get too far ahead of public opinion or state laws; at the time of the famous Loving v. Virginia decision in 1967, striking down bans on interracial marriage, only about 15 states still prohibited it.

So we'll see how this all shakes out; keep your fingers crossed, fellas, it's bound to be a momentous decision either way it goes, first in the district court, then at the Supreme Court.

On a personal note:  your Head Trucker was not as politically aware then as he is now, but I remember vividly the news of the Bowers decision back in June of 1986.  At the time I was dating a really hot guy from Birmingham, and we were having a fun vacation in Atlanta, going to the theater and fancy restaurants.  We organized our own little two-man protest against the decision by committing sodomy frequently and vocally in our room on the 17th floor of the Marriott downtown, night and day.

Didn't have any effect on the Court's decision.  But hell, nobody ever had a better time protesting than we did that weekend.  I tell you what.

If you want to read it - and it is very worthwhile reading - here is Ted Olson's opening argument in the case:

This case is about marriage and equality. Plaintiffs are being denied both the right to marry, and the right to equality under the law.

The Supreme Court of the United States has repeatedly described the right to marriage as “one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men;” a “basic civil right;” a component of the constitutional rights to liberty, privacy, association, and intimate choice; an expression of emotional support and public commitment; the exercise of spiritual unity; and a fulfillment of one’s self.

In short, in the words of the highest court in the land, marriage is “the most important relation in life,” and “of fundamental importance for all individuals.”

As the witnesses in this case will elaborate, marriage is central to life in America. It promotes mental, physical and emotional health and the economic strength and stability of those who enter into a marital union. It is the building block of family, neighborhood and community. The California Supreme Court has declared that the right to marry is of “central importance to an individual’s opportunity to live a happy, meaningful, and satisfying life as a full member of society.”

Proposition 8 ended the dream of marriage, the most important relation in life, for the plaintiffs and hundreds of thousands of Californians.

Continued after the jump . . .

Marriage, Explained

Found on Joe.My.God. today:  Dan Savage gets right to the heart of the marriage argument.



All that Dan says is correct.  Until straight people changed the laws - with no little opposition from conservatives, mind you - in the late 19th/early 20th century, women in the English-speaking world who married lost their legal identity, being subsumed into that of their husbands':  a single woman, in legal terms, was a femme seule (single woman); a married woman, however, was a femme couvert (hidden woman).  A woman's property, with rare exceptions for very wealthy women, belonged entirely to her husband, down to her smallest personal possessions.  If a husband wanted to, in theory he could sell all her dresses - though of course, I doubt any man who enjoyed three homecooked meals a day and some nookie at night would be that stupid.  But realistically, women had no legal say in the disposition of their money or property:  a husband, for example, could demand that an employer pay his wife's salary to him, not to her.  And so forth.

The point being, until the laws on property and divorce were changed, women were in a legal sense owned by their husbands:  I don't have time now to go look up the references, but I can tell you that both Queen Victoria and Virginia Woolf - and it's hard to think of two more contrasting personalities - at different times in their writings made the identical statement:  women are slaves to men.

But most people's historical knowledge does not extend any further back than their parents' time or their grandparents'; yet they believe that the way mama and daddy lived is the way people always lived, as far back as Adam and Eve.

It just ain't so.  Marriage in the Old Testament often included multiple wives:  go look it up.  But oh my goodness, you never hear the Bible-thumpers arguing to bring back polygamy, do you?  A while back, I wrote a lot more in my post about the history of marriage, and the difference between civil marriage and religious marriage, if anybody wants to read it.  Bottom line:  just as Dan said, straight people have been redefining marriage for centuries, millennia, as it pleased them.  But people forget that:  it didn't happen in mama and daddy's time, so they don't know anything about it.

Legal marriage serves a number of very useful, necessary purposes for society and for individuals.  There's room enough for gay people - my God, it's not like we're asking to abolish it, we just want to get on board with it!  

Not that everybody needs to be married:  I'm thinking of some straight and some gay people.  Some folks are just not equipped for the job, some just can't stand to be "tied down," and some just don't want that much responsibility.  But for those who do, it should be an equal opportunity institution.

