Legal Status FTW

Please be aware, gentle reader, that the following post is extremely adult in content. If you are not of a temperament where you believe it is occasionally acceptable to be rude, crass, vulgar and downright mean, then you're probably a good person and shouldn't ever come back to this blog. I throw down some pretty strong language in the text that follows, so if your ears bleed or your eyes forcibly eject themselves from your sockets when in the presence of profanity, please consider yourself warned.

So, it turns out that absolutely no one can tell that the previous two posts were intended to be satire. It is sad just how absolutely bat shit crazy the entire world has become. Then again, maybe that just means I'm the bat shit crazy one. Maybe I'm just not very good at writing satire.

But maybe that's not fair. Maybe you think debate is about playing word association games. Maybe you aren't even sure what the words mean.

I'm going to put this in super simple language so that everyone can understand: legal status is the pretty-pink-bow-on-a-pig way of saying legal discrimination. Maybe that was too hard... I'll try again.

Legal Status = Legal Discrimination

Just so we're all on the same page, in this post and the two that precede it, when I use the word "love" either raw or in double quotes it specifically means the word being thrown around in the media as the primary reason that I should care about this whole debate. I don't know what the media means when they use that word, and frankly it's irrelevant. It's almost certainly not what I mean when I use the word, as almost no one means what I mean when they use the word. But I breathe oxygen and can generally smell a red herring when it wreaks of fish. "Love" may be the reason people want to talk about because it's warm and fuzzy, but there isn't a legal definition of "love" and I really really don't want there to be one. Seriously, if the thought of the government defining "love" doesn't scare the shit out of you... I just don't even know what to say. Can you imagine the government enforcing whether you meet the qualifications to use the word "love" to describe one of your relationships? Can you imagine the test a judge would have to perform to decide whether your relationship meets the legal definition of "love"? Ok, stop imagining, pervert... though to be fair there have been social groups throughout history that have invented some rather disturbing legal tests around all this stuff, so historically speaking at least, you're not all that perverted.

If you like to grow herbs in your garden, you might call it farming. Maybe you're trying to be cute, but maybe you really feel like it is farming. Maybe you feel like it's farming so much that you start to refer to yourself as a farmer and your garden as a farm. Maybe you find that the more you stick stuff in the ground and pull stuff back out, the more you identify yourself as a farmer. Finally one day, after seasons of sticking stuff in and pulling stuff out, you decide that you want to get the legally afforded benefits of being a farmer. So you try to gain the legal status of farmer, only to find that you don't meet the criteria.

This seems horribly cruel and unfair discrimination. You love your farm, even though the government feels it's really only a garden. And you love being a farmer, but that's just not enough to meet the criteria. Isn't the government denying you from being a farmer?

Absolutely not. If you go get yourself a qualifying farm, you can have all the legally supplied benefits of farmer-dom. No one is preventing you from being a farmer, you simply don't meet the qualifications. You're free to make the sacrifices it takes to get a qualifying farm, just like every other farmer, and those sacrifices may be more difficult for you than the ideal farmer given your deep love for your garden-farm. But other farmers had to sacrifice things they loved to get a qualifying farm as well. The government isn't interested in what you had to sacrifice to get the qualifying farm. A farm that qualifies for the legal status has been deemed beneficial to the greater good. Your garden simply doesn't benefit the greater good enough to gain the benefits granted to qualifying farms. So you have to choose between farming your garden and not qualifying as a farmer, or sacrificing farming your garden to get the benefits of farming a qualifying farm.

This applies to nearly every legal status. You can't be a veteran just because you love guns. You can't be a rancher just because you love animals. You can't be retired just because you love to not work. Legal status is about classifying a certain subset of the population for the purpose of granting benefits and responsibilities because their existence is critical to the greater good.

If you're mad now, just wait for what I've got in store for you next. If you're offended at the parallel I just drew, keep in mind that I haven't even used the m-word yet, so everything you're thinking and feeling right now is due exclusively to parallels you yourself have drawn to the plight of our hypothetical farmer. Really go back and reread the farmer story as a story about a farmer; you'll find that you would absolutely blow a fuse if owning a garden qualified a gardener for tax-funded federal assistance reserved for farmers just because he really loved gardening.

Let me ask you a question. Really answer this honestly. Do you believe for even a second that there is not a single instance out there of a person who identifies as homosexual but is currently in a legally qualified heterosexual marriage? These days, I'm expected to believe that homosexuality is not a choice, but is in fact genetic. So don't you have to concede that there is almost certainly someone out there who purely due to social pressures has consented to being in a hetero marriage, even though he has since birth been blessed with the gay gene? I mean with so many people living in denial due to social oppression, surely there's one homosexual who is in a marriage, right?

Of course. We all know it's true. The central point of the debate is not that homosexuals are denied the legal status of marriage, it's that they are denied the legal status of marriage with the person they want.

Well sure, we all know that, it's almost silly to point out. We all know that this debate has been about "love". So it seems almost pointless to bring up.

Imagine a man who because of the social groups he desires to remain a part of, say for instance his family or his church, is told he must marry the woman he has impregnated instead of the woman he loves. Now, he's certainly not being denied the legal status of marriage with the other woman that he actually wants to marry by the government. But if he desires to remain a part of the social structure he identifies with, he must marry a woman he does not want to marry.

