The recent elections featured several plebiscites on same-sex marriage, including California's now infamous Proposition 8. Fifty-two percent of Californians voted against same-sex marriage. Some commentators speculate that an assertive campaign by Mormons tipped the balance. In the final weeks they raised nearly five million dollars and canvassed the state, house-by-house, claiming they were not anti-gay but pro-marriage.
According to a November 15 NY Times' article, "First approached by the Roman Catholic archbishop of San Francisco a few weeks after the California Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in May, the Mormons were the last major religious group to join the campaign, and the final spice in an unusual stew that included Catholics, evangelical Christians, conservative black and Latino pastors, and myriad smaller ethnic groups with strong religious ties." http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/us/politics/15marriage.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=november%2015%20mormon&st=cse&oref=slogin
This coalition's campaign raised concerns regarding the Separation of Church and State.
In my estimation the Separation Issue that Proposition 8 raised is worth scrutiny. For perspective read Barack Obama's 2006 speech before the Call to Renewal convention, in which he opined on the role of religion on public policy: http://obama.senate.gov/speech/060628-call_to_renewal/ In this speech Mr. Obama asserted that religion has a place in public policy, yet religion must argue, not from narrow faith perspectives, rather from universal values that can persuade even the most ardent secularist.
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I have strong religious views regarding same-sex marriage, but just because a voter is religious doesn't mean they have no other rationale.
I heard a man some years ago on NPR's "Fresh Air", a sociologist (not a priest), expressing his apprehension at the prospect of legally redefining marriage. He was basically saying that there is absolutely no precedent for it, and it IS a huge matter to move away from an understanding of marriage that is based on ancient societal and biological imperatives, not individual actualization.
Here is my issue. If we say, right now, "Marriage is now expanded to include two men or two women", that is flatly unconstitutional.
Marriage, for all of history, has been based on a biological reality that exists exclusively between a man and a woman. It is unique to the sexual union of a man and a woman, and it produces children in most cases.
The term "Girl Scout" means something specific, based on biology (I understand that there is a radical understanding of gender identity that would suggest that a biological male can be female in gender, but that's specious at best). "Girl Scout" means something unique, and objectively true in the biological sense. When we deny boys the right to join Girl Scouts, we are not discriminating, and it is constitutional to do so. We are recognizing a separateness that is rooted in biology. When we deny girls the right to join the football team, that is another matter. You don't need a penis to play football. But if you have a penis, you cannot be a Girl Scout. You're still equal, but you can't join.
With very few exceptions, we all get this, and it is a completely non-religious viewpoint.
Currently, marriage is a unique state based on unique biological facts and capabilities. That is the sole reason for marriage, historically. It is the only reason we can define it at all.
If we change that, we have stepped out of the biological and into the completely arbitrary. If we say, "These two men can get married, but not three", we have drawn an arbitrary moral boundary that infringes on the constitutional rights of a polygamist. Throughout history, siblings have had sexual relationships and fallen in love romantically. While most of us abhor the thought, 30 years ago most people abhorred the thought of two men making love. Why can't siblings marry? What is the constitutional basis for that? Can I marry my uncle so that he can get health benefits on my family health plan, if we share a residence? If marriage grants me rights I otherwise can't have, who is anyone to exclude us as a family if we choose to define ourselves that way?
If we categorize those concerns as absurd, we discriminate. I find it far more constitutionally sound to say that any group of people who want to share a residence and be a household or family unit can do so, with a domestic partnership. I don't see how any other boundary isn't exclusionary and discriminatory once we discount the biological uniqueness of marriage.
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