Marriage, Government, and Privacy

It's another long one, folks.

Just so that we’re clear on one point: I’m a straight man. For me, the right thing is a man-woman relationship. But I also recognize the importance of the legal protections that marriage provides, and I’m against banning same-sex marriages on the grounds of one’s right to privacy. This isn’t to say that I’m pro-gay or anti-gay, but that I’m anti-interference on the part of the government. Government might be served with registering marriage in order to prevent harm, but sanctioning marriage on the part of the government encroaches on the civil liberty of privacy.

California passed Proposition 8, banning same-sex marriages after the Mormon Church pressured the population to vote in a given way (something I take personal issue with, as this activity was in direct violation of the laws which are intended to prevent churches, as powerful organizations which have an enormous amount of influence, from involvement in politics). Iowa and most of New England will have same-sex marriages within the year if they don’t have it already. With this specifically in mind, I’ve been giving thought to the issue.

While I was at first against the idea of controlling marriage, I didn’t know why. Over the course of many weeks, I’ve come to the conclusion that allowing or disallowing marriage by the government is against the founding ideas of democracy—it’s an invasion of privacy for government to do anything which seeks to limit or promote marriages (though preventing harm is another matter, which I’ll get into later).

The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) of 1996 is ultimately to blame for the current controversy. In that act, marriage is defined as the legal union of one man and one woman, though it permits individual states to adopt their own stances. DOMA provides only the Federal Government’s stance. It ultimately circumvents the right for consenting adults to legally commit themselves to one another.

Many insurance companies already protect unmarried couples who live together under a family-style policy—not because they have to, but because it’s just good business. Interestingly enough, this point may show that the ability to commit on the part of these individuals is somewhat more limited and less stable. Conversely, they are also under a great deal more pressure.

The issue of same-gender marriages is also an issue where heterosexual couples are concerned. The sanctity of marriage hasn’t been an issue in decades, because heterosexual couples will get married at the drop of a hat without caring whether or not religious groups approve. Those who choose cohabitation without marriage are afforded some rights, but if opposite-gender couples who oppose government intrusion through marriage speak out, they are painted in a much different light: they aren’t simply disaffected couples in the same way that same-sex couples are, they’re “living in sin” or “bucking the system” because they oppose the very thing that same-sex couple want: government sanctioning of what constitutes a family unit.

Originally, there was no position on marriage within the government. The reason for this is unclear, but one thing is for certain: marriage was essentially unregulated until the middle of the 1800’s, when the Mormons began practicing polygamy. Because this was essentially a point of morality, no government position could be afforded. It was an invasion of privacy, because people didn’t like the idea that a commitment could be to more than one partner (a concept that a lot of people today might still agree with on a personal level). Coupled with the tendency for polygamy-practicing Mormons to tend to have tight controls over the people they are married to (and keeping in mind the not-too-distant past with sixteen-year-old girls being forced to marry their uncles), having laws in place to limit marriage seems like a good idea, if only to prevent harm.

But the real harm is in having controls which are in place to prevent harm which has never been demonstrated, and which does not clearly delineate to homosexual relationships. To this, I say: “prove the harm, and I might reconsider.” Stating that harm is done is not the same as being able to prove that harm is the result.

Let’s switch gears for a moment. With the Supreme Court’s ruling that sex between consenting adults behind closed doors isn’t the business of the state, the issue of marriage seems to fall neatly into the same category of the state interfering with the individual rights of people who generally want nothing more than to have a legally-protected union with all of the protections that a marriage affords. Calling marriage by a different name is basically redefining the color “pink” to “a shade of light red” and then making a separation. It’s also asking for a reduction or increase in status at a later time, as homosexuals are a minority population. The problem here is, many churches don’t want gay couples to raise a child, especially gay men. Women should be the ones raising babies, according to the traditions of most of these organizations. The problem is, so many people are simply unequipped for being a parent that children get put up for adoption all the time. Let’s now look at a real-life example of someone I consider an uncle.

