I hear this proposal frequently. “Get the government out of marriage” has become the new default position for alot of people. (I suspect for some folks, this position is really a way to get the same sex marriage issue to go away. I don’t think that will work, but that is another story.)
I recently recieved this note from a student, with exactly this question:
I am a student at (local university X) and I took a legislative strategy class taught by Professor Y. In it students were required to write a bill, and Professor Y was intrigued by the bill I wrote dealing with a possible different solution to the gay marriage/defense of marriage debate. In the bill I proposed that marriages of any kind were no longer granted by the government; the federal government could only grant civil unions to citizens, gay or straight, and these unions possessed all the same rights previously reserved only for marriages. Marriages, being a religious institution, would be reserved for religious ceremonies and therefore their traditional understandings would be protected, yet this still would provide equality under the government for the gay community. Seeing as the trend in the government would be to eventually grant gay marriage, as a few states have done so, Professor Y and I were wondering why has the suggestion I wrote in my bill not ever been brought up or discussed as a compromise to the issue? I would think that conservatives would have come up with a solution like this to avoid gay marriage from spreading to all the states and it is something that Democrats could support since it also fixes the issue of inequality for homosexuals. He referred me to you since you are quite knowledgeable in the debate and I took his suggestion to ask you about it since I am quite invested in the issue. Hope you are having a great day.
Here is my initial reply to him:
Thank you for your thoughtful question. I have a couple of questions for you:
1. If you believed that it is not possible for the government to be neutral in the definition of marriage, would that change your view of the desirability of your proposal?
2. If you believed that your proposal would undermine one of the essential purposes of marriage, would that change your view?
3. If you believed that your proposal would lead to an expansion of the power of the state, and an increased intrusion of the state into the lives of ordinary people, would that change your view?
4. Which of these issues would be the most significant to you?
I intend to deal with this question over the next few days, so watch this space!
