Have the People Spoken?

I have a habit of either predicting an outcome, or explaining why the outcome might have been wrong. On Tuesday, the voters of Maine decided that they were opposed to marriage.

Sounds strange to say a vote to repeal the right of same sex couples to engage in something deemed marriage – as defined in Civil law – would be a vote against marriage, but that is the ultimate effect. Granted, those with no religious knowledge or affiliation would not comprehend what I am saying, but the rest of us know that every theology shares a common doctrine – in Christianity, it is called ‘The Golden Rule’ of do unto others; in Judaism, the Sage, Hillel, phrased it as not doing to another what you don’t want done to you. For Hillel, it was the totality of scripture, with the text being simply explanation.

On Tuesday, the majority of Maine voters said they wanted the right to marry taken away from five, or ten, percent of their neighbors. Overwhelmingly, Washington County voters declared they wanted the right to marry taken away. It is a simple matter of doing unto others while wishing it was done to you – expect the reciprocity to be reflected by increased divorce rates among our children and their children. Moreover, we can expect the drop in marriage rates, and postponed first marriages, to increase for the very reason that we have made it clear that we oppose marriage for everyone. (Curiously, I seem to recall a Gospel where Jesus declares that everyone has the right to marry – and divorce is only allowed to three classes of ‘eunuch’: homosexual, neutered, and celibate. But that’s just one doctrine and it’s not common to all theologies.)

Constitutionally, equality before the law is an absolute right for all American citizens. If we deny tax deductions to couples who are otherwise willing to qualify for them, we are denying them equality. In Civil Law, the “marriage contract” bestows a range of contractual rights and privileges upon two consenting adults; it does so without any procreative mandate – that is, ‘eunuchs’, those who cannot, or choose not to, procreate are granted the same rights as those who select to reproduce. Furthermore, Civil Law makes no mandate for the termination of children where no “marriage contract” exists, and hence does not require the existence of the contract for procreation. Clearly, as Maine has declared its opposition to marriage for one class of individuals, it can easily declare marriage among all other all other classes to be null and void. The message of the vote is clear, as with elements across the nations, a class of Maine voter has decreed an eventual end to marriage as a civil option.
The very idea of the proposition and interpretation I have just rendered should anger a great many people – none more than those who somehow believed they were voting to facilitate the creation of families. But if the state, and influential segments of the nation, deem it unnecessary to sanction pair-bonding in the form of civil marriage – why form families, as opposed to forming transient pairings? Why would anyone want to engage in a relationship which is difficult to terminate? We have a society which seems – based upon divorce and remarriage rates – to prefer serial polygamy. Tuesday’s vote, has made a clear statement that, had modern society been given the option, it would never have adopted the institution of marriage to begin with. We know this because we have denied it to those who expressly requested it, while otherwise treating it as an obligation for those who express a preference for avoiding it – unless granted some economic benefit vis-a-vis having a spouse.

Given three child producing options – married & widow, non-marital, married & divorced – I would, from experience go with all available sociological data and assert the non-martial option is superior to the emotional and economic burdens of the other two alternatives. It is nice to see that Maine has decided to void, or prohibit, foolish people from subjecting themselves to emotional-economic cost of marriage. Granted, this was not the intent of those who voted YES and indicated their opposition to their neighbors being marriage – but it will continue to the psychological and practical reality of the future of marriage until such time as the people of Maine return to the ballot box to declare otherwise.