I'm married.We had an outdoor wedding in Louisville officiated by a minister from the Unity Chapel there in town, a house of worship that neither The Girl nor I attended and officiated by a woman that we'd met once before the ceremony. The Mother-in-law went to the church, and we needed a member of the cloth to make us all official 'cause the state says so.
And I hate that fact.
I only barely understand why the government has anything to do with saying whether I - or anyone in the US - can promise themselves to another person. Sure, there's some sort of tax break, and there's got to be some kind of check for things like shared insurance, but other than that, there doesn't seem like there should be any governmental oversight of what is, otherwise, a purely and totally religious ceremony.
I want the government out of the marrying business.
I don't want gay people married.
I don't want straight people married.
I don't want mixed-race couples married.
I don't want people marrying dogs.
I'd much rather have everybody go down to the courthouse and fill out a couple of forms, sign a couple of places, and maybe have to make a couple of pledges in front of a clerk - maybe a judge.
I don't want the government saying who is and who isn't religious enough to marry folks.
And hate the distinction - recently struck down in California yesterday - between "married" straight couples and "civilly joined" gay couples, but I don't want to bring gay people into the marriage world.
Instead, I want to take marriage away from any sort of governmental approval.
Make everybody stop by the courthouse to register. Call it a civil union if you want to. Or a joining. Or a partnership. Hell, call it a togetherness ceremony for all I care.
After that, if people want to get "married" in a church, that's they're business.
If they want to be joined under the eyes of whatever god(s) they choose while they stand in the middle of a park, let 'em go ahead and reserve the shelter house.
If they're going to recreate the credits scene in 40-year-old Virgin using llamas and claim that somehow that grants them a tighter bond because they god of the llamas tells them it does, tell 'em to have fun and wish 'em good shearing.
It may seem a little Harrison Bergeron, I know, but at this point I want my government entirely out of the wedding business.
7 comments:
Vonnegut had it right. I'm insulted by the beauty of others; masks for all. Sounds peachy.
its all control...a contrived bunch of bull that makes us feel obligated to childish things like gov and god.
I'll quote Joyce (again)...
"I will not serve that in which I no longer believe whether it call itself my home, my fatherland or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can..."
DUDE! I had never read "HG"...
That was AWESOME!
Thanks:-)
I don't know if its about control. I think its more along the lines that the government did it wrong way back when and if they tried to change it now, there would still be a lot of people upset. Theres not many people in the government with enough balls to stand up and do something about it, especially considering the fact that they might loose a few votes along the way.
But yes, your argument seems all too logical chemguy.
i could get behind that...
and joyce seems like a rad dude, but damn the dubliners is confusing sometimes
I sincerely agree.
Apparently I'm preaching to the choir.
Lakes, I'm not sure it's a control thing. I'll admit that there is a part of the population that believes that they (and sometimes I, I'll admit) feel they can decide rules and lifestyles better than can that rest of "them". My guess here, however, is that many of the regulations are simply vestiges of a past religious bent in Western society.
We may claim that America was founded on non-religious beliefs, but that's far from true. The founders of the US came from Western European, christian (of various denomenations) backgrounds, and that clearly colored the nation that they crafted.
Admittedly, the tried to allow other beliefs to not be trampled in the process - and did an amazing job, I'm thrilled to say - but that doesn't mean they built our nation on Islamic beliefs.
Glad you enjoyed Harrison Bergeron...I remember first reading it in middle school (I think), and it's stuck with me ever since.
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Joey - stream of consciousness writing is amazingly hard to follow. I know Joyce is a great writer because people have told me. I've tried Ulysses a couple of times and gotten twenty pages in each time before giving up.
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Craig - but now what do we do to get the government out of the marrying business?
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Gamer - I'm a little surprised. You come from a far more religious background than I do, and I would've guessed you to be okay with the marrying-religious tie.
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