Let's Abolish Marriage

The issue, as I see it, isn't with gay marriage, its with marriage.

I find it ironic that soon-to-be presidential candidate Mitt Romney - a Mormon - is against gay marriage.  This despite the fact that his religion has a history of institutional polygamy.  So two guys getting it on is immoral, but a nightly, one-man orgy with ten women...that's cool.  (Incidentally, I DO think that'd be cool, but now we're getting into a different discussion, entirely.)  In fairness, though, Romney isn't trying to integrate his religion's views of marriage into the government's definition of it.  Why, then, do we continue to have a government definition of marriage that is based on a Christian understanding of the institution?  And if anyone thinks that our government's definition of marriage is not based on Christian directives, then why is it always preachers and deeply right-wing, pro-Christian officials that are the ones defending its current incarnation on the news shows?  If there's a powerful social and moral reason that lies behind the necessity of "one man; one woman" - one so obvious and fundamental that its clear to people religious and non-religious alike - then why aren't atheists out in force against gay marriage?

All citizens are supposed to be equal under the law as imposed by the state.  Religions are a different matter.  Church X wants to decry gay marriage?  Fine. Its your religion; do whatever the hell you want with it.  State Government Y wants to?  By what authority could it fathom denying any couple a marriage?  Its akin to the DMV telling me I can't get a driver's license because I'm agnostic.

If "marriage" is going to be defended by and defined in religious terms, then the state has no business touching it in the first place.  "Separation of church and state."  I think that's how it used to go.

Even the fundamentalists seem mostly to agree that gay people should be allowed to couple up, just under a different title.  "Give them civil unions," they say.  Well, didn't we try that "separate but equal" line a while ago?  Seems to me that it didn't turn out really well.  The very notion that one couple could be defined in one term and a different couple defined in another implies that there is inequality between the two groups and, as history has shown, inequality implied is inequality manifested.

While I largely think the state has no business validating marriage in the first place, if its going to, then it has to be equal for all.  Call them all "marriages"; call them all "civil unions"; I don't care.  But everyone should have access to the same one and everyone should have access to the same rights.  The ideas of "equality under law" and "separation of church and state" are at the very heart of our philosophical existence as a nation.  To deny one section of our citizenry equal rights based on the religious ideologies of another section of that citizenry is a public affront to the constitutional pillars of the country.