Ed Koch: Daydream Believer?

Ed Koch sees a happy day fast approaching for same-sex couples across the nation, according to his opinion piece today in the Yonkers Tribune. But is the former New York City mayor a prophet, or just doing some wishful thinking?

I believe that same-sex marriage will be approved by a majority of the fifty states in the Union within the next five years. When that occurs, the federal resistance will end and the Congress will vote in favor of federal recognition of same-sex marriages with equal benefits to both homosexual and heterosexual couples.

Those who are opposed to same-sex marriage on religious grounds should know that no religious institution is now being coerced or will in the future be forced to perform same-sex weddings. The decision of whether to sanctify same-sex marriages is totally up to the religious leaders. It is a near certainty that the Catholic Church and Orthodox synagogues will continue to refuse to officiate at same-sex weddings, while some Protestant churches and reform and conservative synagogues will continue to be open to the practice.

It is the right of all religions to determine their own responses. But the issue here is not religious, but civil marriage. As a matter of fundamental fairness, civil marriage must be made available for all consenting adults, irrespective of sexual orientation. And it will happen, more quickly than the public thinks. In the United States today, five states have approved the right of same-sex marriage, either through legislative action or court decree. They are: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Maine and Vermont.

The next state in all probability to legislatively approve same-sex marriage is New York. Currently, as a result of Governor David Paterson’s executive order, New York state recognizes same-sex marriages performed in other states, and accords same-sex couples who were legally married in other states the benefits provided to married heterosexual couples that state agencies can do administratively. The New York Times reported on May 29, 2008, “Legal experts said Mr. Paterson’s decision would make New York the only state that did not itself allow gay marriage but fully recognized same-sex unions entered into elsewhere.”

Mayor Koch has long been rumored to be gay himself, as the new documentary Outrage claims.

Well, mark your calendars, boys - tune in again in 2014, same time, same channel, and we'll see if his prediction comes true.

Wouldn't it be lovely if it did?

Civil Marriage vs. Religious Marriage

Marble sarcophagus relief AD 160 - 80, of Roman marriage ceremony. The couple are observing the solemn ceremony of clasping right hands, while the groom holds in his other hand the marriage contract. Between them is the matron-of-honour.

I've been meaning to blog about this for some time now. There seems to be a lot of confusion in people's minds over the word "marriage." The other day, surfing around the Net, I noticed someone said on a blog that "marriage is a sacrament, so let's not use that word; give everybody, straight or gay, a civil union instead."

Wrong. What you need to understand, guys, and be able to explain to people who use this line of argument, is that marriage was around a long, long time before the Church took it over and started regulating it; and in fact a little reflection, from those dim memories of history class, will bring to your mind the fact that people were marrying many centuries before Christ, in all kinds of cultures and on all continents. Those marriages may have looked pretty different from what we have in 21st century America, but they were lifelong unions that had no need of approval or blessing from the Christian Church - which didn't exist back then, anyway.

You also need to get clear in your mind that when two people get married here today, if it is a legal marriage - according to the laws of the state they reside in - then it is a civil marriage, which is a legal contract.

Now, if the couple gets married in a church, then at the same time they are also taking on a religious marriage - which some churches call a sacrament; so that the civil marriage and the religious marriage are happening at the same time.

But for all practical purposes, the government takes no notice of the religious aspect of a couple's marriage; for example, good Catholics cannot divorce and cannot remarry in the eyes of the Church; but they certainly can in the eyes of the law of their state. That's because the state recognizes only the civil marriage; what goes on with the religious aspect of their marriage is between them and the Church.

So there's no point calling it by another name, like civil union, as I see it: all legally married couples in this country have a civil marriage; and nobody has to get married in church and have a religious aspect as well. Even two atheists can get married at the county courthouse.

To reiterate: civil marriage and religious marriage are not the same thing. Marriage is not by definition a religious term only.

Here's some history for you, from the Magnus Hirschfeld Archive for Sexology:

Marriage, as we know it in our Western civilization today, has a long history with roots in several very different ancient cultures, of which the Roman, Hebrew, and Germanic are the most important. Western marriage has further been shaped by the doctrines and policies of the medieval Christian church, the demands of the Protestant Reformation, and the social impact of the Industrial Revolution. . . .