Imagine a man who because of the social groups he desires to remain a part of, say for instance his family or his church, believes there is nothing wrong with entering into a marriage covenant with several women. Now he will definitely be denied the legal status of marriage with at least all but one of those women, and could face criminal prosecution should it be discovered he has other spouses. So if he desires to stay out of prison and provide for his family he will be prevented from marrying all the women he wants to marry, at least concurrently.

Imagine a man who does not believe in the traditional definition of marriage and wants to commit not to a person, but to a group. He wants to stay committed to the core group regardless of how its membership changes over time. He will absolutely be denied the legal status of marriage with this group, he will simply never be allowed to marry the group he loves and works to maintain, protect, grow and thrive.

Imagine a man who loves his sister so intensely that he cannot imagine spending his life with anyone else. He cannot marry the woman he loves because society is scared of their babies or some nonsense. He will absolutely be denied the legal status of marriage with the woman he wants to marry.

I'm frustrated from pointing out that I haven't actually heard any evidence at all about why the legal status should be extended specifically to homosexual unions but not all these other ones. I keep hearing "love" and "equal rights". I keep hearing that I'm a bigot because I'm not ok with calling a legal status a right or with using a legally undefined word to define a legal status. Can't you see that it is insane to demand that I without protest or discussion agree to grant one specific social group a privilege no other group can claim. Everyone else on the planet who wants the legal status has to agree to a qualifying marriage under whatever qualifies in their jurisdiction. What is the reason that homosexuals are somehow justified in being the only group that gets to redefine marriage so that they get to marry whomever they want and still be guaranteed the benefits? Why do you feel justified in saying that gay marriage is good and incestuous marriage is bad? Why should gay marriage be given the full benefit and privilege of the law, but polygamy is a felony? How am I the bigot if I'm interested in changing the legal status so that all unions are given the same provision under the law, and you're not a bigot even though you pick and choose which unions should secure legal benefits based on your own personal preferences and prejudice?

I'm being asked to support elitist policies, plain and simple. If you can't provide a single shred of evidence as to why the legal status of marriage should be changed to include a group it has never before in the history of legal statuses ever included, if you are not able to say what has changed that makes it a clear benefit to society, then you are asking me to arbitrarily discriminate in favor of one social group against all the others and you have the fucking gall to dress it up as equal rights.

Women couldn't vote, hold most jobs, or generally own property. Minorities couldn't vote, live other than in designated areas, pursue an education, hold most jobs, own property, use public services, eat in restaurants, have social relationships with whites, or drink out of a fucking water fountain. These are humiliating, degrading, dehumanizing atrocities that people literally fought and died to get reversed in law in a country that supposedly believed in the inalienable rights of all people. This is equal rights. If you come to me about equal rights know that you're putting yourself in the class of people that I have the utmost respect for and who we as a society will forever be indebted to; quite frankly you've got some damn big shoes to fill. If you spend too much time talking about how tedious it is to get a power of attorney, I'm likely going to explode.

Then when I bring up the fact that this isn't a love issue or a rights issue but a legal status issue, you feel the need to insinuate or flat out state that I am anti-gay. I am not anti-gay. I am anti-elitist, anti-discriminatory, and anti-you-pretending-you-have-the-right-to-abuse-folks-just-so-you-can-get-your-way.

I hate it when people imply I'm a bigot, because I hate being exposed as prejudiced against people who call me a bigot, unless they call me a bigot for being prejudiced against people who call me a bigot, because I love those guys. So normally I wouldn't help you out, (and by you I specifically mean the straight-white-guilt crowd who feels the need to act out their guilt in rage, not the gay community because I've got no problems at all with y'all) but since we're technically on the same side of the issue, I will anyway. Look at me getting over my bigotry; there's hope after all.

The legal status of farmer has changed several times over the history of this country. Over time the amount of land and types of crops a farmer can maintain to the benefit of the greater good has changed with technology, property ownership and water rights, co-operatives, et cetera.

Legal statuses are allowed to change their meaning over time. Legal statuses are supposed to change their meaning over time. But they change for reasons that benefit the common good, not just because the Real American Pastime is backing the underdog and making the other team feel like assholes.

The legal status of marriage has up until very recently never actually been defined. Even in places where it has supposedly been "defined" it's not the sort of definition that actually defines a legal status. Amendments, laws, or rulings have been passed in 33 states that say marriage is between a man and a woman. This is a constraint referred to as "necessary" but not "sufficient". In other words, if I walk into a state that has this "definition" and point to an arbitrary man and an arbitrary woman, they're not suddenly married. These states have decided that it is necessary for a marriage to be between a man and a woman, but they haven't separated all the between-a-man-and-a-woman things into those that are marriage and those that aren't.

A single necessary constraint does not in any way get you a definition. For a legal status to be defined and therefore exist it must have "sufficient" criteria. In other words, a legal status must have a legal test, there must be a clear way to determine what both is and is not granted the legal status, not just what is not.

So, I dare anyone to come up with a necessary and sufficient definition for one man, one woman marriage that allows everyone currently granted the legal status of marriage to keep their legal status without some sort of self-referential nonsense like "survival of the fittest". For that matter, I dare you to come up with a definition of "man" and "woman" that allows the entire population to be partitioned into the two groups with no overlap or exclusions.

