I'm a rare fairly-far-right conservative that says gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry LEGALLY
"Nonstopdrivel" wrote:
I actually disagree. I don't think there should be such a thing as legal marriage. As far as I'm concerned, no government has any business regulating or even defining marriage. Marriage is a private arrangement between freely consenting individuals. If a man and a woman, two men, two women, a man and two women, three women and a man, or three women and two men want to call themselves married, that is between them, the witnesses to the ceremony, and (if applicable) their God. By excluding government entirely from marriage, this frees anyone to marry as they see fit -- and also allows the rightful arbiters of marriage the discretion to choose whom they will marry and whom they will not. Under such a system, a Catholic priest can refuse to marry two women, an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America pastor can marry two men, and a pagan priestess can marry a polyamorous quartet.
The counterargument that is always advanced at this point is, "Well, if we allow gays to marry, we'll have to allow polygamists to marry." My answer is why not? How does it affect you? The answer is usually that polygamy tends to be coercive. This is utter nonsense. Marriage, as I stated previously, is contracted between informed, consenting adults. I can think of no activity under the law, least of all marriage, that can be forced on another by coercion. For every illicit polygamist union formed by forcing underage girls into the relationship, there are polygamist marriages in which it's actually the
wives doing the recruiting. Coercion in any relationship (except parent/child) is
prima facie illegal. Therefore, this argument is a red herring.
The next argument advanced is, "Well, if we allow polygamists to marry, who's to say we won't allow pedophiles to marry children or zoophiles to marry animals?" Again, a nonsensical red herring. Marriage is a relationship predicated upon consent. By definition, children and animals cannot consent; therefore, they cannot marry. As it is, it's legal for teens to marry in every state of the Union. In Wisconsin, one can wed at 14 with a court order (most often obtained in cases of pregnancy) and at 16 with parental consent. Young people are already getting married. But no one is marrying prepubescent children; it's by definition impossible.
Christian conservatives are making a huge strategic error by appealing to the government to outlaw gay marriage, just as pro-gun advocates have made the strategic error of appealing to personal self-defense arguments in favor of their 2nd Amendment Rights. These Christians never contemplate that if the government can mandate who cannot be married, the government can also mandate who must be married. Churches are 501(c)(3) tax-exempt corporations. As such, they must abide by government regulations. By ceding control over the legal definition of marriage to the government, instead of retaining it in-house where it belongs, churches are running the risk that a future administration might mandate that in order to maintain their tax-exempt status, churches can no longer discriminate against alternative lifestyles in weddings.
Churches should be loudly asserting their autonomy on this issue, not appealing to the government to enforce their pet agenda.
"Porforis" wrote: