January 30, 2006

Why is it that diverse marital arrangements aren't recognized or tolerated in a "free" society? Weddings have long been church or community functions to witness and celebrate exchanges of marital vows. Weddings are not usually events open to the general public, but only to guests -- a number of family and friends who are specifically invited to attend. If all the townspeople crashed your wedding party, eating your food and drinking your wine, rambunctiously objecting to aspects of the proceedings or the marriage itself, offending the hosts and insulting the guests, you'd be mad, wouldn't you?

Why do so many people seem to perceive nothing amiss in the political variant of this wedding party-crashing scenario -- perhaps because it crashes the festivities by stealth, preemptively preventing marriages from occurring in the first place instead of rudely interrupting wedding celebrations already in progress? Aside from couples that may not meet the State's rigid marriage criteria, how many avoid making formal commitments to family life because of government's heavy-handed, bungling, even brutal interventions?

The State, rather than "protecting the institution of marriage," assures itself a monopoly of power over religious institutions by offering protected status solely to marriages made in accordance with the State's rules. Ultimately the State reminds us it has the authority to bless a union by making a marriage "legal," or withhold that blessing -- for a couple to seek the blessings of God and family, friends, and their community may be all well and good -- but it's purely secondary and quite possibly optional in the eyes of the State. It is government that must approve a union and witness vows for marriage to be "legitimate."

If -- as is commonly supposed -- America enjoys real freedom of religion and freedom of association, why is it that different churches or community organizations don't retain the authority within the ranks of their members to perform binding marriage ceremonies for whomever they choose? Why can't a person simply join whatever religious, spiritual, or community organization is best suited to his or her beliefs, and have their wedding vows recognized (or witnessed) within that sect, or their "chosen community?" Why should a dominant church or group determine what defines a legitimate marriage within others?

A vast cult of the State is at work here, a two-winged conspiracy against freedom. The State can refuse to honor or acknowledge any authority that it chooses not to "authorize" including religious authority: so much for the separation of church and State. The State demands tribute and obedience, and exacts harsh reprisals for challenges to its authority just the way a church possessing dominant political power might behave. Just as certain political powers received favor with the church, say in Protestant England, so might the State favor religious authorities within its control -- iron fists look nicer in satin gloves.

Political dissident VS religious heretic: different labels, same whine?

The State usurps authority that alternatively might reside within churches or voluntary communities, and marriage becomes a government monopoly. The State preempts the individual's right to form contracts (marriage being only one example) to replace it with a uniform contract known as legal marriage. A couple can customize the uniform contract in limited small ways, such as "filing jointly or separately for tax purposes" or adjoining surnames, but the underlying contract is one size fits all (and tough luck if it doesn't).

In order to reap the politically designated benefits of union with another party, you've got to meet the State's qualifications for marriage with that person -- political perks always are acquired to the detriment of some other parties. Similarly, expanded definitions and additional protections of particular peoples' rights must inevitably carry the cost of fewer protections for and insidiously shrinking definitions of others' rights -- however invisibly to those who will not examine how the "political process" works. It conveys privilege to some and penalizes others; it's inimical to freedom, fraternity, and it fosters inequality.

It's mystifying why decent people often seem to feel that marriage, amongst many other fields of personal and professional endeavor, should be regulated by the State at all. The point of having one's wedding vows witnessed in the traditional way was that witnesses' signatures once made marriage a "binding" contract -- "legal" in an antiquated and now practically obsolete sense. Now in order to be "legal," a marriage must be validated by the State (i.e., bureaucratic busybodies who weren't present for the ceremony, and in a polite society wouldn't be concerned with anyone's marriage without a personal wedding invitation). The polite society people might have created has been forfeited for the sake of a policed State; the difference is as vast as the gulf between cooperation and coercion.

There are people I know -- some I'd call friends -- who are apparently dead set against any marriage except "between a man and a woman," as well as people dear to me who passionately defend "same-sex marriage." The two irreconcilable arguments are equally frustrating to me because as I see it both sides embrace the same fundamental error.

In petitioning the State to protect marriage as a "legal institution defined as one man and one woman," or include alternative legal marital contracts as worthy of State protection, people actively undermine the autonomy of individuals and their churches or voluntary community associations and build the coercive musculature of the State. A State whose tendency is to assume ever more control at the expense of the "governed." A State that benefits not only when people knowingly surrender their liberties, but also when people consider their fellow citizens so unworthy of liberty that they'll compromise their own by granting government more powers or even petitioning government to take more control.

Is it the State's "institution of marriage" that should really be sacrosanct -- or the privacy of an intimate contractual relationship between loving partners, and freedom to form our own voluntary contractual obligations, including romantic and religious associations?

Perhaps there are people who welcome the camel's nose under their honeymoon tent, and into the privacy of their boudoirs -- and that may be appropriate, since it's considered bad form to turn away guests once you've invited them. It's worse form to invite yourself into a stranger's wedding tent or bedroom -- never mind bringing your nosy camel.

Catfarmer has her own website too! Lots of interesting things to see.

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Will the Ideal Freedom-Doer Please Stand Up?

A Penny Reinvested, A Dollar Burned

Church and State

Declaration of Interdepen-dence

Conversational Knives and Daggers

Day of the Bad Guy Do-Gooders

Politics Causes Brain Damage, Scientists Claim

Imagine There's No Healing

The Horrors of Government

Love and Libertarians

Home Cooking Outlawed for Child Safety (with Bob Wallace)

It Takes a Grinch to Ban Christmas

Laws Create Criminals

Fairy Godmother Government

First, Suppose You Might Be Wrong…

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