Even though I grew up in Las Vegas, I’ve never been much of a betting man.
But if I were, I’d be willing to lay 2 to 1 odds that the Supreme Court will strike down the federal Defense of Marriage Act and recognize gay unions.
Constitutional law is filled with contradictory language and murky doctrine, and trying to predict court rulings is about as easy as drawing an inside straight at the poker tables. But this one seems to me like it ought to be a constitutional no-brainer, at least to the intellectually honest members of the court.
Not since the 19th century has the court ruled that it was constitutionally permissible to discriminate against an entire class of people, which is exactly what the federal law – as well as similar state laws – tries to do. The arguments deployed against gay marriage have more to do with religious morality than they do constitutional law, because, frankly, there aren’t any good legal arguments to be made against it.
Some suggest the states ought to be free to regulate marriage, as they have always traditionally done, but nothing in the Constitution gives the majority the right to discriminate against the minority, at least not since the passage of the 14th Amendment a century and a half ago. So as long as the law confers economic advantages on married couples, consenting adults should have the right to marry whom they choose. At least at the courthouse down the street, if not the church around the corner. No one is suggesting that churches should have to recognize gay marriages, only that the government must do so for the purposes of pensions, tax laws and other legal benefits enjoyed by married couples.
Now not so long ago, the debate wasn’t about the institution of marriage, but over whether the government should somehow recognize civil unions for gay couples. Until recently, the president himself took that position. And personally, I see nothing wrong with that compromise, in a strictly legal sense. But the cultural and moral clashes surrounding the issue have taken us past that point, and the legal debates surrounding gay marriage won’t go away until all unions are created equal.
The courts have finally struck down medieval laws against sodomy and adultery, laws which by the way applied equally to heterosexual as well as homosexual couples. Maybe it’s time to get the government entirely out of the marriage business. The only reason the government has to regulate any marriage is for the purposes of tax, property and pension laws. So instead of marriage, it seems to me we should only recognize civil unions in a secular society, whether they be straight or gay.
I don’t think gay marriages undermine the traditional institution of marriage; if anything, they celebrate and reaffirm the notions of love and commitment at the heart of the sacrament.
Many religious opponents of gay marriage would disagree. So they ought to welcome the idea that the government recognizes nothing more than legal commitment when it issues a marriage license. Leave the holy sacraments at the altar where they belong. That way, churches would be left free to marry whomever they chose, or not, depending on their own understanding of God’s laws.
That wouldn’t, of course, satisfy those who believe gay unions are a sin, those who believe they have the right to enact their own views of religious morality into the secular law. But I figure God can enforce his own commandments and doesn’t need the help of the federal government. If, as some insist, God frowns on gay unions, that’s between them and God and we should leave the justice of the peace out of it.
The complexities of constitutional law make my head hurt, and we often can’t agree on the meaning of a document written just two centuries ago. So I won’t even try to wade into the morass of religious debate on the meaning of scripture written 20 centuries ago in an ancient language that we can’t even agree how to properly translate.
Still, “judge not, least ye be judged” seems pretty clear to me.
If folks want to disagree, that’s up to them. But let them do so in their own church, not under the Capitol dome.
Do we really want Congress, itself a perfect symbol for dysfunctional union, deciding the meaning of holy sacraments? Talk about cheapening the institution of marriage. You could find a more meaningful, reverent experience at that Elvis wedding chapel on the Las Vegas Strip.
