The Supreme Court is about to make a very important decision in regards to whether or not there is a constitutional right to gay marriage. I would like to start by saying that I am a man of faith and that I do not think that the government has any business telling a church what it should believe or how members of a church should practice their faith. If marriage were simply an issue of a church recognizing and institutionalizing the relationship between two loving individuals, then this would be a simple case for me. An individual church has every right to define marriage as being between a man and a woman, and the government should have no say in the matter. The problem is that marriage has now become a hybrid institution with both religious aspects and legal aspects. The government tells us that if two consenting adults choose to spend the rest of their lives together, that this bond will offer legal implications and protections on both the state and federal level. For example, your partner will receive your Social Security benefits when you die. Another example is that you become your partner’s medical decision maker by default should they become incapacitated. History will not look kindly on us during this period and will likely say that America treated homosexuals like second class citizens.
I believe the only good solution is to divide the process of all marriage into two separate entities. Since a marriage in this country is actually two things, it should actually be treated like two separate things. I think that when two people decide to live the rest of their lives together, all individuals can try to find a church that will acknowledge their religious union and everyone will need to separately seek legal protections through a civil union. Some couples may only choose to pursue a legal union and that is okay as well. Some dissenters will attempt to make a straw man argument that this could set up a slippery slope leading to civil unions with children or between people and animals. These same individuals would have likely argued during the Civil War era that we could not risk giving slaves the right to vote because this could also lead to babies and horses getting the right to vote as well. It is a silly argument that is not worthy of discussion.
In the system that I am proposing, all adults will be treated the same. This is the only true solution that still protects the constitutional rights of the church as well as the constitutional rights of the individual. Remember, the constitution is not only designed to protect you from others, it is designed to protect others from you.
