Why do you need a license? It’s time for separation of marriage and state

By David McElroy · May 9, 2012

When Vice President Joe Biden said earlier this week that he’s in favor of gay marriage, it made headlines. The subject polarizes two groups of people, each certain that their position is morally correct. But what if the question is irrelevant?

Marriage has been a religious institution for a very long time, at least in countries with Christian roots. Centuries ago, churches held records and married people. Eventually, as societies became more secular, governments took over that role — keeping records and granting licenses.

Why exactly does government need to be involved? Why shouldn’t a marriage be whatever people decide for it to be? Two people can enter into any other partnership in life for their own reasons and with people of their own choice. Why does marriage need a legal status? Why shouldn’t it simply be a private thing?

For people who want it to be a religious institution, it can be between them and their church. For those who want it to be something else, they can make it what they want it to be.

Conservatives and churches who are fighting to defeat gay marriage are looking at this all wrong. If you demand that government define marriage in a certain way, you are agreeing that the government has the legitimate right to define marriage. Churches who take this approach are ceding authority to the state. Governments don’t decide who can be baptized or take communion. Churches decide that for themselves. Why should the state decide who can marry?

North Carolina amended its state constitution Tuesday to define marriage to be between a man and a woman. Many conservative pastors and religious people cheered. I don’t think they understand that they’re sanctioning the idea of giving power to government that it doesn’t deserve to have. I don’t think they understand that those who oppose gay marriage are in a minority that is starting to shrink. I don’t think they realize that as they stamp their definition on marriage now, they’re giving moral legitimacy for others to stamp their own definitions on it in the future — and force their definitions on everyone through the same kinds of majority votes.

It’s time to get government out of the business of granting licenses. If churches want to keep records of marriages they approve of, they should do that. If other people want to set up some way for others to register legal partnerships, there ought to be a way to do that — just as agreements between two people can be recorded in any other way. But there is absolutely no reason for government to define what a marriage is and grant someone permission to enter into it.

The debate shouldn’t be about “marriage equality” or “protecting traditional marriage.” It should be about individuals and religious bodies making their own decisions about what they want a marriage to be. The state should have no role in that decision. It’s time to get the government out of the business of regulating who can marry.

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I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

If you have problems with high blood pressure, I’d like to encourage you to consider making serious changes to your diet. There might be some people who don’t have any choice but to start taking prescription medications for high blood pressure, but I’d like to tell you that I have completely eliminated my issue by eliminating all sugar and almost all carbohydrates. (A couple of months ago, my blood pressure hit 185/144, which was dangerously high — considered stage 3 hypertension.) By completely changing my eating habits, I’m down 22 pounds and my blood pressure is now in the “ideal” range — without taking any medication. In addition, I sleep better and I have more energy. Getting away from the sugar-laden mess that we generally refer to as “highly processed food” has been a life-changer for me. Now my challenge is to avoid slipping back into old habits — by eating in the dangerous ways that almost everyone in our society has come to see as normal.

When I first heard about this, I thought it must be satire. When I discovered it was real, I was appalled, but I still thought it must be a one-time thing from some nutty activist. But it turns out it’s the latest bit of pandering to a bunch of far-left activists who believe that a man can become a woman if he decides to claim he’s a woman. As everybody knows, men have prostate glands. Women do not. Period. End of story. Men can get prostate cancer. Women cannot. But political activists are so eager to pretend that a man claiming to be a “trans woman” is really a woman that they are insisting that “women” be included in public health messages about the issue. This is nothing but political virtue-signaling. If you’re a man, you know which parts you have. You know that you ought to be screened. Nobody is made any safer by dragging far-left gender ideology into simple medical reality.

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