Get Government Out of the Marriage Business for Heaven's Sake

Before any more states jump on the lengthening gay marriage bandwagon, all sides in the current brouhaha need to consider this: Government - federal, state or local - is the last institution that should be mixed up in anything as romantic, joyous and sublime as marriage. Here we have a cold, impersonal, often incompetent bureaucracy embedded in one of the most tender and cherished moments in two peoples' lives.

We've seen what happens when government intrudes - albeit often by necessity - into the delicate fabric of couplehood; poorly adjudicating domestic disturbances, botching child custody cases, upholding outlandish separation and alimony agreements, discriminating against unconventional lifestyles in setting fault. Knowing what we do about the lousy track record and poor judgment of government, why would anyone--straight or gay--want to start their lives together by having it proclaim them a couple?

The government doesn't get itself entangled in other religious sacraments and rituals. It doesn't care if you make a bad confession, superimposing legal penalties on any celestial ones you may incur for lying to your confessor. It takes no notice of baptisms, circumcisions, first communions, confirmations, bar mitzvahs or last rites. So how is it that mayors, governors, legislatures and even the president, Congress and the Supreme Court are all enmeshed in this most personal and spiritual of human activity?

The requirement for an official "marriage" license has gotten all jumbled up in the lexicon and in the minds of people as being part and parcel of the institution of marriage. Government's only role is to ensure that when two people decide to forgo the joy and happiness of single bliss for life together, they are entering into an official contract with ramifications that binds the signatories to various financial, legal and property rights and obligations. It is a business contract. No more. No less.

Since the marriage ceremony itself bestows no further legal nor economic rights, those individuals--straight or gay--who choose to end the coupling process with just the legal partnership from the city clerk are guaranteed exactly the same benefits as those who proceed on to a spiritual ceremony. In either case, the government doesn't really care, nor should it. France has successfully instituted a similar system, a "civil pact of solidarity," originally intended to protect gay couples, but increasingly employed by straights who chose to not undergo a religious ritual. In their efforts at compromise, moderates almost got it right by arguing marriage could be reserved for a man and a woman, while preserving its legal and economic benefits by granting domestic partnerships to gays. Take the next step. Do away with "marriage" licenses altogether by issuing domestic partnerships to everyone and let the marriage rite return to its spiritual roots.

Those who argue that marriage is the stabilizing, regenerative institution of society, and therefore deserving of government's caring obviously haven't been paying attention. Nearly 50 percent of marriages end in divorce; and 40 percent of children are born out of wedlock. Many who remain married do so in name only, tolerating domestic abuse, unhappiness and stereotypical roles for wives. Quickie divorces; multiple, sequential marriages; pre-nuptial agreements which have "tentative" writ large; Las Vegas wedding chapels; trophy wives; and tabloid-fueled celebrity wedding-thons have desecrated the sacredness of marriage.

Ironically, the two parties at each other's throat in the current dust-up both come down on the side of the angels--decrying these shallow, decadent societal trends in favor of renewed spirituality and the unity of two persons betrothing before their God, family, friends and the world, their love, devotion and intentions of happy ever-aftering. Maybe, if marriage was disconnected from governmental intrusion and redefined as the sacred ritual it was intended to be, more people might treat it with the respect and awe it deserves instead of being viewed as just another bureaucratic function no different than paying taxes or renewing a driver's license.

Conservatives, who view most anything the government does as tainted, should welcome a redefinition of marriage as the strictly spiritual sacrament that couples choose only after securing an official domestic partnership contract from the state. Unfortunately, since they mistakenly view the few selected governmental functions they do endorse as carrying out Biblical directives, they are unable to see the virtuous payoffs that would accrue.

Gays and lesbians and their secular liberal allies are no more shrewd. They ought to respond positively to eliminating a Christian sacrament from its misplaced historical entanglement with government. But they are all so caught up in challenging the status quo and the headiness of official gay wedlock, their civil libertarian vision is being clouded by the birdseed, or whatever the celebratory tossing material that's politically acceptable this year.

This is not just a case of semantics. The spiritual experience is clearly more than the austere, sterile formality required by government to affirm a legal contract. Until a couple--straight or gay--steps before a minister, priest, rabbi, imam, or even a new age "guide" for that matter, to pledge their lives to each other and a traditional God above; unite as part of their belief in the universality of nature; or merely use the ceremony to express their love for one another among their close witnesses, don't call it marriage!

Let's reserve that title for a truly spiritual setting, and get Big Brother out of the marriage business altogether. He does it poorly, with no emotion and no real concern for the outcome. That's the venue for contract lawyers not priests.