Marriage is not the Government's Business

A California proposition narrowly passed in the Nov. 4 election "defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman." The law has no place in the definition of marriage, and a legal definition of marriage will not prevent homosexuals from marrying each other.

Two people can decide to join together for the purpose of sharing living expenses, procreate children and establish life savings without getting married. When they do so, they should establish a contract that defines the agreements involved. Many, however, do not. None of this has anything to do with marriage.

Marriage is a sacred bond, vows spoken before God and/or the Community. You turn to one another, speak your promises, those promises are blessed by the occasion, and you live, together, happily ever after.

In neither case - a contract subject to contract law or a sacred bond certified by the Church - people do not always keep the promises made. I have broken them, they have been broken over my head. I owe nearly everyone I have ever lived with for more than two or three hours. Sometimes we were together for years (four years is the current record). I almost went to jail once for not paying child support, and there are plenty of women who know to the penny how much money I owe them, but the government is not going to do anything to enforce any legal or super-legal obligations therein.

We may need laws that make it easier to certify relationships and enforce the promises we make each other. When people own property together, when they have children, when they invest documented time and money in a relationship, there should be legal channels to certify the relationship and adjudicate differences. Parents need to provide child support, and the laws enforcing parental obligations are already well established and enforced when the custodial parent pursues the matter.

However, government has no place defining marriage. We enjoy a vigorous separation of church and state in America, and our democracy will function much better when we stop trying to impose religious or moral values through the law. It's a free country, and to me that means if I'm not causing damage to any other person or property, I'm free to love anyone I want to and establish any sort of relationship I want to with that person. Pass all the propositions you want to, marriage - gay or hetero - is none of your business.