In 1995, a friend of my father’s (they were friends in high school and worked together for a few years—and no, my dad’s not gay to either his or my knowledge) actually qualified for adoption of a three-year-old girl in California. Being a single man, he had a lot of proving to do, and was ultimately allowed the right to raise this child. In 2000, he married his partner, only to have that marriage nullified later. With the nullification of the marriage, he once again had to prove that the child was in no danger, and that he was perfectly qualified as a parent. There was literally no other reason for the state to do this. Yet he continued his qualification, and the girl’s residence was not changed. Imagine the damage to the little girl’s psyche because she would have been uprooted from everything she had ever known. Imagine being separated from the only parent she had known—not because of a lack of care or love, but because the state decided that his sexual proclivities weren’t appropriate to being a family, based on religious pressures.

That young girl, now 17 (she turns 18 next year), has an active high-school life which includes a boyfriend, going to social activities, and she has really good grades: she’s qualified for a scholarship at Princeton University (a member of the Ivy League) in the field of mechanical engineering—and her grades are good enough that she won’t have to complete the last year of high school to get her diploma. She’s also sexually abstinent, because she doesn’t want to ruin her chances of completing college with an unplanned pregnancy. She’s also tolerant of all kinds of things, but she likewise believes that the government shouldn’t interfere in personal relationships. All of this, because of the values her two fathers taught her.

I’d say the issue of upbringing is one which should be handled on a case-by-case basis, and isn’t something that can be covered with a blanket statement. One can’t simply claim that all homosexuals are evil, deviant perverts who have the sole aim of converting the population to their collective wills. The truth of the matter is that my “uncle” has raised a beautiful and intelligent young lady, one who believes in the potential of humanity, and one who understands personal responsibility. She plans to be active in voting, because she’s seen how voter turnout can change the outcome of an election. Nothing could be more plain to someone who sees the pain that living an alternative lifestyle has wrought on her parents—one that they believe that they don’t have much choice in. They believe it to be a matter of biology, whereas most religious organizations seem to view it more as a matter of choice.

Family is therefore a nonissue, where upbringing is concerned. Perfectly healthy individuals can result from same-sex couples—and really, most of the same-sex relationships that do wind up long-term that I have personally witnessed seem to be far more healthy than their heterosexual counterparts. This isn’t to say that one is healthier than the other; rather, that one person’s experience (mine) is that the impact on the overall health of society where same-gender couples are concerned seems to be positive. I’m sure that empirical study could bear this out.

Tolerance, and not repression or oppression, are the key to making this into a “win”. By creating laws which make a sector of the population unable to take advantage of the privileges that others have, we inadvertently create a minority which can qualify for privileges based on that minority status. Affording the protections and equal status of a marriage to these people creates stability in our society, and reduces disaffectation—the key ingredient in most revolts. And keeping the government’s nose out of our private lives is always good when there’s nothing harmful occurring. Homosexuality isn’t harmful: it’s merely a genetic aberration: a mutation which causes people to be attracted to those who are physically alike to themselves. And if we allow it, we ultimately create the conditions for it to dwindle in the long-run, since forcing people into situations where they have children furthers the genetics (the Darwin factor). People who are against homosexuality might consider that aspect.

“Living in sin” isn’t as much of a fear as it was in times past. With the demand for police to take care of the violent side of society, the threat of eternal damnation just doesn’t hold much in the way of fear to those who believe that God creates everything in nature (and “the devil made me do it” isn’t a valid claim any more). And for those who don’t believe in God, it means not having to worry about some religious nuts determining what you’re allowed to do or not, based on concepts which may be hundreds, if not thousands, of years out of date.

It’s a democracy, not a theocracy. Human beings control the fates of human beings in this system. And if human beings aren’t willing to exercise a little tolerance and extend the rule of law to protect all people regardless of political status, they will discover that they are someday a minority, and so ultimately their own protections may be removed (and be justified in doing so, even if that justification is unfounded).