If the legal status of marriage between a man and a woman cannot be defined, then it does not exist, and cannot be used to provide benefits to some members of society and not to others at the whim and mercy of the government or religion.

Therefore, if we wish to keep a legal status of marriage, we are bound as a rational people with rational law to allow the legal status of marriage to be available to all individuals who meet the necessary and sufficient criteria which we as a society define, whether that excludes some of those who currently enjoy the benefits of the legal status or includes those who currently do not.

If we decide to keep the status, I'm personally in favor of a definition that does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, familial status, disability status, veteran status, or genetic information (therefore close-relations) as we as a society have determined that these are protected classes and therefore cannot tolerate discrimination. In addition as it seems arbitrary to discriminate on the basis of quantity, I also favor a definition that does not discriminate on the basis of the number of participants in the marriage union.

If I'm wrong, which is I suppose somehow possible, and there is in fact a possible legal definition necessary and sufficient to determining the legal status of marriage between a man and a woman that does preserve the conventions and conditions which we have as a society up until now somehow managed to follow to the letter even though it has remained unwritten, then I would highly recommend that gay, polygymous, polyamorous, polygamous, incestuous and any other sexually oriented groups that might desire the status of marriage please come up with evidence that clearly shows that things have changed in our society in a way that makes it beneficial to the greater good to grant your particular sexually oriented group the benefits and privileges afforded to the legal status of marriage. And it's probably in your best interest to tell the straight-white-guilt folks to stop throwing words around like "love" and "equal rights" which are just clouding the real issue.

I support equal, not social-group-specific, rights. I support legal statuses with clear, necessary and sufficient criteria. The legal status of marriage is not defined with necessary and sufficient criteria and therefore does not exist. It should either be defined with necessary and sufficient criteria or deemed arbitrary and discriminatory and its provisions, benefits, responsibilities, and protections should be removed.

I would also like to point out that I am in general against the legal status of marriage since the vast majority of its benefits are predicated on the idea that women should stay home, make babies, raise the children and tend to, as Chaucer puts it, "hussif's capery" (At least I think he does. I can't find the reference because I don't remember the spelling. I vaguely remember it from high school, so maybe it's not even Chaucer. At any rate, it literally means "housewife's work", at least, whatever the quote really is does). I personally feel like this is one of those clear changes in our society that demands a reassessment of the legal status and the benefits it provides. I am not against the social contract of marriage as I believe it is one of the fundamental requirements of civilization.

Social Contract What?

So there seems to be some misunderstanding about my previous post. Specifically around what I mean when I say "social contract", and "traditionally". I'll try to correct that here. I would also like to go officially on record and say it makes me giggle to no end that the opinion of some folks seems to be that because I support the legal status of marriage being extended to everyone for reasons other than those that the straight-white-guilt community is espousing, I'm still a horrible person. Let's look at a smattering of some of the reasons why people are telling me I should form an opinion about the legal status of marriage and why I think they're ridiculous.

What the marriage debate isn't

I keep hearing that marriage is about "equal rights". I would like to point out that if the benefits of marriage are indeed rights, then I'm currently being denied my rights. I'm being denied the legally supplied rights afforded to an individual with a married legal status for the rather arbitrary reason that I haven't found someone else who would like to get the same legal status at the same time. You might be tempted to argue that I at least have the option of getting married but you'll realize before you even say it that it's tantamount to telling a woman she has the option of voting if she'll simply have a little surgery. In other words, if the legal benefits of marriage are rights, the government is denying me from rights that are therefore by definition inalienable because I refuse or am unable to make life-altering, permanent changes. Slaves could always be free, they just had to buy their freedom.

I keep hearing that marriage is about "love". I'm willing to accept that, although marrying for love is a relatively modern concept. We would have gone extinct long ago if it had been a requirement for marriage throughout history. If it is about "love" I'm very uncomfortable with the government being involved at all. I do not personally want a federal definition for "love" or a judicial test for "love". I can completely buy that "love" is a great reason for committing to spend the rest of your life with someone, but we're talking about a legal status, and "love" simply isn't enough justification for a legal status of marriage any more than "charitable" could qualify you for tax-exemption. Simply put, "love" might be why you want it, but it's not why society should give it to you.

I keep hearing that marriage is about "the biblical definition". Now aside from the fact that I do not personally believe that the bible is a glossary, I can with reasonable confidence say that the one thing we as a society do not have is a biblical definition of marriage. Eve did not consent to be married to Adam, and mosaic law makes no provision or requirement for consent. I am not aware of a specified minimum age, and research suggests that in practice the minimum age was effectively puberty. Many of the old testament leaders were polygamists. Slaves were forced into marital duties; it wasn't just about sex, they had to provide children. Marriages were often arranged, and in many cases the law specifically states that women were treated as property and details their equivalent monetary value. I can think of exactly one marriage for love and he was forced to marry her sister first and wait another seven years before he could marry her. Divorce was prohibited. Remarrying was forbidden. I honestly wish the Christians out there on the biblical definition bandwagon would just admit that they're not trying to defend the biblical definition of marriage but the biblical definition of homosexuality, because it's ridiculously hard to take them seriously as it is.

