Since when does a word have so much power?
Laddies and gentlemen, I give you George Carlin: “The original seven [dirty] words were, shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits.” Obviously, these words have specific connotations that aren’t acceptable in society, but why do they have such an effect on some people? Well, arguably because much of America is prudish, at least by world standards.
Anyone pay attention to the California general election last Tuesday? Proposition 8? Earlier this year, the CA supreme court overturned an appellate court decision banning gay marriage, which obviously allowed the marriages state wide. In this past general election, the CA people vote in favor of proposition 8, which was a general ban on gay marriage. So what happens now? Protests, lawsuits, and general stupidity. If any law was violated in the passage of this law… I’m not sure it should matter much since a large majority of CA citizens voted for it (that is assuming the accusations of Mormons from out of state aren’t true). Although, they may have considered that CA is one of the most liberal areas of the nation and if the homosexuals can’t get what they want there, they might just be SOL.
You might be wondering what the two preceding thoughts might have in common. Everything. This battle is over one word… Marriage. For (likely thousands of) years, churches have joined their believers in unions under the (presumptive) blessing of their god(s). Through the evolution of society, these unions have become known in all faiths as one thing… marriage. To a person of faith, the word marriage implies something very specific: it implies a joining of two people sanctioned by god. This implication is made even more powerful when most mainstream faiths today consider homosexuality a sin. Unfortunately, this word became much more complicated during the “New Deal” when FDR came up with a number of social programs to bring our economy out of the toilet. Most relevant, the Social Security Administration and Internal Revenue Service were created. Why? Taxes! The new system of federal taxes quickly realized that most married couples had children and that a married couple with children spent more per-capita than a single person so the SSA and IRS began to recognize marriage as a lawful construct so that they could use it as a deduction on taxes to that families could more easily support themselves.
So whats the problem? Churches want to maintain the meaning of the word marriage; Homosexual couples want all the rights that a heterosexual couple has (which I support – “separate but equal” was rightfully done away with decades ago); The US government has annexed the word “marriage” to mean something in law. The first two ideas are put into direct conflict because of the third.
I have a solution, and to be honest, I’m somewhat surprised no one has (publicly) proposed this. Christians have been arguing for some time to give gay couples a civil union instead of marriage. The issue for (most – I hope) Christians is maintaining the sanctity of marriage, not denying homosexuals fairness under tax and family law (yes, that second point is definitely arguable). My solution is to go through all federal and state documents and laws and perform a find/replace on the word “marriage” with “civil union”. Force everyone who wants to be recognized officially by the government as a united couple to have a civil union (and obviously grandfather all current marriages) thereby allowing churches/faiths to individually decide how to control marriages in their own faiths. Which is really how it should be… the government controlling who can be legally joined because of moral, not ethical, reasoning is akin to the government supporting religion, and we all know that is specifically forbidden.
Sorry for yet another politically related post… I’m just sick of the news concentrating on this. Although, its nice to see less of McCain and Obama.
It’s been proven often that words have the most power of anything. You can’t kill an idea. Just look at the “war on terror”.
Anyways more on topic…yes I agree that homosexuals should be given equal rights, whether that is allowing them marriage or redefining everyone else’s marriage to be a “civil union”. Though by now it’s just easier to let them be married than change everything. I don’t understand why people’s commitments to each other under their god are dependent on what someone else is doing next door.
I don’t think marriage or at least the idea of it (I don’t care what word you use for it) has ever been the exclusive property of christians. The fact that they are trying to control it is shameful. It’s been around longer than 2000 years I’m sure. If two atheists love each other and want to dedicate their lives together and call it a marriage, who are you to tell them they can’t. And with the separation of church and state, it’s really not toooo much of a cognitive stretch to separate the religious ceremony from a legal document.
Well… like you said, words are powerful. To some in the religious community, logically separating a religious marriage ceremony from a legal marriage certificate isn’t a separation at all, instead it dilutes the meaning of the word, which is also not a cognitive strech. I can’t say I disagree with that sentiment since the origins of a legal marriage come directly from a Christian marriage which is the cause of all of these problems. Yes, we can easily have a multiply defined word and leave it up to the individual churches to say whether or not the marriage is recognized in the church… I’m saying, lets just remove all reason to argue altogether and lets give two different things two different labels.
Edit: P.S. What do you think of my theme changes?
Well it’s like giving in to a crying child. Once they learn that crying works, you’ll never get them to shut up.
The theme is good. Reminds me of early OS X with the bruched metal thing going on.
thanks for stealing my idea and taking it for your own!
@Eclipse: That depends. Who here is the crying child? The Church or the homosexuals? Both are reasonably getting only a form of what they want, not exactly what they want. I do agree that giving a petulant child whatever they want breeds the same behavior, but forcing all parties involved to accept something different from what they want should breed compromise. At least in my logic it should. However, I think more importantly, stopping the church dictating social acceptability in this way (i.e. removing any argument they could have) would be a great step towards removing their control in other places (i.e. stem cell research).
@March: Excuse you? I do believe, on the way back to the apartment from Red Robin, I said, after talking about churches pushing for civil unions, and I quote, “then lets just make all marriages civil unions.” Where in this is “your idea”? You weren’t even drunk at the time… so were in you the bathroom smoking something?
=) someone didn’t get the sarcasm!
For possibly the first time ever… I get to quote a friend’s blog… See here. The tubes don’t convey emotion well…
Marriage benefits were created to prorate a couple’s load relative to others. This load is a function of having children.
Unmarried x Children = Burdened
Married x No children = Little burden
Unmarried x No children = Little burden
Married x Children = Burdened
As you can see, the burden is not a function of marriage, but of children! Thus, it would be more logical to make these benefits a function of children. They already have dependent credits for this; they should increase them so the pie is given to those in most need of it.
I see many gay marriage arguments on both sides as slicing horizontally when they should really be dicing vertically. I say marriage benefits should only be given to those who have children, be they gay or not. That way, the gays who don’t have children are rightly disenfranchised…but so’re the straight people who don’t have children, but married anyway to have more favorable tax circumstances.
My comments were about the original state of tax law which WAS a function of marriage AND children as it was very socially frowned on to be a single parent.
I whole heartedly… unequivocally… outlandishly and adamantly disagree that benefits should be a function of children. I DO NOT PAY TAXES TO SUPPORT SOMEONE ELSE’S LIFE DECISION! NO NO NO NO NO NO NO! [Disclaimer: I want children and also don’t expect society to pay for them.] You want children? Pay for them yourself, it isn’t society’s job to carry your burden. Now, don’t take this as I don’t support any social welfare. In a well run system, I support unemployment and other subsidies that can help people (for a limited time) meet minimum living requirements while they work to get their life back on track. I even support extended benefits in extreme and proven circumstances, but I’m not giving you money just because you didn’t put on a condom (that also goes for government funded abortions – except possibly in cases of rape).
That said… what you want already exists. The tax break you get is very small for being married unless only one spouse is working. Otherwise, under current conditions you get a per child tax credit up to $2500. Obama plans to double this to $5000. If you tell the government you can’t feed your children and you make below some arbitrary number you can also get per child welfare checks (don’t know the amount) or food stamps. In the event you decide to foster children, you get a per child support check from the government. The government allows you to deduct medical bills from your taxes and for each child you have that limit goes up. Of course the government also lets you deduct any educational expenses up to certain amounts, determined by the number of children and level of schooling. Don’t tell me the tax system doesn’t already favor people with children, married or not. In my opinion, much of the above needs to go away.