It ultimately boils down to the right to privacy: the right of individuals to exercise their beliefs, so long as that exercise doesn’t harm others. It’s why the Supreme Court had to invalidate “sexual position” laws and resultingly made homosexuality legal in the United States between consenting adults. It’s also why we don’t have public security cameras in our public bathrooms, or in our homes (or even pointed into our living rooms, for that matter). Privacy is so fundamental to democracy that any encroachment should be viewed as an attack on democracy as a whole. The Mormon Church stuck its neck out and influenced a political decision (counter to the laws of a religious nonprofit, and therefore against the interests of law and order—flatly illegal activity, in other words), and in doing so eroded the right to individual privacy. When a religious group in Utah can influence the outcome in a vote in California, someone has to put a stop to it. And it erodes the religious group’s own rights, as well. In stopping them, we protect their rights as well as those of other religious groups.

The issue of a Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriages is really kind of necessary in order to overrule the Defense of Marriage Act, because getting Congress to repeal something like that will require not only… well, an Act of Congress, but also a load of support, and an overwhelming majority of people to accomplish enough comfort on the part of the elected officials, who won’t be re-elected if they continue to sell out the rights of individuals. They are in a tough spot, those elected blokes, because they’re not really allowed to vote their conscience, if their conscience is counter to the will of their constituents.

Politically, this hot-button issue seems to be focused only on same-sex marriage. I recommend that the issue be removed entirely, and that government encroachment on individual belief and therefore liberty be put to an end. This is at the core of the right to privacy, and therefore core to democracy.

Free Speech and Profanity

There are a lot of people who believe that profanity should be protected by free speech. I happen to disagree, but I also disagree that it should fail to have the protection of free speech. This seeming contradiction is due to my own belief in something else that democracy has to offer: freedom of choice.

If you don't like what someone is saying, you always have the right to shut them off, to go somewhere else, to ignore them, or to confront them. The idea that mere words, though vulgar or obscene, should be limited because they are offensive flies in the face of the principle of free speech. While I disagree with shouting a string of obscenities for the sake of shouting them, I think people who are really angry should be able to shout vulgarities in their speech, if only to express the emotional impact that a particular topic has had on them. In addition to showing a person's emotional state, vulgarities show a state of mentality, and such mentality can attract like-minded individuals or repel those who disagree. Society must police itself if it wants to eliminate the vulgar, not rely on the laws of government to restrict the right to cuss.

I swear sometimes, I'll admit it. Many people who read the foregoing believe that I'm in favor of swearing. I'm not. I'm simply against the idea that government should be involved in its abolition. The appropriate use of swearing is to shock people to their senses by using a strong word. Take "balderdash" for example. Balder was a god from the Nordic pantheon, way back before the Christians converted everyone in Europe by force. Balder was impervious to harm because Balder's mom extracted a promise from everything in the world. Everything, that is, except for Mistletoe, which was considered an unimportant tree parasite... and since dear old mom had already asked the Oak trees on which mistletoe grows, it was thought to extend. But then old Loki came along, trickster god that he was, and made an arrow out of the stuff. Meanwhile, the other gods were busy throwing rocks and shooting arrows made of things like oak and aspen at Balder. It was a great trick, watching inanimate objects uphold their promises to do no harm to the God of Beauty and Courtesy. But the blind god, Forseti, felt left out of the fun.

A woman named Bestla came up and offered Forseti a shot at Balder with a bow and arrow. Forseti protested on account of the fact that he was blind. Bestla offered to aim the arrow for him, so that he could be sure to aim it right at Balder. He agreed, and she did, and the arrow flew... and struck Balder right in the heart, killing him instantly. The shock and outrage that flew throughout the courtyard called for Forseti's death, and then Bestla's. But Bestla was not her real name. Her real name was Loki, and she'd tricked Forseti by having him shoot an arrow made of mistletoe right into Balder's heart. Mistletoe is therefore called balderdash. How it came to be used for kissing under is related, but not important to the point I'm trying to convey. But the cuss word from the 1800's implied so much more than that.

The word in the 1800's implied nonsense, but it also implied that someone or something was parasitic in nature. It further implied that this parasitic nature was the cause of all evils and ills, not just the immediate problem, and that whomever had suggested the item which caused the utterance of that horrifically obscene word was about to kill God. The word was not used in polite society. The closest word we have today has less implied, far less background, and a more crude direct meaning. That word is "bullshit".