So if the legal status of marriage is about rights, then I am a subpar member of society, coincidentally reinforced by a married friend of mine who claims the government supports marriage because it makes citizens "happier, healthier, and more productive." If the legal status of marriage is about love then we're really asking the government to define love and not marriage. If the legal status of marriage is about requiring the government to support every social group's definition of a recognized marriage under their brand of internal social law, or worse one particular social group's definition of marriage... well, let's just say I'm delighted to both be a man of faith and a citizen of a country with constitutionally protected separation of church and state. I'm personally hoping no one is seriously suggesting any of these options.

As a rational human being who is not swayed to form opinions on political policy simply because someone feels life is sooo hard and they really wish their slice of the pie included some pie from someone else's slice of the pie, I want to understand what marriage is and historically has been, why the government has decided the appropriate way to be involved is to create a legal status, and what changing or extending that legal status means.

Marriage as a social contract

If you were the sort of person who went to prom in high school (clearly I'm not), then you understand there is a reasonable social expectation concerning asking a girl to prom; if she accepts then you must take her to prom. She has to make a sizable investment in the event; you have to buy a flower from the grocery store. If you ditch her at the last minute and take someone else instead, there is little in the way of legal implications to your actions. You're a jackass, that much is certain, and you will almost certainly be punished according to the unwritten law of her social circles, but you won't wind up in court. As an aside I personally feel it's part of the rape culture that your social circle will in all likelihood not only avoid assessing any punishment but actually commend you for your jackass-ary. But that's a topic for another time.

The point is, prom is a social contract. You don't get a legal status change for taking someone to prom. You don't get legal protections around the dissolution of the contract. It's made within the social group according to the written and/or unwritten rules of the social group and punishment for breaking the contract stems from the social group all without any government interference as long as nothing illegal happens. This is why fathers can disown children for not acting in accordance with familial obligations. Churches can excommunicate for religions reasons. Sometimes it's even more formal, almost to the point of a pseudo-legal structure, such as student judicial boards at private universities which assign penalties based on honor code infractions.

We have several of these types of social contracts which are not in any way given any legal merit. Marriage is a social contract. Historically it is an institution which is given great social significance, as almost every organized social group makes specific provisions and concessions for the status. Most social groups have a way of recognizing the marriage as valid within the social group, but very few define a way of forming the social contract. By and large, most of these social contracts are historically formed within the context of a religious social group, but to be fair this may be largely due to the fact that very early on we figured out that marrying your sister is a bad thing, if only because the children have a high likelihood of problems. So you have to have a social group larger than the family to maintain the enforcement of the social contract.

Historically many of these social groups don't require consent, restrict based on age or relation, or limit the number of people involved in a marriage. They nearly all require at least one man, at least one woman, and a commitment for life. Historically some social groups have not recognized the marriages formed by other social groups. Many social groups at least have rituals and traditions around recognizing marriages formed outside the group.

Marriage as a legal status

So if marriage is just a social contract, why is the government involved? Why don't the Hindus get to define marriage conditions, expectations and punishment for dissolution within the Hindu community? Why do they need to agree with the Catholics, or the Californians, or the Hell's Angels? Can't all social groups define marriage to be whatever they want, and recognize it within their social group however they want, and permit the formation and dissolution however they want as long as it is not illegal?

Absolutely. They absolutely can. There is absolutely nothing preventing your social circle from deciding that for a marriage to be recognized the couple needs to perform the Hokey Pokey and the Chicken Dance for 3 hours while family and friends get sloshed on cheep domestic beer. If you need those things to feel like the social contract has a fighting chance to succeed within your social group, then by all means, slosh away.

Many social groups have had additional legal contracts around the social contract such as pre-nuptual agreements, dowries, and divorce, but these are by and large outside and in addition to the social contract. Even without the legal contracts, there are aspects to every marriage that extend outside of the context of the social group into the legal realm, namely assets and children. And when these social contracts dissolve there is suddenly a legal issue surrounding the assets and the children; within the context of the law there is a need to settle the debate around who owns what and is responsible for whom. This is a responsibility which for thousands of years civilizations have handed over to the judicial branch of government and taken from the hands of the social group that originally handled the formation of the social contract. The social group often imposes additional consequences, but allocating assets and children are the domain of the government.

So, because the government has to be involved in the distribution of assets and children in the unfortunate cases of death and divorce, the government has instituted certain provisions, assumptions, requirements, definitions and all manner of whatnot to help ease the burden of dividing the spoils among the living non-victors. These things generally only help ease the burden of managing the end of the marriage if the government is aware of the marriage as early as possible. Specific benefits are granted to married folks as early in the relationship as possible to encourage the registration and tracking of the marriage in the support of arbitrating the eventual dissolution.

Many of these benefits are in the form of subsidies. And when I say subsidy I really mean subsidy. I don't mean "subsidy". I don't mean easing a tax burden. I mean that spouses can get social security, medicare and various other forms of federal, state, and local tax-funded assistance simply by virtue of being or having been married to someone qualified to receive it. And it is a subsidy, not just a benefit. "A subsidy is an assistance to a business or economic sector for producers." For millennia society has considered these spouses as producers, children as commodities and has granted them assistance with the intention of keeping the child market saturated, even if in particular instances the subsidy is ineffective. We as a society benefit hugely from the advent of new children, and it's worth assisting the possibility.

