Solving the Gay Marriage Debate

The Danish and other European solutions were to remove all gender language from marriage and remove religious institutions from the responsibility of granting marriage. Thus marriage is a state-sanctioned process and not a religious one. Sure people can go to whatever church they want and have a ceremomy performed, but its purely symbolic since they've already gone to a civil court and had the process done there first.

I like it! Well done!

Thanks for your comment, and welcome to my blog. And I don't just say that because you wrote such kind comments.

There seem to be problems with the state adopting a gender-neutral solution.

First, you have the problem of offending those who do not support homosexual marriage, and just create endless political fighting, the same way Roe V. Wade, by moving the abortion debate from the states to the national gov't created an endless struggle.

Second, you still have excluded groups, such as polygamists, who will still have a complaint with the system. So, while you eliminate one problem, you still have others.

I think it is far simpler to move this problem into the realm of "private law", created by contracts, and take the state out of it. No one can complain about the state favoring or ignoring a group if the state does nothing.

Of course some may still look down on gay couples, but that can't be helped. People will always have individual ideas of what is right or wrong. But, at least if it is an entirely private matter, gay couples will have no grounds to complain the state is discriminating against them, and at the same time no one can complain that the state is endorsing the gay lifestyle.

It may not make everyone happy, but at least it eliminates most of the complaints people have today. (And I doubt everyone will ever be happy, so making them less disgruntled seems a high enough goal for any political solution.)

Again, thanks for the comment and please come back again.

You missed one of the biggest objecions that conservatives have.

First of all you will never be able to divorce the civial part of any kind of marriage form the state. Just as you suggested, if a gay or polygamist couple, under your proposal, had a lawyer draw up contractual papers, that still means that the state will have to recognize that union, marriage, conjoining,whatever term you wish. The state has to recognize whatever you devise as the method of union, in order to interact legally with that union. For Example, the death tax, social security, Federal Employee benifits; all are functions of the state that recuire some acknowledgement of the union no matter what its form or origin (civil or private). When the Federal government is involved then our tax dollars are at work and they are being used to recognize what we conservatives find very objectionable, especially since the gay movemment has put forward a we're here, we're gay and we're in your face attitude. We believe it to be immoral and as such we want none of our tax dollars to either support, recognize, or condone such behavoir.

But the point is that there is no "union" or "marriage". There are contracts saying "X has medical power of attorney for Y", "X assumes liability for Y's debts", "X agrees to share assets equally with Y". No marriage, just a number of contracts conferring rights or responsibilities, nothing that is a marriage.

If two people confer power of attorney on one another, no one asks if they are gay or straight. So why would anyone ask if we should enforce it just because they also have a religious marriage ceremony?

As far as taxation is concerned, I did mention that in my essay, arguing that taxes should take no cognizance of any marriage of any sort, all taxes (provided we must have personal income taxes) should be assessed individually. Nor should taxation differ when dealing with married or single persons. (As far inheritance of joint assets is concerned, this could be handled contractually during the drawing up of contracts. Actually establishing some sort of trust when marrying is a good idea even with the present system.) But my point is, if we eliminate marriage as a legal category, then the law would not recognize it. Obviously, this would require some serious changes, but any drastic change to the law requires changes.

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But I think you actually missed the point, under the system I propose there will be no such thing as marriage in a legal sense. There will be contracts assigning rights, but they can exist in a number of contexts, only one of which is marriage. I can give power of attorney to my spouse, my child, my parent or a stranger, so choosing to enforce it is not recognizing gay marriage, just recognizing the right to confer power of attorney.

Now I did say attorneys will probably write up sets of "marriage contracts", but they will still just be bundles of mundane contracts, power of attorney, sharing of assets, sharing debts, etc. They will still not be a "marriage" recognized by the state, just a set of normal civil contracts any two people could enter into, whether married, business partners, or other.

So, no one will be endorsing anything except the right of contract.

I thank you for the comment, and welcome you tot he blog. I hope you return, and I hope to hear from you again.

The problem I have with the "solution" is that Websters defines marriage as a union between husband and wife. Husband as a male partner in marriage and wife as a female partner in marriage.

Words mean something. As for civil unions-fine. I don't see why 2 adults who live together shouldn't enjoy the same financial and legal protections granted to married couples. Say for instance, 2 widowed sisters, or a brother and sister, or a dependent family member, or two friends.

