Yes to legalizing gay marriage | Letter
Published 9:47 am Thursday, October 18, 2012
It is frequently said that marriage is between a man and a woman. But that merely specifies participants. “Marriage” requires a fuller definition. It is a union, generally including sexual, financial, and living arrangements. Plus an emotional bond and a long-term commitment.
There is nothing in this definition that limits marriage to opposite-gender couples. Further, marriage in our society is a civil function, licensed by the state. Even the clergymen who formalize marriages end with the statement “By the authority granted by the state of xxxx, I pronounce you…”
But you don’t need a clergyman. You can be married by a county clerk or you can go to Vegas and be married by a justice of the peace who looks like Elvis. The point being that the religious aspect, the sacrament, is an optional extra that the couple may elect to add to the bedrock civil union.
Conventional marriage is said to be traditional. Quite true. But traditions change; if not, we would still have slavery and women could not vote. And there is a minor semantic objection about the meaning of the word. Words mean what people agree they mean, and that frequently changes over time. I remember when “gay” meant giddily happy.
R74 seeks to make same-sex marriage legal in our state. Similar measures have failed in several states. This is hard to understand, except as springing from a distaste for homosexuality, because legalization:
1. Would not affect my conventional marriage or that of anyone else, now or in the future. R74 does not abolish opposite-sex marriage.
2. Would not change religious aspects, for those who embrace them. No clergyman would be forced to marry same-sex couples if he or she does not want to.
3. Would eliminate legal barriers to what is primarily a private matter. Nobody else’s business.
I see no reason for me, or anyone else, to stand in the way of another citizen’s unalienable right to pursuit of happiness. Especially since it does not affect anyone else.
Wally Gilliam
Art Lange
Eastsound