Marriage today

So, if this was all the government did with respect to marriage, namely track assets and children during the course of the marriage for tax and redistribution on dissolution purposes, provide reasonable benefits and subsidies for being classified as a potential child producer, and decide on fair and equitable ways of dividing assets on divorce or death, then I don't think there would be any real need for the debate on gay marriage. These days most of the asset division is handled by pre-nups in many straight marriages; if there's no children the only thing gay marriage-as-a-social-contract would lose out on is a few tax breaks and government assistance programs, which I am continually reminded they have no desire to claim by the supporters of gay marriage reform. At the very least, denying the subsidies could constitute material difference and not qualify as arbitrary discrimination. I do think that there could very easily still be a debate on the legal status of polygamy, as they clearly fall within the scope of this responsibility and denying them the legal status of marriage forces them to not register their marriage or register it incorrectly, increasing the judicial burden of redistributing children and assets on dissolution.

However, the legal status of marriage has become so heavily encumbered with laws, regulations, provisions, and benefits that are difficult or impossible to obtain without that legal status that it is now hopeless to both maintain the current privilege of the legal status of marriage and deny it to people on the basis of gender. In other words, if two straight men want to enjoy the legal benefits of marriage and the sexual benefits of the Swedish Bikini Team, the government is in little position to oppose the union. We've simply abused the legal status to the point where Americans are actually being denied access to expected goods, services, privileges and benefits which have been arbitrarily associated with marriage. 

It has nothing to do with being gay. It has nothing to do with being in love. It has nothing to do with religious definition. It has everything to do with acknowledging that the lines have been crossed by such absurd lengths that we can no longer pretend with a straight face that marriage as a legal status has anything to do with marriage as a social contract.

Marriage tomorrow

We do still have a lot to talk about. We have to be particularly sensitive to the new definition of marriage as a legal status. We're now claiming it is not a social contract but a civil one. Under this new mindset it is now a right of any two people to enter jointly into a legal status that provides extensive tax relief, asset transfer and sharing, legal protections, immigration rights, survivor benefits, medical benefits, veteran and military benefits, and comes with a whole slew of state and local benefits too numerous to even start to detail. 

Keep in mind that corporations are protected under the 14th amendment and are free to make and enforce contracts. So you could really be married to your job. Or a polygamist could form a corporation around his current marriage and that corporation could marry another spouse. The possibilities are as exciting as they are endless.

Man, it's hard to look at this and think it's going to be free. I'm assured by some pretty smart people that there's no "cost" to me for gay marriage, so I'm probably wrong to think that it's going to be expensive. Even if there is a cost, I'm willing to pay it just so anyone who wants to get all the legal benefits of marriage can without having to be burdened by silly social contracts. I might even go set up a sole proprietor LLC right now in the hopes that I can one day marry myself. It's a dream come true.

Mahwidge

Mahwidge. Mahwidge is what bwings us togevah today. Marriage is in the news a ton these days which means I have to suffer through several feeds of disinformation, misinformation and random garbage about the institution, definition, and governance of marriage. So before we dive in to the meat of this post, let's spend a little time investigating why marriage exists,

Marriage is not about love. With any luck love will at least enter into the equation at some point, but love is not a compelling reason to wed. You should love substantially more people during your lifetime than you marry.

Marriage is not about sex. Marriage isn't even about not having sex with anyone else. Again, with any luck sex will at least enter into the equation at some point, but sex is not a compelling reason to wed.

Marriage isn't about commitment. By now you're probably starting to get irritated. You've almost certainly realized that whatever you like about marriage, whatever you consider the foundation for your marriage, will eventually be challenged by me. You, like millions of other people, think that marriage is about the couple getting married. You simply couldn't be more wrong.

There are 1,138 rights and provisions for married folks in the federal law. There are substantially more when you get down to the state and local level. Almost every religion has something to say about marriage and often even offers different services to its married members. Marriage is a social contract, plain and simple.

And this makes sense. The most cost-effective way of growing your value system, community, family, or nation is to have members of the group make more members. As a citizen of this country, I'm willing to pay for 1,138 rights and provisions so that other folks might at least be willing to put themselves into a situation where more Americans have a decent chance of spawning.

Because, let's face it, marriage is a pretty crappy deal. There's just no way around it. It's hard work to spend that much time around someone. It's tough to trust someone, to put someone else's needs above your own. And when children start cropping up, that just means more work.

Traditionally men are expected to marry to propagate their culture, whether for blood, geography or belief. Traditionally women are expected to marry because they're of age. The marriage contract has almost universally been viewed as a civil union between a stronger and weaker party. And the government will have to get involved, as with any contract that is broken, if the union dissolves. This means laws are an inevitable part of marriage.

Traditionally, the government says the children stay with the woman, and the man has to provide for them as long as the children aren't children and/or the woman isn't married. Things are changing in this respect, admittedly, as the 15% of fathers with sole custody is a huge improvement in the statistic over 10-20 years ago. If the union dissolves, the social stereotype is that the man is generally screwed financially and the woman is generally burdened socially. Traditionally society also has some pretty negative views on the children in these situations.