The conflict is that those pushing for "marriage" status want married status. They will be disappointed. Because the word marriage means something, they will still only be 2 people of the same sex that have sex with each other.

I have never considered this debate in the terms you lay down ... my opinions on this are quite simple:

I am totally comfortable with the idea that same sex couples can engage in a civil partnership, that provides them with the same protections within the law that a heterosexual couple have.

However, I am completely and utterly against gay marriage. In other words, I am a hybrid of a social conservative and social libertarian.

(e.g. I am quite happy for sex shops to be legal, but I don't want one to be built next to the local church).

My particular worldview might alienate liberals and social conservatives, but it is what it is.

I appreciate that my understanding does not easily map into the political sphere.

There are vested interests (e.g. aggressive gay rights activists) who want to take on the church for daring to promote marriage between a man and a woman.

What kind of world have we entered into, when the mainstream has to keep apologising to minorities?

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For an interesting perspective:

The gay British Conservative MP Alan Duncan has recently entered into a civil partnership, but he is opposed to gay marriage:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/portal/main.jhtml?xml=/portal/20 08/03/05/ftduncan105.xml

I can understand that, and I would agree that I think the state should not endorse gay marriage as marriage. On the other hand, I don't think it is the role of the state to define a religious institution such as marriage. I have written a follow up tot his, as there are certain additional issues raised by my solution which I did not cover here, but I think if we return tot he churches, synagogues, mosques, and others the definition of marriage, and elave contracts to the state, we would be much better off.

Thanks for visiting, and glad to see you back again.

Obviously my solution is informed by my desire to remove the state from as much of life as possible. As a result, if we allow marriage to be defined by churches and other religious institutions, while we leave the state only to enforce contracts, the whole political issue can be resolved.

On the other hand, the religious problems will still remain. Some churches will obviously be happy to allow gay marriage, others will not, and the squabbles between different churches in the same denomination will probably be quite nasty. But that at least is a private affair, without the state having a role, so, to my mind, preferable to the current political tug of war over marriage.

Personally, I see marriage as between a man and woman, but I will not begrudge others the right to enter into contracts to effectively form a group marriage, gay marriage, or anything else. As long as my rabbi does not officiate, I am fine with whatever they do. (And if he does, I suppose it is time to go elsewhere.)

I have a reply to both you and Greg in my next post, as you both raised the same objection.

I do agree with you that there will be groups on both sides who will not be pleased with my solution, but that is unavoidable. There are some who will be upset if any recognition is given to gay couples at all, even if the state does not recognize it as marriage. And there will be those gay activists who will not be happy until the state forces every church, temple, synagogue and mosque to allow gay marriage.

So, when I say I solved it, I suppose I should say I solved 90% of the problem, or 95%. Obviously there are always people who will be unhappy with any solution.

And, as I admit in my follow up article, there are some problems I did not adequately consider when writing this. I suppose that is why I will not be the next Ayn Rand. First, I am modest enough to admit that we will not be bale to impose perfection form above, but should probably try for a federalist system which allows us reform by degrees. Second, unlike Rand, I admit I am quite capable of making mistakes.

Well, you may want to read the follow-up. It does not address the problems you raised, but it does deal with some other issues I discovered when replying to earlier comments.

http://andrews.blogtownhall.com/2008/05/01/updating_an_old_ post.thtml

The next time someone on the left says your idea is is possible, say this: Since it's ultimately equality that gay couples want, this idea is much more sound than pursuing the legalization of gay marraige in all 50 states.

As for social conservatives, their argument that society will fall apart if the government doesn't endorse marriage as between a man and a woman is pretty hard to swallow. On NPR yesterday, I heard a man from Focus on the Family say that "if a child doesn't have a man and a woman for parents, they're missing something." That may be very well true, but we don't use that as a basis for banning people from being single parents.

I am glad you appreciated the links. I am always a bit leery of posting links on a blog if I don't know the owner, as it may seem I am just hunting for readers.

However, in your case I think it was on point enough that it wouldn't seem mercenary.

Welcome tot he blog and thanks for the comments, I hope to hear from you in the future.

(By the way, if you read my more recent posts, you will see that I admit that pushing this position at the moment would be strategically bad for a Republican -- or Democrat for that matter-- but I do still believe it is the best approach. I just think it would not sell at the moment, given the current climate.)