Meet Kristen and Tom. They are madly in love. They have two cats, three dogs, blossoming careers, a wonderful home in an affluent Pittsburgh neighborhood and a fifteen-year love — and they just got married.
Kristen and Tom wholeheartedly believed (and still believe, I suppose) that you don’t need to certify your love with a marriage license. The federal government, however, was essentially giving them no choice. The hole in their pockets left after April 15 was too big for the two of them not to put a ring on it. So they did, against their own wishes.
On the flip side: You’re madly in love with a person. You’re about to graduate and are certain that you want to spend the rest of your life with him or her and you can’t wait to get started. One issue, though: You’re gay.
Now some of you are about ready to close your browser window because we already know what’s coming. The same-sex marriage debate is a messy one: It’s a touchy issue for a lot of people for a lot of reasons. Some say, “Legalize same-sex marriage! What happened to liberty for all and separation of church and state?” while others say, “Marriage was meant to be between a man and a woman. End of discussion.” But what I’m about to offer would change the debate drastically: Simply forget about marriage licenses altogether.
Confused? Read on:
Kristen and Tom can get married whenever and wherever they want to. A same-sex couple, however, cannot. So essentially, if a same-sex couple wants to save money, they can’t. And if a couple does not want to get married, they almost have to in order to avoid financial ruin. Sounds discriminatory on both accounts, right? That’s because it is.
Where Kristen and Tom choose to start their lives together is not dependent on which state will let them live out their Kodak moments. But you don’t have that luxury. Right now, you have five options: Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont (which you can choose in September) and maybe soon, New Hampshire. But if you go to California, the District of Columbia, New Jersey, or Oregon, you can have the same rights as a married couple but you can’t say that you’re married, only civilly unionized (unionized civilly?). Colorado, Maryland and Hawaii will give you some, but not all, of the rights of a married couple. Any other place in the country is a big no-no (unless you get married in Belgium, Canada, Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, Spain, or Sweden, in which case New York or Rhode Island would be glad to have you).
But let’s say you’re like Kristen and Tom, and marriage isn’t that big of a deal anyway: You and your partner can live out your lives happily together wherever you want without the institution of marriage. That’s great, all the more power to you. But you’re missing out on something big. Getting married has several financial benefits, benefits that even Kristen and Tom couldn’t ignore. Married couples can file taxes together and share deductions on everything from their mortgage to their first-born child. They can share a single health insurance plan, escape the estate and gift taxes, share property, and receive divorce protections that help normalize life after a break-up. People living together as a married couple but not legally recognized as one end up paying more in taxes (on average). And let’s face it: Starting out your real lives neck-deep in student debt is hard enough without the burden of federal taxes.
Preventing people from saving money on the basis of their sexual orientation is simply discrimination, even though there have yet to be any laws detailing what constitutes tax discrimination against people based on sexual orientation. Congress is the one to blame for this because, under Article One of the Constitution, it is given the power to regulate interstate commerce, and since married couples are financial units that cross state boundaries, the federal government has a case for keeping marriage under its purview of regulatory powers.
The federal government, however, did not come up with the idea of marriage. That was religion’s doing. It is therefore hard to argue that the federal government should be allowed to define marriage (essentially what DOMA did in 1996). But more importantly, freedom of expression and religion in this country entails the freedom to practice and express whatever your beliefs may be (being homosexual fits under here, as no law explicitly says you cannot be a homosexual and live in this country).
The federal government was simply never in a position to allow the concept of marriage to politically straddle Pennsylvania Avenue. No state government should touch it, either. Seeing as how marriage was indeed a religious institution before it was a legal one, the grounds for ousting “marriage” from inside the beltway are simple. The principle of secular governance (separation of church and state) disallows the government to take part in the discussion and the First Amendment guarantees the rights of all to believe and practice what they will. Imposing the government’s will on people’s beliefs (either for or against same-sex marriage) is a clear violation of both of these principles.
Instead of marriage, the government should (and is allowed to) only recognize unions between people as financial units. These units would have the same rights as a married couple today, only now the toxicity of religion is out of the debate — no one is defining marriage.
I will surrender to the contention that this possible solution could lead to plenty of other problems. What if a man wants to marry a horse? Well for one, a civil union, like a marriage, is a contract. Only parties that have legal standing and the ability to express consent may legally enter a contract, which a horse cannot. Of course this is only one example, and there are bound to be more and even more complicated issues (take polygamy, for example). But with the extinction of “marriage” licenses, the religious angle to the debate is eradicated. It now becomes a purely political and economic debate, which like most others, can be solved after a few years of shouting.
So what happens if no one gets “married?”
Well, you’re allowed to live with, adopt a child with, file your taxes with and leave anyone you want without (heavy) legal recourse. This also means that same-sex couples still don’t get to be “married,” in the religious sense, either.
Now, religious institutions do not usually pre-sanctify common-law marriages, and these couples refer to themselves as husband and wife all the time without any problems. But if you do want to go the religious route you can, because there are several religious institutions out there that recognize same-sex marriages (United Church of Christ, the Episcopal Church USA, Unitarian Universalists, Reform Judaism, Reconstructionist Judaism and Quakers, for instance).
I’ll be the first to admit that this solution has its drawbacks, is not guaranteed to work and may not accomplish exactly what people on both sides of the aisle (pun not intended) are looking for. But to those who contend that only a man and a woman should marry, you have the standing to make the claim, as religion came up with the concept of marriage first. However, religion doesn’t get to decide who gets the legal and economic benefits of marriage, something government did come up with.
To those that are dissatisfied with the relatively complacent view of this proposition, I’d ask you to consider this: if everyone in this country can receive the benefits of marriage, gay or straight, this is a huge step forward. And even if you want your civil union to be called a marriage religiously, I’ve just listed a bunch of congregations that will gladly do it.
At the very least, the abolition of federally-issued marriage licenses for anyone will change the frame of the same-sex marriage debate. No longer will same-sex couples have to fight against religion. They would be able to fight for constitutionally guaranteed rights on the grounds of discrimination. No longer will public opinion be imposing its views on a particular faith, and no longer will a faith be imposing its views on those who don’t agree. In the end, it’s definitely a pragmatic proposition, and at the very least will get people talking about the issue instead of yelling about it.