So government, religion, community, and family have, through the years, developed many perks to getting and staying married to combat the social and financial burden imposed by the end of a civil union and the risk to the future of the group should the frequency of those civil unions decline.

I'd like to point out here that it doesn't matter whether you agree with these perspectives or not. I certainly don't view women as the weaker sex. I don't think that women should automatically get the kids and the men should automatically have to provide for them. For that matter, I'd love to believe that if I ever do get married it would be all about those things I said earlier marriage isn't about. But my personal views on the matter are largely irrelevant; there are societal forces at work here that have been present for as long as we have recorded human history.

Alright, we've established a baseline for the discussion. Marriage is a poorly worded social contract which almost every organized group of people has deemed worthy of encouraging and subsidizing for the sake of increasing the probability of growing the group. Marriage is expensive both because it is subsidized and because its dissolution is perceived to burden and potentially actively work against the growth of group.

So, how do I feel about gay marriage? I'm being asked to subsidize a union which has zero chance of providing any tangible communal benefit in the form of new children. And I'm being asked to subsidize a massive influx of these unions presumably all at one go. And I'm being asked to do this after one of the most prolonged economically poor periods in American history. And I'm being asked to do all of this for the sake of love, or equality, or some other such nonsense which has nothing to do with why I'm willing to subsidize the union in the first place.

Look, I don't care who says they're married to whom. If you want to say you're married to your job, I'm not going to get upset, but I don't want to subsidize your marriage. If you want to say you're married to your car, I'll think you're a little silly, and I still don't want to subsidize your marriage. If you want to say you're married to your grandmother, I'll think you're a bit sick, and I definitely don't want to subsidize your marriage. If you want to say you're married to the entire Swedish Bikini Team, I'll probably envy you, and you can subsidize your own damn marriage, you bastard.

We have to draw the line around what we're willing to subsidize somewhere, and I think as a society we're fairly safe drawing the line around the smallest, simplest union capable of giving something back to society. By "something" I specifically mean young, impressionable minds we can trick into believing whatever silly nonsense we're currently spouting as a nation, religion, community or family.

"But what about adoption? It's hard for a gay couple to adopt." It's hard for everyone to adopt. Suck it up. If this is just about adoption, work to change those laws. I'm 100% behind any law that puts orphans into loving homes. I'm 100% against any law, practice or procedure that keeps orphans in worse conditions simply out of prejudice.

Now, to be fair, I think that a huge chunk of those 1,138 rights and responsibilities have nothing to do with encouraging and protecting the children or the socially-percieved-weaker-spouse. Because we've turned marriage into a socially and financially beneficial arrangement between two people, I think we're left with little choice at the federal level but to open the doors to any two people who don't have a substantially high a priori risk of producing children we don't want, namely two close relatives.

It is my opinion that if we allow gay couples marriage status based on anything other than the premise that we as a culture have screwed up the definition of marriage for a long time now, then we will be doing a very dangerous thing. It would be hard to deny polyamorists, siblings, or minors the same privileges. As an aside, I'm personally of the opinion that if we're making up an alternate definition for marriage anyway, including the poly's is probably a good idea as at least they're potentially contributing to the population.

As a final thought there seems to be a general trend towards doing everything that we as a society can do to prevent our civilization from growing. We advocate abortion, throwing people in jail for silly crimes, limiting immigration, making critical health care less affordable and available, and reducing education to test form bubbling training seminars. I feel like there is even a social push among married couples to have fewer children if any, and for singles to stay single.

I for one am thrilled to see society breaking itself down at its core. As a lifelong hermit, loner, passive activist, and progressive anarchist, I gladly welcome all of you to the club, as long as you swear that you won't make it get any bigger.

For the curious, a "passive activist" is someone who supports any cause they can support without offering any actual support and a "progressive anarchist" is someone who doesn't see any point in overthrowing a government hellbent on overthrowing itself.

Dreams in Color

On more than one occasion, I've told you that this would be the hardest note I've had to write in some time, and yet not a single time have you asked why. The simple truth is that I feel like I have failed you.

You have, over the course of the past few months, been my closest confidant. Perhaps that is an indictment on my current volume of confidants, but in all fairness, you have excelled at the position and given me no cause to search for alternatives. I have shared with you things I share with few other people, often including myself. If you had only listened, that would have been enough, but you have counseled and encouraged along the way. Like a boy scout with a campsite, you have left me better than you found me.

Over this same period, you have also shared with me on occasion your frustrations and hopes and fears, and I have done little to repay the favors you have often shown me. Where you were frustrated, I only made you more so. Where you were afraid, I only offered more reasons to fear. In short, any time I was near your campsite, I just threw trash in your fire.

One of my favorite things about you is just how vehemently you will want to protest all of this when you read it. Lately you have been on this kick of telling me I'm a "pretty good guy." While I certainly appreciate the compliment, I assure you that whatever you see in me is simply the after effects of you leaving me a little better than you found me.

You are, by nearly everyone's account, in a class by yourself. There is simply no one like you.  You care deeply about doing the right thing. If you have even the tiniest fear that you're not, it literally makes you sick. That's a quality that you won't find in many people, and you can't imagine how precious it is to folks who are keeping an eye out for that sort of thing.

You are special. I am humbled by the attention, care, and concern you have shown me. While I can't claim to be a good guy, I am certainly a better man for the time you have spent cleaning up my campsite.

