insomnomaniac

1,000 rights I didn't know I had

Will someone please enumerate the "1,000 rights" I have as a married person? I can only count about a dozen, and that's if I really work hard at it. Most of those have to do with my finances and healthcare decisions.

All I know is, I'm told on a daily basis that I'm a "first-class citizen" because I'm a heterosexual, and I can't figure out what's so "first-class" about my life!

Look, I've written about gay marriage before, and I haven't really changed my view, just honed it.

The way I see it, every American has the same rights vis a vis marriage. Every man has the right to marry one woman of his choosing, every woman has the right to marry one man of hers. If a guy wants to marry a guy, well, he's choosing not to exercise his marital rights. Same if a woman wants to marry a woman, right? No one is telling them not to marry someone of the opposite sex, they're choosing not to, right?

No? I'm missing something? It's not a "choice?" They are being compelled to choose a same sex partner? By whom? Aha! There's the real issue. The real debate is between those who believe that being gay is a choice and those who believe that it's something you are from birth, kind of like being blue-eyed or tall.

But what about bisexuals? If we allow gay marriage on the theory that who you love is not a choice, and that forbidding it is discrimination because gays are a "minority" group, then aren't bisexuals equally entitled to marry one of each of the genders to which they are "compelled" to be attracted?

Then there's the "civil rights" issue, but last time I checked, there's no specific "right to marriage" in the Constitution. True, there's the "equal access" stuff, but there's also "freedom of religion," and some people's religions tell them to marry more than one person at a time, but that doesn't mean we as a society are going to let them. Still, I really would like to hear a gay couple explain why they should have the right to marry, but the Mormon guy should not have the right to marry three women. What's the argument against polygamy, or bigamy for that matter?

And finally, there's the "LUUUUUUV" issue. Yeah, I love my husband, guess that's ONE of the reasons I married him, but not the only one. Some people love their pet more than they love any one human, should they be allowed to marry their dog or cat if they want? Shouldn't they be able to have their beloved pet visit them in the ICU if they are hurt? Shouldn't fluffy be able to automatically inherit their estate if they die, without having to do any legal paperwork first?

OK, I'm being a little ridiculous, but I'm trying to prove a point. If homosexuals want to change the definition of marriage in our society, they need to make an argument that takes into account why marriage came to be in the first place. They need to acknowledge that it was not about love, it was not about "being nice" and giving people special rights and privileges, and it was not about excluding undesirable types from any special "first-class citizen" status.

Not only don't I see any acknowledgement of why our society instituted marriage in the first place, I don't see any honest acknowledgement that marriage was always, and is still, defined as one man and one woman. To listen to the rhetoric, you'd think there was this definition of marriage somewhere that read something like this: "When two humans decide they love each other a whole lot or just want to live together, share custody of some kids, make medical decisions for each other, bury the one who dies first and inherit that one's stuff without having to go through probate first, they get married."

And if this is what the new definition of marriage ought to be, then why only two? Why? As long as the parties are human, who cares how many there are? I mean, if all that matters is that they love one another and want to share their stuff, even after they're dead? Who cares, right?

Do you see where I'm going with this? Can someone explain why I'm off base in thinking that there's a reason marriage is defined as TWO people, and it wasn't a number arrived at by accident?

Posted by insomnomaniac at March 3, 2004 11:50 PM | TrackBack