In a big day for gay-rights advocates, the Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down a federal provision denying benefits to legally married gay couples and issued a separate ruling that paves the way for same-sex marriages to resume in California.
Well, yes, but don't get to the partying just yet.
See, The Federal Government has no right to enter your bedroom and dictate to you what constitutes a marriage in the first place. Neither do State governments. Both arrogated to themselves powers they did not have and which, at least in the Federal case, violate the 1st Amendment.
Marriage is a religious institution. It always has been. It predates our modern governments. In the early days of what was to become the United States, and through the lands before, you posted your Banns of Marriage on the church door. The only "involvement" the government had historically was in organized bigotry -- that is, making damn sure you didn't marry a Lord if you were a commoner.
That translated directly to the United States; the original marriage "laws" were for the explicit purpose of making sure you didn't marry a white person if you were black, or an American Indian if you weren't one yourself.
Think I'm kidding? I'm not -- go look it up.
So what you, dear readers who support this, gay or straight, have bought into is turning what is supposed to be about two individuals who love one another into a tri-party deal with the State -- the damned government -- in the middle of your relationship.
You cheered this today.
You fools.
You were baited by the siren song of that which you could easily have without any such crap. Powers of Attorney work just fine for medical and financial decisions and cost nothing to draw up. They're superior to the default "rules" too, because you can craft exactly what you -- and your partner -- want.
Wills, trusts, estate planning, all fairly simple and all doable unless you're terribly rich, in which case the passage of an estate from one "married" partner to another is in fact easier. But most of you reading this don't have a pot to piss in when it comes to your estate anyway or are well under the limits where it matters. Never mind that, once again, most of the time the default isn't exactly what you want, so again you've saved exactly nothing.
Access to "health insurance"? Really? ObamaCare has already destroyed what you thought you were going to get. Welcome to reality. Never mind that creating a monster and then using it as justification for a second stupid thing qualifies as Darwin Award material. In this case given what ObamaCare is bringing to you that's not a rhetorical observation either.
The truth is that it's none of anyone's damn business who I choose to take up with, so long as we're both consenting adults. The same applies to you.
If you have heart-felt beliefs about what marriage means to you in a religious context you need to have a very long session with your conscience, because it is a virtual certainty that you lied before God when you took that oath. You presented a paper to a Minister, Priest, or Rabbi from a government that is a legally-binding document giving the government the right to define what your marriage was at the time, change it without your consent in the future, and define the terms under which you may modify or end it. You did this contemporary with taking your oath "Before God" and then after you took that oath you pissed all over it as your officiant signed that piece of government paper post oath and sent it in to be registered.
Now we have gay people dancing in the streets over the right to lie to their creator, or whoever they choose to officiate their ceremony. Unless, of course, it's a Judge -- then it's all ok. We have taken all context from the word marriage that resides beyond letting the government literally into your bedroom to share your most-intimate moments, defining what is and is not legitimate, how you will love and just as importantly how you will end your time together if and when that love ends.
The worst part of it is that you can't even hold the government to the rules they have at the time you get married. They change literally on a daily basis like Calvinball and once you submit to this jackbooted crap you have no ability to argue for application of the law at the time you entered into the agreement; you are bound instead by whatever government decides to do later on, even decades later on, irrespective of how either of you feel about it.
Your life no longer belongs to you and your paramour; you both cede all control over your most-intimate moments and, if necessary, their resolution.
The solution to the problem faced by gay people was never to be found in government interference; rather, it was to remove government from the bedrooms of our nation in their entirety. To return marriage, such as it is, to a private contractual matter between two persons and, if they choose, a religious officiant that matches their desire. To be able to form actual contracts that must be mutually renegotiated -- or terminated -- in accordance with what the people who entered into them agreed to at the time, not retroactively determined by some robed jackass who is free to change whatever you agree to 10, 20, 30 or more years ago to suit his beliefs, expectations and whatever government decides at any point -- without and even explicitly against your mutual consent.
Gay people didn't win anything today. They, like so many who argue for both "contemporary" and "traditional" marriage, instead lost yet another battle in the fight for soul of both our nation and her people.
I hope you enjoy having the government under the sheets with you.
It's what all of you dancing in the streets are celebrating this evening, whether you realize it or not.