The marriage laws and customs of ancient Rome are not easily summarized, because they were rather varied and underwent significant changes in the course of time. Still, without simplifying the issue too much, one may say that marriage and divorce were always personal, civil agreements between the participants and did not need the stamp of governmental or religious approval. Early in Roman history, a husband had considerable power over his wife and children, whom he could punish, sell, or even kill as he saw fit. However, eventually women came to enjoy a better legal position and gained more and more control over their lives and property. Thus, in imperial times husband and wife approached marriage as equals. Yet it seems that there was also a decline in marriage and birth rates, since the emperor Augustus found it necessary to pass drastic laws compelling people to marry and penalizing those who remained single.

There were several forms of marriage, the first of which (by usus) involved no ceremony at all. It was established simply by the couple's living together for one year. Divorce was just as informal. A more formal kind of marriage (by coemptio) began with a ceremony in front of witnesses and was also dissolved with a ceremony. Members of the upper classes usually preferred an elaborate ceremony and thus married by confarreatio in front of ten witnesses and a priest. In the case of a divorce, another great ceremony was required. However, all three forms of marriage and divorce were equally valid. All marriages were monogamous. Both men and women usually entered their first marriage in their late teens.While the Romans tolerated prostitution and concubinage, and had no qualms about homosexual relationships, their marriage laws were remarkably fair to women and thus greatly contributed to their emancipation. . . .

The rise of Christianity produced a profound change in European marriage laws and customs, although this change came about only gradually. The first Christian emperors were more or less content with the traditional Roman law. However, under varying political and religious pressures, they alternately broadened and restricted the divorce regulations. They also repealed older laws which had penalized the unmarried and childless, since the new Christian asceticism favored virginity and sexual abstinence over marriage. In most other respects they resisted change. Marriage and divorce continued to be civil and private matters. . . .

According to Roman law and Christian belief, marriage could be built only on the free consent of both partners, and this doctrine was bound to raise the status of women. Furthermore, theologians increasingly found a religious significance in marriage and eventually even included it among the sacraments.

This also endowed a formerly rather prosaic arrangement with a new dignity.Unfortunately, at the same time the church created two new problems: It abolished divorce by declaring marriage to be insoluble (except by death) and greatly increased the number of marriage prohibitions. . . .

The growing church involvement in marriage could further be seen in the development of a special religious wedding ceremony. In the first Christian centuries marriage had been a strictly private arrangement. As late as the 10th century, the essential part of the wedding itself took place outside the church door. It was not until the 12th century that a priest became part of the wedding ceremony, and not until the 13th century that he actually took charge of the proceedings. . . .

The Catholic church, in response to the Protestant challenge, took its stand in the Council of Trent and, in 1563, confirmed its previous doctrines. Indeed, it now demanded that all marriages take place before a priest and two witnesses. Among other things, this virtually eliminated not only secret marriages, but also the formerly common informal marriages. These, similar to the old Roman marriages by usus, were based simply on mutual consent without formal ceremony. In England they came to be called "common law marriages", and since Henry VIII had broken with Rome, they continued to be permitted until 1753, when the Church of England was put in charge of all marriages (including those of Catholics, but excluding those of Quakers and Jews). This development did not affect the English colonies, however, and thus common law marriages remained possible in America. (As recently as 1970 they were still recognized in several states.)

In most of Europe marriages continued to require a religious ceremony until the French Revolution in 1792 introduced the compulsory civil marriage. Germany followed suit in the 19th century when Bismarck diminished the influence of the Catholic church. Eventually, marriage before some magistrate or government official became the only valid form of marriage in most of the Western world. Religious weddings were still permitted, but only after the civil ceremony had taken place.

Of course, in the United States, religious officials are allowed by the government of every state to officiate at weddings - but afterwards, when they sign the marriage certificate and mail it off to the state, they are fulfilling the requirements for a civil marriage, regardless of what the requirements of their church may be for a religious union.