Marriage a right for everyone, not a privilege

By Harry Beckwith

The current debate over whether gays should be allowed to wed has become an ideological battlefield.

But why?

First, a definition of marriage, while loosely defined in the public square, is necessary in order to put the following argument in perspective. Marriage is a civic tie, enforced by law in the interest of public order; it provides a couple with specific benefits that society and its government lend to the pair.

Second, we should keep in mind that when reading the ensuing argument, that the people in our country, historically and presently, are reluctant to any type of change or drastic social upheaval. Women's suffrage and the Civil Rights Movement easily illustrate this point. But change scares us. However, change is often needed, and the benefits and detriments to society as a result of legalized gay marriage are unknown.

So, let's begin.

The institution of marriage is socially constructed, just as the plethora of religions around the world. And just as the alienating propensity of religion pushes us away from questioning why we believe what we believe and viewing our own religion as self-evident, so too does the tradition of marriage. Conservatives may say that marriage has been this way for so long that it would be a slap in the face to our ancestors, and that this is not how the Founding Fathers would have wanted it.

But these are the same people who owned slaves and socially ostracized women. No one seemed to bring the Founding Fathers argument up when the 13th and 19th Amendments were being debated, and no one does now after they have been passed.

So, why then is same-sex marriage so repugnant to some people?

The main opposition to gay marriage comes from the strong need to preserve the family unit and American family values. After all, how can two men or two women raise a child as well as man and a woman? However, looking at current marital trends, it would appear that gays would fair far better if they opt to raise children. More than half of marriages end in divorce, splitting families in two and inflicting emotional scars on children that last a lifetime.

If gays are fighting so hard to attain the right to wed, it leads one to believe that they would fight even harder to keep their partner.

We also need to get this out of our system: marriage was not created in order to encourage procreation. The religious soldiers of Sparta were notorious for cheating on their wives, who were confined to their homes -- with the young boys of the army. Also, Arizona allows first cousins to marry if they are 65 or older, or if the pair can prove that one of the two is unable to reproduce.

The procreation argument should not have a place in the political arena with regard to gay marriage. The separation of church and state has been violated so many times by the Bush administration that I am beginning to think that we are headed back to the era of the Roman Empire where religion is politics.

According to Jonathan Rauch of the Atlantic Monthly, who has authored dozens of articles on same-sex marriage, "If we are going to put the burden on gay people to prove that same-sex marriage would never cause even any minor difficulty, then we are assuming that any cost to heterosexuals, however small, outweighs every benefit to homosexuals, however large."

The obvious problem with this heterosexual line of thought is evident; it begs for us to put ourselves in the shoes of homosexual same-sex marriage advocates. How would you feel if homosexuals were the majority and they were suppressing the heterosexual right to marry?

We heterosexuals might not understand homosexuality or same-sex marriage, but the vows, trust, and love that are involved gay marriages are the exact same ones that are involved in straight marriages.

Rauch asks if conservatives genuinely oppose same-sex marriage because they fear it would harm straight marriage, then "they should be willing to let states that want to try gay marriage to do so.

If, on the other hand, conservatives oppose same-sex marriage because they believe it is immoral and wrong by definition, fine -- but let them have the honesty to acknowledge that they are not fighting for the good of marriage so much as they are using marriage as a weapon in their fight against gays."

A same-sex marriage ban would be only the second time in our nation's history that an amendment would have been written into the Constitution that restricts our civil liberties. Prohibition was the first.

Our human nature and free will should not to be hindered. We are free, autonomous beings. If our nation prides itself on freedom (which is what President Bush keeps telling us, despite his endorsement of a GMA), then why are gays still being denied their rights?

Our society has finally reached a tipping point where gays can finally "come out of the closet" in massive numbers and demand their Constitutional right to be treated as equals. And the "equal protection" clause of our Constitution provides for the fair and equal treatment of all of America's citizenry, not just the heterosexual majority.

* ààHarry Beckwith is a junior political science major.