EDIT: When a lot of people think about gay marriage, they instantly think about whether gay marriage is bad or not. This article is about my personal view of why all marriage (both gay and straight) is bad (in the legal sense).

Dear Gamespot People,

On 18 February 2007, Janice Langbehn was denied hospital visitation to her spouse Lisa Marie as she slipped into coma. In October 2004, Janet Jenkins was prohibited from visiting her daughter due to her ex citing anit-gay marriage laws in dissolving any child visitation rights. After the World Trade Center collapsed in 11 Spetember 2001, at least two dozen gays and lesbians died leaving behind partners who had to endure many months of litigation to secure any type of inheritance from their spouses. For many, including me, it was very easy to forget the legal plight of gays and lesbians with the news media focusing on the presidential elections, the economic recession, and the fighting in Iraq/Afghanistan... and yet, the apathy on gay/lesbian legal rights is what will determine gay marriage legislation in many states today.

Many conservatives will directly oppose gay marriage because of their moral values, and many liberals will directly support gay marriage for the exact same reason. Although I am politically conservative (having voted for McCain in 2008 ), I care too much about my gay and lesbian friends to ever want them relive the legal examples given in the first paragraph. Between McCain and Obama, I saw the exact same platform with regards to gay marriage: McCain promised to lobby for equal rights without acknowledgement of their existence under any title and Obama promised to lobby for equal rights under the second-citizen status of 'civil unions'. I don't believe that gay and lesbian partners should be subjected under derogatory stamp of 'civil unions,' nor do I believe that gays and lesbians should be given these rights without being acknowledged by the rest of society.

What I do believe in is the separation of church and state, and that our society's definition of marriage has essentially compromised our democratic ideals and has directly brought legal disenfranchisement to gays and lesbians in our nation.

Marriage: Why it exists?

Marriage was originally instituted as a legal procedure for a couple to insure inheritance, allow visitation rights, and gain tax exemptions without going through the legal hastle of obtaining each of those. It was a different time: marriage was done out of convenience... marriage only occurred between a man and a woman of the same race and religion... Mr. Ed could get away with racism on public television... etc. Today, marriage between people of different races and religions are more publicly accepted, marriage is more of a romantic contract, and Mr. Ed is the stock material of racial-joke comedians (especially by Dave Chapelle).

So why would eradicating an entire legal institution be better than just stretching that legal institution to include a small minority? It's the common protocol of egality to fight for an extension of a law than the complete eradication of it. Furthermore, it's a whole lot easier to apply marriage protocols to gays and lesbians as opposed to just destroying an entire institution and having to write up a bunch of laws regarding inheritance, visitation rights, and tax benefits for families.

Marriage: Why is it bad?

The reason why I support abolishing marriage is that the term marriage isn't useful in the legal context due to its relgious connotations. For many people, marriage is a religious acknowledgement that people love each other whether those people be just a man or a woman... or whether they be between gays, lesbians, transvestites, polygamists, cousins, animals, etc. By having the term 'marriage' in a state constitution, the state acknowledges one definition of marriage and in essence disenfranchises people of different sexual biases that don't match that definition of marriage.

Furthermore, any law with the term 'marriage' indirectly endorses whatever religious connotations matches that law's definition of marriage. Even though there are clear differences between the legal definition of marriage and the religious ritual, many people disregard this difference and see it as one and the same. As with all democratic societies, people want to change laws to support their religion or ideology, so any debate about gay marriage inevitably includes religion, ideology, and ideas about egality. The argument 'keep marriage sacred' can be applied to support gays and lesbians, just as much as it can be used to support traditionalists. Regardless of the fact that fifty percent of legal marriages ends with a divorce (making it not that sacred for me), many people will fight tooth and nail given the ideological or religious reasons no matter how misguided those reasons are.

In any case, I strongly believe that the legal term marriage needs to be replaced with laws that deal with visitation, inheritance, and custody on a case-by-case basis. Of course, I'm fully aware that this opinion of itself will probably not take root for many decades... much less face ridicule for being on a topic that has nothing to do with videogames at all. Regardless, one can always hope. Thanks for making it through the end of this post, I'd love to hear your opinions on this issue.

Respectfully,

31160168

References:

http://data.lambdalegal.org/in-court/downloads/langbehn_fl_20080902_complaint-amended.pdf

http://www.lambdalegal.org/our-work/publications/page.jsp?itemID=32007060

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/30/AR2007013001316.html

Dear Gamespot,

If the video is unwatcheable, it is also on my youtube page.

XOXOXO

31160618

Whatever you do, do not click this link.