Taking Marriage Private

In the latest dispatch from the front lines in the war on civil liberties, here is a recent opinion piece from the New York Times that makes an argument for removing government from the business of marriage.

The author effectively argues that marriage was once a private contract and should be once more, pointing out that common-law relationships and "illicit" relationships not ordained by the church were still considered legal marriages by the government in the 20th century, until government decided to increase it's role in our lives and thereby decrease our freedom.

I'm particularly intrigued by the rationale for the government's increased role in marriage. The author comments on how the initial push came from parents who were attempting to keep their underage children from marrying, and I remember reading elsewhere that involving the church was necessary in order to keep records because so many men were secretly marrying multiple women (we do a little better with record keeping now, we don't need the church anymore for this), but to understand how we went from there to where we are now--a government that looks to the church to decide who can marry instead of yielding to the will of a free citizenry, is less clear to me. While unfortunately I don't know the history of this incrememental progresssion nor do I know where to find it, my gut tells me such a narrative would leave little doubt that "separation of church and state" should be treated as more than just a suggestion.

I'm still unsure how I feel about the idea of gay marriage, particularly when I look at the lives of the married straight people I know, but I'm even more unsettled by the church dictating public policy on behalf of the state. When considering the venom and outright cultural warfare of the religious right and the hate that their influence inspires, the bold way in which the current "christian president" has undermined civil liberties, and the history of civilizations, we have every reason to believe that the current state of affairs may be the latest stop on the slippery slope to theocracy.

In writing this, I recall something I've read about the decline of civilizations and how the cocktail of decreasing literacy rates (more stupid people), economic insecurity (less jobs, and the ones you have are crap), and opportunistic demagogues (The USA could export these assholes we have so many of them) tend to universally lead to higher rates of religiosity and and a decline in democracy and civil rights. Well folks, you don't need nostradamus to predict that the good old USA is looking down the barrel of that gun, and Jesus has his hand on the trigger.

Regardless of how we feel about gay marriage, making it a personal decision is an important issue for all of us, and we should fight for every inch of ground when it comes to individual freedoms and speak out and support the right of citizens to make their own decisions about who they can marry and what form those marriage should take. To do anything less is to passively enable religious authoritarians and evangelical jihadists to continue to limit our freedoms and enhance their own power.