As the news on Friday night made its way from Albany to blogs and news reports, New York City erupted in celebration. Partiers spilled onto the streets, crowds burst into cheers and the Empire State Building displayed rainbow-colored lights to commemorate the signing of a bill recognizing same-sex marriage in the state of New York.
It was certainly a dificult victory for gay rights activists, but one has to wonder if it came too late. In America today, marriage does not symbolize the ideal that it once did. The things that civil marriage was supposed to provide stability, companionship, financial security, a family structure in which to raise children are now far from the exclusive domain of marriage. In an age where 40 percent of children are born out of wedlock, 50 percent of marriages are predicted to end in divorce and relationships that are long-term and committed but unmarried are common, it is hard to make the case that marriage means anything more than a piece of paper and some legal benefits. Sure, churches can claim that marriage is something beyond a mere contract a sacramental rite that bestows grace or blessing upon the participants. A secular state, however, cannot make such a claim.
As a legal institution, marriage is broken and meaningless and still hard to define. It is time to dissolve the odd coupling between the state and marriage. The result would be a victory for gay rights, religious freedom and plain logical consistency.
As it currently stands, the controversy over the definition of marriage hinges on impassable philosophical differences. Advocates for marriage equality often find that their arguments fall on deaf ears not because their opponents see gay relationships as less committed or loving than heterosexual ones, but because they are operating under different definitions. While some think that marriage should be a title given to any committed relationship, others believe that it is a contract that can be freely entered and exited. Others believe it is a lifetime commitment of one man and one woman rooted in natural law.
Language matters, and each of these groups wants to claim the word "marriage" for their specific definition. The question then becomes: Why should the state impose a definition on any of them?
If the state did step out of the marriage business, it would not have to stop granting the legal and other benefits that marriage provides. Instead, it could create a category of domestic partnerships that would confer rights and benefits that married couples enjoy, such as the right to pass on guardianship when one parent dies or the ability to make medical decisions for each other. The couples that enter into these partnerships could be married or unmarried, straight or gay, lifetime romantic partners or mere friends who want someone to be able to make end-of-life decisions for them. Couples who wanted the marriage honorific could then find religious or other groups to grant it to them.
Of course, it would be silly to overhaul an institution as ingrained in our society as marriage without good reason but removing marriage from the purview of the state would solve several problems. For one, it would preserve religious freedom and the separation of church and state. There have been several cases of town clerks in states that recognize gay marriage refusing to sign marriage certificates for gay couples. Additionally, religiously affiliated adoption agencies have refused to serve married gay couples. If government got out of the marriage business, it could avoid putting individuals and churches in such tough moral and legal spots and also prevent gay couples from facing harassment and discrimination.
Marriage reform could also provide a better guarantee of gay rights. Twenty-eight states have constitutional amendments banning gay marriage. Popular opinion in those states could probably be swayed towards domestic partnership rights long before it moved to full marriage rights. If domestic partnerships were the legal standard, there would be no discrimination in the law, and gay couples could be married in any of the many churches, synagogues or non-religious cultural groups that recognize same-sex marriage.
Marriage is an important institution for many in this country. The state's current role in sanctioning marriages is not only a failure but also a harm. Regardless of one's stand on the debates surrounding same-sex marriage, we should all support ending the faltering marriage between the state and people's romantic relationships.
