The debate over single sex marriage

I just watched CSPN coverage of a conference session on same sex marriage. I suppose my views on the subject are partially due to my own experience, since I was married in Chile which has a liberal tradition separating civil and church marriage. Thus I was married in a civil process which made the marriage legal as well as in a church service which met the cultural needs of my wife's and my family.

Some of the panel discussion focused on human rights, and notably the right to marriage established in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I would note that the states party to the Universal Declaration may all grant rights of marriage, but those rights differ greatly from state to state. In some states men have the rights to polygamous marriage while not in others, in some states marriage may be contracted for specific, limited periods of time (as short as a few hours), and the rights of women in marriage vary from state to state. If there is a universal right to marriage, its universality depends either on a very limited idea of marriage or the vagueness of the concept of marriage.

As in other human rights, it seems to me that our society may recognize a right to marriage,. but that it is appropriate for us to define the extent of the rights in marriage via a political process which institutionalizes protections for those rights.

It has seemed to me, as one of the participants in the panel mentioned, that it is strange that religious officials are empowered by their ordination in their denomination to perform marriages that carry legal rights to inheritance, etc. The religious ceremony sanctifies the marital bond, but in a system that separates state and religion, the state has no business sanctifying (making holy) any status.

On the other hand, I see no basis in a society that separates church and state for the state to prohibit church marriage or any other church ritual (with the obvious exception of cult rituals that endanger participants or others).

One of the panelists suggested that in terms of civil marriage, it is important to go back to the public policy reasons for providing a special status for citizens in a civil union. It seems to me that there are such reasons, such as assuring two adults share responsibility for raising children of the union, simplifying legal processes by granting a variety of highly correlated rights in a single act and document, promoting long term relationships that promote social stability and investment, etc.

It would seem to me that in that context, one might then have a debate on the laws establishing civil union. Indeed, in such a debate one might want to establish several categories of civil union, such as a civil union for couples with children and an alternative for couples without children.

Of course I see little likelihood that the public debate on marriage in this country will separate concerns related to civil union versus concerns for the religious sanctification of the marital union.