Be well, be safe, be confident. I wish with my whole heart that your journey will soon surround you with people who treasure and appreciate you more than the people you have so graciously served in this now closing chapter of your life ever could.

Life + Universe + Everything = 23

I remember the night I asked you about the tattoo on your neck. I thought you had, in a burst of nerd inspiration, somehow managed the perfect mashup between the Illuminati trilogy and the Hitchhiker's trilogy. I could never have imagined how much more impressive the truth would be.

I have since learned that you have a deep passion that infects your work, your friendships, and just about everything in your life. That passion pours out of you constantly, from your snarky quips to your vast knowledge of all things alcoholic. It is evident in your tattoos, and in your unconscious flailing while recounting stories of the many times some random idiot from the clone army demonstrated their mastery of the narcissistic arts.

So now, as you move on to greater and greener pastures, it's easy to believe you're making the right choice. You are the sort of person driven to create, to transform, to communicate your passion to the world. On this, your last night, please accept my most sincere and moderately humble thanks for all your service and for the peek these past few months into the deep well that lives in you where most folks just have a heart.

Him in You in Him

It may come as quite the surprise, but I have on occasion been known to analyze the circumstances of my life. Perhaps you've suspected as much, and perhaps you've even suspected I've done so with you.

It's pretty much a given if we've had anything more than a five second conversation, I've at least tried to guess how much schooling you've had, what you do for fun, and why your last relationship failed. I study, I deduce, I extrapolate. We all do it. It's really just human nature, but I'm so overt about it that most folks are fairly easily put off by the whole thing.

I would like to take just a moment to explain myself. Not that understanding why I study you will make it any more comfortable, rather in the hope that my motivations would justify why I won't stop.

I was not introduced to forgiveness through the bible. Instead a series of unfortunate events led me to see forgiveness not as forgetting, but as recycling. Forgiveness turns what was ugly and broken into a beautiful beginning of a lasting relationship. I didn't grasp this from the bible; I experienced it. It was that experience that paved the way for me to begin to understand the depth and breadth of what Jesus offers through his death and resurrection. 

I was not introduced to love through the bible. Instead a series of fortunate events led me to see love not as a feeling, but as an underlying motivation. Love provides the foundation allowing forgiveness to transform hurt into joy. Again, the experience opened my eyes to the glorious gift that is the love my Father shares with me and through me.

I have grown up in the church, but it was not the church which exposed me to truth and peace and joy and sacrifice. It was you. Here's the great part: I can see God in you and you in God regardless of your intention. Some of you don't even know the things you're showing me; you might teach me about joy without ever even experiencing it yourself. You might reveal deep insights into the work of the Spirit and not even believe God exists.

So you see, I'm compelled to study you, to try to glimpse the parallels in our relationship to my relationship with him, to hear his words in yours, to experience him in our experiences. I'm in a long distance relationship with a God who is even now bringing me into an ever more intimate relationship with him by bringing me into an ever more intimate relationship with you.

This probably doesn't really make you feel any better. At best it just validates your suspicion and at worst it destroys the tenuous trust we might have been able to form. It may sound like I'm just using you, which coincidentally is the complete truth. I'm using you for exactly the reason you were designed, created and introduced into my life. 

You are my love letter. You are a gift from the God of love, truth, beauty, grace, peace, joy and forgiveness. I am consumed by the desire to read and re-read you, to glean every morsel of truth from what he shares with us through us for us, even at the risk of sacrificing my relationship with you.

While I will not stop, nor put up the pretense that I will, I will offer you my most sincere gratitude from the depths of my heart. Because of you, I understand him more clearly. Because of you, my long distance Love is right at hand. Because of you, I can see him, hear him, hold him, and love him. You are a part of the love story that is going to take so long to write that he filed an extension request for eternity and then signed it in his own blood. Truly, with all my heart, thank you.

I Do, You Do, We All Do For Ice

This one has been a long time coming. It started long before Obama stated his support for gay marriage, and therefore quite a long time before the ridiculous Chick-fil-a debacle. There are so many questions around the idea that I can't imagine how I'll be able to tackle the behemoth the issue has become. But when has that ever stopped me.

Let's start with marriage. From a social perspective, the practice exists solely as a means of sustaining the society. Nearly every culture realizes the need to protect children until they are able to provide for themselves and benefit the community. Nearly every culture agrees this responsibility naturally falls on the two folks directly responsible for the child entering the community.

Now, there are lots of other reasons marriage existed, religious or otherwise; but from a cultural standpoint it's all about the children. Orphans are expensive. For that matter, even children with a single parent tend to put more of a burden on the society. There is a natural incentive for a government to incentivize parents to build a home together for the sake of the children.

It should be noted that up until very recently, the government's only real interest in marriage was that there were legal consequences to divorce. The license is really a government document crucial to establishing timelines should the terms of the "contract" be broken.

But like so many other things, once marriage became a legal status, certain rights and privileges began to be associated with it. There are tax implications, naturalization rights, welfare benefits, adoption preferences, and now health and insurance provisions. So now marriage can be beneficial without any concern for children.

