Gay Marriage

I was just testifying in my mental moot court on the role of government in marriage/civil union and realized I never really understood how entrenched everyone's views are on these topics. It's kind a fun sliding scale to illustrate the same arbitrary balance point as you get on many moral/cultural issues when everyone agrees on something only because it's comfortable or pleasing to the majority. These are like consensus laws - no grounding in logic, just history.

The government vests a lot of different religious figures with the power to marry. They allow Christians, Muslims, Jews, Universal Life Church, whoever the fuck, to perform marriages between men and women. The idea there is that we're a pluralistic society - don't matter your stripes n all that...

But it's a little bit creepy that the government does vest these religious institutions with that power. It's not quite right that a judge can marry you, or a voodoo medicine man can marry you. We don't take this approach with your legal defense should you be charged with a crime, do we? You can use your public defender, hire a lawyer who passed the Bar, or... just bring your rabbi? I do seem to remember that you can choose to represent yourself, so maybe we do allow for some quirks more consistent that others related to personal freedoms.

If, from a legal standpoint, marriage is a legal arrangement, I'm not sure it matters who it's between. If it's about taxes and insurance beneficiaries and all that. Why should I not be able to enter into a legal contract with my roomate, my sister, or my three best friends? If we all agree to bear liability for each other, what's the difference?

Clearly it's something about the sex involved, right? We have a somewhat consistent and logical basis for most arrangements or partnerships that imply financial and legal obligations. Do people act so funny about marriage because the sex is implied in this one?