Contract...

I have quite a few bi, lesbian and gay friends....who are disappointed by the anti-gay crap that flies around the political scene in the name of preserving marriage...or the family...or whatever.

It's a bunch of bull. Marriage. Legally...it's a contract and should be blind to gender. If two unrelated people want to legally enter into a contract providing for mutual financial support and responsibility...legally they should be able to do so. Period.

Preserving "marriage" is semantics. Does marriage mean the holy union between a man and a woman...or does it mean a contractual state of cooperative cohabitation and responsibility for the others welfare...where you become responsible for the others debts and can share in their assets?

Can it mean the first in a secular state? No...not really.

This is one of those fuzzy cases where our legal system allows the encroachment of religion in a way that is not only damaging...but inconsistent. I can go online...be ordained by the Church of Universal Life...or the Church of the Holy Hand Grenade...and perform wedding ceremonies. Why...does paying $40 make me capable of ascertaining the fitness of two people to enter into a legal and binding contract? Is there not a flaw here? When I got married...my ID was checked when I applied for the license with my husband...but my gender wasn't. Nobody asked to check "underneath the hood." Obviously it was important...but not THAT important.

And there are biological conditions that put gender into question. If you're born with both sets of gonads...and by some miracle allowed to keep them both until the age of majority...can you pick your gender? Are you both? Does a team of doctors need to evaluate and decide for you? Do you lose your right to marry because you have a chromosomal problem and can't decide what gender to be?

And transgendered people...now I know that the same folks who want to see marriage "preserved" probably also think that transgendered people shouldn't be allowed to exist...much less marry....but do they lose their rights? I mean...sex change operations usually aren't performed until extensive psychological evaluation and therapy happens. It's not something you can just "have done" like a nose job. People change their gender in response to identity issues that can in most cases...cause severe mental illness if NOT addressed. Do they lose their right to Marry because of what modern psychology considers a mental illness/identity crisis?

If marriage is a state designed to keep us from sin...and allow for procreation...do sterile people lose their rights? People who don't want to or shouldn't have children because of a medical condition?

Either marriage applies equally to any two people with the mental capacity to enter into a contract...or we should just abolish it all together. No marriage penalty...and no benefit. You want your life partner to share your assets...be entitled to your retirement...or have legal guardianship of your biological children...you get a lawyer to draw up a bunch of expensive paperwork assigning those rights and responsibilities. Man...it would create jobs for a literal army of paralegals...think of what it would do for the economy!

*sigh*

The world isn't overflowing with love. Love in all of its forms is beautiful...and should be cherished when it happens.