SUPREME COURT DECISION – GAY MARRIAGE – NEXT STEPS

The Supreme Court has now decided that denying the rights and benefits of Marriage to a segment of the population for any reason, including sexual orientation, is not consistent with the equal rights guarantees of our Constitution.  This follows a long line of Supreme Court decisions over the past few decades that have invalidated State laws that sought to deny basic rights to different segments of the population, for reasons from gender to race.  This decision confirmed a fundamental truth that basic rights and benefits provided by law to one group of the population cannot be denied to other groups for mere differences in gender, race, sexual orientation, religious belief, or other factors.

This decision is great, and is a totally appropriate outcome, based on the guarantees of equal rights under our Constitution.  However, it was not necessary for the decision to pick a “winner” and a “loser” on this issue.  In any debate where the issue is seen to be of critical importance to both groups, a decision such as this won’t likely end the desires of the “losing” group to find a way to reverse the decision. So we have heard statements from groups who strongly believe that marriage is a religious act or sacrament and should not be re-defined by any government, that actions will be explored and undertaken to reverse this decision.

The only way to reverse a Supreme Court decision regarding rights guaranteed by the Constitution is of course to amend the Constitution.  Several states passed amendments to their State Constitutions to limit the definition of marriage by law to one man and one woman.  These have now been invalidated by the Supreme Court decision.  But these states could begin the Amendment process defined in our Constitution to adopt a similar definition in our national Constitution.  That activity would likely take years, cost multi-millions of dollars, and continue the divisive debate in our national politics.  That will likely add to the difficulty in growing collaboration between parties on other key issues, adding to the dysfunction in our national politics.

There is another approach … to follow the “win-win” approach to this issue that was outlined in the last blog post.  The core of the issue is the tying of civil benefits to what is essentially a religious event or sacrament.  This action essentially violated the principle of the Separation of Church and State, and that has led to the divisive issue we have today.

This situation could be prevented simply by altering our civil laws to remove this core problem.  We could chose to de-link civil benefits from the religious event of “Marriage”.  We could choose to alter our laws to link the civil benefits that are currently tied to “Marriage” to a civil event, called a “Committed Family Unit”, Committed Union” or some other term other than “Marriage”.   We already have the situation where most couples participate in a “Marriage” ceremony in a church, and then obtain a civil Marriage License in a Court.  Why not simply change the title of the civil license issued by the State as a “Committed Family Unit License” instead of a “Marriage License”, and leave the definition of “Marriage” to the religious institutions?  If the civil rights, benefits and obligations were linked to a “Committed Family Unit License” instead of a “Marriage License”, wouldn’t that provide a “win-win” solution acceptable to all sides of this issue? 

In this approach, the granting of a “Committed Family Unit License” by a Court would be based on recording oaths from the participants that they desired to be recognized as a “Committed Family Unit”, that they were free from other commitments that would prohibit them from freely accepting this commitment, and that they understood and accepted the obligations on themselves of a “Committed Family Unit” … the same benefits and obligations that are now linked to Marriage licenses.  These licenses would be issued to any couple of legal age making the application and taking the oaths, without regard to the gender, race or religious beliefs of the couple, and without requiring the existence of a religious “Marriage” ceremony.  In this way, every couple would be treated exactly the same, would have the same rights, benefits and obligations, and would have the same level of public and legal respect, without any difference in civil law between those couples who had a religious “Marriage” ceremony and those who did not.  The choice of participating in a religious “Marriage” ceremony would be an independent choice of the couple, and the determination of whether to agree to administer the “Marriage” ceremony or sacrament to any couple would be left to the churches and religions.  Just as we leave the decisions of Baptism, Communion, Ordination and other religious sacraments to the churches and religions.

As always, I would be interested in having anyone with other points of view contribute their comments on this blog entry.

June 27, 2015