Socialism? And Gay Marriage? And Civil Unions? Oh My!

Remember that classic moment when Joe The Plumber first met Barack Obama? It was back in October, just a few days before the final presidential debate, although it seems like years ago. Obama made the mistake of speaking intelligently to then-Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, now, Mr. The Plumber, I guess. Here’s what Obama said,

“It’s not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance at success, too… My attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s gonna be good for everybody. If you’ve got a plumbing business, you’re gonna be better off […] if you’ve got a whole bunch of customers who can afford to hire you, and right now everybody’s so pinched that business is bad for everybody and I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”

Republicans cried “Socialism!” And despite the fact that Obama’s tax plan would have benefitted Joe, and despite the fact that Obama’s plan wasn’t evenly closely “socialism“, Joe used his mighty wit, and hit for the other team. The rest, as they say, is history.

Just a few weeks on the heels of the now famous New York Times’ Op-Ed by David Blankenhorn and Jonathan Rauch, today, Time Magazine’s Michael Lindenberger reports on another tactic, this time, a lot closer to the essence of socialism, being batted about to solve the issue of gay marriage.

“Two law professors from Pepperdine University issued a call to re-examine the role the government plays in marriage in a paper published March 2 in the San Francisco Chronicle. The authors — one of who voted for and one against Prop 8, which successfully ended gay marriage in California — say the best way out of the intractable legal wars over gay marriage is to take marriage out of the hands of the government altogether.

Instead, give gay and straight couples alike the same license — a certificate confirming them as a family, and call it a “civil union” — anything, really, other than “marriage.” For those for whom the word marriage is important, the next stop after the courthouse could be the church, where they could bless their union with all the religious ceremony they could want. The Church itself would lose nothing of its role in sanctioning the kinds of unions that it finds in keeping with its tenets. And for non-believers or those for whom the word marriage is less important, the civil union license issued by the state would be all they needed to unlock the benefits reserved in most states, and in federal law, for “married” couples.”

It’s an interesting argument, and one that is actually starting to take place, for better or worse, right now in the hotbed of gay marriage. Patt Morrison writes,

“Two college students want to put on the ballot an initiative to change the word ”marriage” to ”civil union” in California’s laws.

Not … so … fast … Robin Tyler is the executive director of Equality Campaign and one of the first to be married in California in that June-to-November 2008 window when gay marriage was legal. Taking away the civil institution of marriage from everyone diminishes everyone, she thinks. But a lot of you called and blogged to disagree. Many of you think it’s a great idea; it delineates a brighter line between church and state. A couple of you in heterosexual relationships even said you refuse to get married because the word is fraught with religious connotations.”

And that is the crux of this argument: Does reducing everyone’s status to make everyone equal, (the “taking from some to make everyone equal” part is a lot closer to the essence of socialism,) solve the problem? If one of us is diminished, aren’t we all? And isn’t that what gay-marriage bans, like Prop 8, do in the first place?

These are the big questions in this issue. We are a nation of laws, with the often opposing tenets of “majority rules” confronting “justice for all” and “all men are created equal”. The question is, how much are we willing to give up to ensure these philosophies that are etched in our DNA are honored?

The answer is, today, most legally-married straight couples probably aren’t willing to give up the term “marriage”. And why should they? They’ve earned it. The problem is, they didn’t have to fight for it. We do. And we’ve earned it too. 

I agree with the idea of keeping the state and religion out of the bedroom. But I don’t agree with the idea of letting the state offer only civil unions and the church, marriage, because the fact is that neither God nor religion created marriage. And because we know that calling it something else diminishes its members. Studies show that children in families headed by gay parents who aren’t legally married are perceived differently. It’s not fair to them, or to their parents. The state can, and does, legislate morality. 

Marriage is an institution created by man. Relegating it to the Church serves only the Church, not man. It’s time to give marriage to all, and it’s time to call it marriage. Let the state marry everyone, and let those who choose to reinforce their religious beliefs are welcome to do so again in whatever house of worship, and in whatever manner, they, and their church, choose. 

The word marriage is being fought for by all sides, and the battle is fierce. With good reason. “Marriage” has meaning. If it were just a word, no one would be fighting for it. I agree with Robin Tyler. Don’t diminish everyone’s rights to appease all sides. This is not a zero-sum game. There’s no need to rob Peter to pay for Paul and Steve’s marriage. That’s the beauty of love, and of marriage. There’s enough of it to go around.