Defense of Marriage

The current debate about the nature of marriage keeps getting caught up in distractions. The question of someone's right to be married is being waved about like a banner of freedom and liberation by the very people that in the 60's and 70's were avid opponents of the whole concept of marriage. Back then, they portrayed marriage as a sort of slavery, particularly for women, and declared it an antiquated notion of the past and a symbol of Victorian religious oppression.

For some reason, now that GLBT&T-S&M-ETC's are claiming the prerogative of "expressing their love" in a marital commitment, the people that championed free love, not needing a "piece of paper" to prove their love and who turned divorce into a proceeding no more significant than paying a traffic fine are howling about the unfairness of denying that previously distasteful union to a group of people who have no real need for the ceremony other than the legitimacy they think it will give to their proclivities.

Funny thing, legitimacy. They think marriage will give them legitimacy, but totally discount the value of legitimacy in the life of the average child today. Really, who needs it? So a mother has to raise a child alone because the father is not held responsible for his libidinous pursuits? No problem, the state will take care of them. Let the father go about in his randy way and procreate to his heart's content. There are plenty of rich fat cats out there that can have their wealth confiscated to pay for the unwanted offspring, and when that money runs out, we'll just abort the rest of them.

The sad thing is that there are way too many people out there that don't see anything outrageous in what I just said. Their attitude, at least superficially, is that people should be allowed to do anything they feel like and not face any consequences. Dig a little deeper, though, and you will find that they have to admit that there is a limit to that. They know that eventually some limits will have to be made. There will be people who are considered too stupid or brainwashed to manage their own affairs: or who are too educated in the "wrong" things to be trusted to allow their seditious ideas to propagate.

Again, enter the State. As far as they are concerned, everything can and should be regulated. There is no activity that they aren't willing to force on people to follow their notion of what is right and proper, including tolerance of all lifestyles and sexual orientations. How is that different from a state religion doing the exact same thing, somewhat in reverse? I don't think they care about that hypocrisy, because it's all about getting back at the people that "put them down, " so turnabout is fairplay.

They cannot deny their secularist imperative and still insist that they only want the "rights" of marriage, rather than the sanction of any religion. They would never want that, they assure us, though I recall that in my youth, some 30-odd years ago, as various other "rights" were demanded for the same-sex oriented, when the issue of the slippery slope was brought up, e.g. if you get this, the next thing you will want is same-sex marriage, there was adamant denial- "That's ridiculous! We would never ask for that!"

Now, it's looked at as ridiculous that they wouldn't ask for it. So, let's suppose that all they want is the rights of marriage. What rights of marriage don't they have or that they couldn't have with another stroke of Pres. Obama's pen? There's really only one thing that they can't get until they subvert religion and that is religious sanction. Some religions say that they will never submit to that even if it's government mandated. The result would eventually amount to that religion being outlawed, and their opponents are just fine with that, because that's all they are really after.

As they like to point out, marriage is not necessarily a religious institution. In fact, with their current argument, it has to NOT be a religious institution for it to be a universal right for anyone to marry anything that they want to. Well, how about that? What societal purpose does marriage serve if it's not to keep sexual relations within the sanctity of a dogmatic obligation? Since that purpose is entirely based on belief in divinity of some sort, what other use could marriage have?

Why should the state value and endorse marriage themselves? Remember, it can't be something insidious like controlling sexuality and freedom of expression, or it wouldn't be of any value to people that want to act completely outside of the conventional mores.

The fact is, there is a perfectly good reason for marriage both historically and in the present day that, while compatible with religions prerogatives, does not require any religious views to justify it for state endorsement, and I have already pointed it out. Quite simply, the protection and support of those who are unable to provide for themselves.

Men are, by nature, an extremely libidinous lot. Lacking societal or institutional restraint, some men would be having sex with most anything that offered the opportunity, including women. There is a certain inevitability to conception happening in an environment of unrestrained copulation, of course, only when there is at least one man and one woman involved. Oddly, that is the only condition in which it IS a possibility. As long as men and women continue to engage in sex, and I don't hear anyone on the liberal side arguing against that, there will be offspring, even if there were state-mandated birth control and abortion of any zygotes that managed to circumvent it; and yes, zygotes do circumvent it (actually gametes do, before becoming zygotes).

What is to be done with those that make it to live birth? So far, at least, Western society has not gone so far as to promote the euthanization of unwanted births (despite some attempts). Historically, the solution was pretty simple: a thing called a shotgun wedding. Men who played around were held responsible for the consequences. Women who were unable to work because of pregnancy and then having a child to raise had the security of knowing that society would make the man who contributed to it provide the support. Children could be guaranteed a maintenance beyond a mother on government hand-outs if we just went back to the notion that men who did the deed must live up to it.

That's not a concept that could only come from religion, but in a really odd irony (to those who don't believe in religion) it's a core tenet of every world religion. At its heart, marriage is only important if there is someone that could be left destitute if that bond is not enforced by government or society. For the religious, it is that and more, but it is never less than that for anyone.

To imply that two adults that have their own careers and means of support, and who will never naturally acquire any offspring to require the support of one or the other, have any need for marriage is the most ludicrous falsehood ever to be uttered. There is no right there to be given or denied, so the whole argument is just a pathetic pointless distraction designed to take our eyes off of their real goal: the stripping away of the rights afforded to religious practice in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America- one of the core principles upon which this nation was founded, and after that, the complete abolition of religion.

I'd suggest we keep our eyes on the real issue.