Gay Marriage: A Comment

Response to article in the Santa Barbara News Press

It is nice to know that Democrats also squabble, as I saw in today’s News-Press, page A3, in the article titled, “In protest, gay couple quits Democrat group.” Having encountered monumental political wars as a Libertarian and then as a Republican, it is both sad and illuminating to see that this is a behavior that rears its head in all political institutions.
It is, however disturbing to think that with Democrats political expedience over rides an issue of principle, as we can construe in the words of Ms. Carey when she said, “,,, at this time, we Democrats need to be united against the recall.” What does gay marriage have to do with the recall? This kind of reasoning is morally bankrupt. Gay people have the same inherent rights, possessed by each individual. These must never be traded for purposes of political positioning.
It is appropriate, however, to question whether or not the State should ever have been making policy in this most personal area of our lives. With the best motives ‘family law’ has been used to steal the lives of uncounted numbers of women – and men, who thought that marriage, as defined by the State, was an institution of responsibility, integrity and honor. It started as a tool to undo great wrongs. It has been converted into a means for the unethical and irresponsible minority to feed off the decent majority. It is the base cause of many of the present social ills that distort our nation.
Be careful what you ask for because the version of ‘marriage’ produced by the State will cost you more than you can imagine. The State has taken it upon themselves to produce, the last time I looked, more than 50 specific things one partner is obliged to do for another. It had separated responsibility from the equation, empowering predators to steal, abuse, rape, molest and lie with impunity. It happens right here in Santa Barbara. It happens every day.
Imagine signing a contract then you do not know in advance what it really says? The three-party contract, that we know as ‘the marriage license’ is a contract between you, your spouse and the State. The State, as usual, has all of the power. Your contract can be altered without your consent and without your knowledge. Would you do business that way? Could you? Imagine having this most intimate and personal part of your life at the mercy of the same people who bring you fiasco after fiasco and vote themselves raises with cheerful abandon.
I suggest that gay couples use private contract and mandate arbitration, naming their own agents instead of thrusting their necks into the noose of State control. This makes much better sense. Heterosexual couples should also give the marriage license bureau a pass.
What gays are trying to achieve is clearly a public validation for their relationships. But in believing that the State is the appropriate institution to provide this they are inadvertently setting themselves up for the inching fingers of control that now distort and destroy the lives of so many good women and men.
Gays are better off without State marriage. I sincerely hope they decide to have someone else do the calligraphy. It’s much cheaper that way.