Marriage

Eyes are on the U.S. Supreme Court as it considers a lower-court ruling in California which declared a referendum ban on gay marriage unconstitutional. I am not a proponent of gay marriage. I am not a proponent of marriage in general. 

I find one false argument against gay marriage quite offensive. I find it equally offensive that all mainstream media allow the argument without dispute. The argument starts with an assumption that marriage's origins were associated with proper child-rearing. This is a lie.

Marriage's roots as a legal entity are in land and property. Plain and simple. Children's rights had absolutely nothing to do with the evolution of the institution in Greco-Roman-based societies of Europe, from which we derive our legal system. Marriage is about the rights of adults to inherit and control land and property. And, with this understanding, the prohibition of gay marriage is a legal dehumanization of homosexuals. It implies that homosexuals are not adults to be considered equal under the laws of land and property transmission.

Why the media, even the most balanced media, do not assert this when some born-again yahoo rants against homosexuals on the basis of child protection is beyond my comprehension. This lapse of clarification propagates ignorance of history and the law. President Obama repeatedly states, "We are a nation of laws." Perhaps this was the turning point of his own recognition of the injustice of banned gay marriages. 

Legal marriage is merely the inky shadow of a living commitment between two loving people of any kind. Legal marriage complicates lives, as do money and property. Legal marriage itself has never protected one child from parental abuse. Legal marriage does not prevent the production of numerous unwanted children. Legal marriage inhibits the government from acquiring commensurate revenue for proper health care and education for the children produced in heterosexual marriage.

I find myself strangely siding with extreme Libertarians in their belief that no marriage should be involved at all with government. I would encourage any adults who so wish to freely seek out whatever holy person they admire to help them celebrate vows of commitment to each other. Have a party. Have a shower to accumulate gifts and adulation. If you wish to transmit land and property, hire a lawyer. Leave the rest of us out of it.