A key point here is that anyone can say they are married. The government does not have any hold on the term, simply on the legal status. And the government has never needed to tie the legal status to a religious practice or ceremony. So, here we have our first real question. Is the issue of gay marriage about the legal status or the religious ceremony?

Religions are free to practice whatever sort of discrimination they deem necessary. They cannot infringe on anyone's rights, but the government doesn't have any power to tell any religious sect how they have to define marriage or anything else. So gay marriage has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with legal status.

In other words, you can feel whatever you want about the morality and ethics of gay marriage from a social or religious standpoint, but that has nothing at all to do with whether marriage should be a legal status for any two people regardless of gender.

I am not a fan of abortion, but from a socio-economic standpoint it is fairly easy to justify. I have no problem with the death penalty conceptually, but economically it's a horrible practice. I wouldn't smoke pot even if it were legal, but there are so many reasons to stop outlawing it that it makes my head spin.

So, put simply, regardless of whether it's "right", refusing to allow any two people the legal status of "married" is nothing more than outright discrimination. So, either we allow everyone the right to take on the legal status if they find a willing partner, or we dissolve the legal status altogether. This would not make marriage illegal, but it would make it illegal to discriminate based on marital status.

And now on to the next natural question: if gay marriage is legal, does that make it "right". To my knowledge, the government has no authority to determine whether any act is holy or sinful in the eyes of God. Governments have the right to decide what laws benefit the society and what the punishment for breaking those laws should be. They cannot in any way restore your relationship with God or separate you from him. So, legal status cannot change what constitutes marriage in the eyes of God.

Which leaves us with the underlying question, the real reason anyone talks to me about this... is homosexuality a sin?

Before we leave the legal realm for the spiritual realm, let me just mention one more legal issue. Chick-fil-a vice presidents, whether you agree with them or not, have a constitutional right to say whatever they want as long as it falls within protected speech. You're free to stop eating there if you want, but as for me, I will defend to the death the right for any American to hold any opinion they like about gay marriage or anything else for that matter, and the right for them to speak that opinion. I don't know what the guy said (I do everything in my power to avoid the news) but if it qualifies as free speech, then more power to him.

Ok, so, on to sin. Is homosexuality a sin?

Let's have some fun. Is it a sin to eat pork? It's an unclean animal; God said don't eat it. Of course, Paul had a vision that said it wasn't unclean any more, so maybe that's ok. Is it a sin to each a cheeseburger? It's eating heated meat and milk together. Now, technically the Bible says to not boil a goat in its mother's milk, but the Israelites interpreted this as forbidding eating any meat with any milk.

Is it a sin to dance? Tons of protestants seem to think so, but the number of times dancing is specifically mentioned in the Bible seems to easily refute that. Is it a sin to use vulgarity? If so, what constitutes too vulgar, and who gets to decide what is or isn't? Technically the Bible says to not use God's name in vain, meaningless or fruitless talk, obscene language, insults, or corrupt talk. That sounds to me a lot like "heck" and "gosh darn" aren't any better than the words they're meant to replace.

Is it a sin to be angry? And if so, then what about Christ turning over the moneylender's tables in the temple? Is it a sin to eat a rare steak or sue someone or charge interest? Each of those things is explicitly mentioned in context with sexual immorality in the new testament, yet you very rarely find the christian community up in arms about the non-zero-ness of the prime rate.

My favorite is this one: is it a sin for me to be single? It's an explicit command from God to be fruitful and multiply. Shouldn't I be investing substantial time and effort in faithfully following his command? Is it a sin that in the past 10 years I've maybe dated 3 women, and that's only if you're willing to be pretty liberal in your definition of "date"?

What's most interesting about all of these questions is that not a single one of these examples constitutes a "gray area". They're all cut and dry if you're willing to pull out one verse and write it on a big placard and walk around yelling about how everyone but you is doomed because you know in the depths of your heart that the one sin you're confident will never tempt you is going to be the downfall of humanity.

I am not here to judge. I have no idea what actions constitute sinful acts and which do not. It seems to me that the same action can be a sin in one case and not in another. But every time it is a sin, it is because an individual desires an identity apart from God, when the creation willingly desires to be cut off from the creator.

I do know the judge. We are acting out his plan for salvation. Those he has called he will draw to himself. They will enter his gates, not because they faithfully defended legal statuses and food preparation guidelines, but because he alone is God. By his word each of us exist, by his breath each of us breathe.

I do not fear gay marriage, abortion, legalized drug use, dancing, swearing, the death penalty, stem cell research, cloning, socialism, national health care, welfare, or flag burning. I am loved by the creator of all things. I am washed clean of all my sin, I live in grace, by grace, and for grace, not that I may sin without consequence, but that his name would be lifted high above the legal, the social, the economic, the political, the academic, and the rational. The things of this world will pass away; he who was and is and will always be is the final judge of what remains.

He's told me I will remain, not because I want to marry a woman, not because I think babies are worth protecting, not because I think it's wrong to sue someone, but because I believe he is who he says he is, that he will keep his promises. And I believe these things because he is who he says he is and he always keeps his promises; I believe because it's true.

So, my opinion, either the legal status called marriage should not discriminate, or the law should not discriminate on marital status. Free speech matters to me more than someone agreeing with me. And sin is not about what you do, but who you do it for. If his spirit dwells within you, He will conform your will to his.