However, in the 1800's, balderdash was considered much more offensive of a word, because it required a knowledge of its background and how it came to be in order to be offended. But in the American West, it fell from disfavor and was replaced by "bullshit" as the choice for swearing, particularly because male bovine excrement was actually pretty well everywhere. Mistletoe wasn't. Therefore, in the absence of familiarity with what mistletoe even is, we stopped using a swear word. Ironically, the word fuck is used today as a catch-all swear word in almost exactly the same way, though with an entirely different background and meaning.

The point is, obscene words change with culture. Laws generally do not. Old laws don't often get reviewed and thrown out with the trash. Even bad laws which hold no relevance to modern culture and which are often the target of ridicule are rarely removed. And bad laws exist, as do laws which are poorly worded. Laws that try to limit obscene materials and fail miserably can often attribute that failure with a lack of familiarity with that material. It's a conundrum: either you review it so you can be well-informed, and possibly violate your personal principles in the process; or you don't review it and make a law which may be irrelevant the moment it passes into law.

There isn't a really great solution, except possibly to ask people who are familiar with it about whether or not it would stop it. Those who are familiar with it and still against it can often tell you. And if there's nobody familiar with it who is against it, then what you have is a perfect product, and it deserves investment instead of restriction.

Obscenity laws, especially where they relate to language, just don't make sense. Laws that restrict nudity to artistic exhibits make more sense than removing nudity altogether. We're born naked, and nudity is a natural state of being. There is nothing wrong with the display of the human body for purposes of art. I've personally attended a viewing of the Statue of David. I'm a guy, and I certainly have no homosexual leanings, but that's a body I think I'd kill to have. Well, maybe after just a few more cheeseburgers...

Likewise, artistic expression that contains offensive words should be labeled as such. I'm not against labeling something to prevent unintended offense. However, there are times when we need to be offended. I myself get offended on a regular basis. I had a neighbor, recently, who told me that if he accepted my hospitality, he'd be disrespecting himself. I found myself wondering if he had a habit of refusing hospitality, or if he simply didn't like me. And then several negative implications of what he said hit me. I was incensed. He later asked me for my hospitality, which, rather than extending again, I declined to extend, politely pointing out that his rude statement didn't sit well with me, though I didn't mind him visiting. I didn't swear. I didn't need to. My simple statement said it all.

If people are taught correct principles, they tend to use them. One of the principles I was taught was tolerance, and another was patience. I was patient, in that I didn't blow up. I felt angry and offended, but I was patient enough so that my refusal had its full impact. And I was tolerant, because while we disagreed and there were consequences, he is still free to believe what he will about the comment that was made. No law needed. No obscenity required. See? Social values work. Tolerance doesn't mean allowance. It means limitation of allowance. It's another one of those fundamental principles of democracy, whether in our country or another.

Swearing is unpleasant. It's supposed to be. It expresses an emotional impact that those with limited vocabularies and limited time to formulate a concrete idea can use in order to achieve the same results as my long-winded speech. All of the above was summed up by a friend of mine:

"Laws against swearing are bullshit. They don't fucking need to exist."

And that, as they say, is that.

My next post is going to be about a topic we all love to argue about: religious freedom in the US. Those of you with strong opinions on the subject, prepare arms for my comment box: I'm not about to pull any punches. I'm religious, proud of the fact, and pissed off at the zealots who think it's fun to say that everyone else is going to Hell. I'm going to bring my Bible, Torah, Koran, Baghavad-Gita, Tao te Ching, Poetic Edda, and the Upanishads. It'll be fun, I promise... well, not for everyone, I'm sure. I also plan to bring rational denial to the table, which is more popularly known as atheism. I'm no atheist, but those who fail to listen to them (or any other religious group... yes, calling atheists a religious group pisses off a lot of people) is going to be limiting.

That article will also be about diversity, racism, intolerance, and maintenance of group identity. I'm gonna slam people. Well, politely. Until next time!