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You Don't Have a Right to Marry By Jeff Jackson (2/15/04)
www.thelandofthefree.net

The debate over marriage, what marriage is, and who can marry has come again to the forefront of political debate as gay rights groups struggle to encompass the recognitions that come with marriage to their same sex partners. They want the "right" to marry. However there is one problem. In America you don't have the right to marry.

The first knee-jerk reaction of many people reading that last statement is to say that it is just plain wrong; that anyone who would say such a thing is off one's rocker. So, now that you have gotten past that first reflexive action I will say it again. In America you don't have a right to marry.

Now that you have seen it twice and your heart has slowed down we can move on to show why this is true. Marriage is a side product of a right that we do indeed enjoy which is religious freedom; marriage being a religious institution. However it, in itself, is not a right.

Marriage is about more than just "love":

Homosexual couples argue that because they "love" their partners, they must be allowed to wed just as a heterosexual couple would to form a family unit. The problem is that marriage is not solely about "love". If marriage where solely about "love" then the state would be required to recognize the union of a man and his dog if such a thing was done because of "love". If the sole argument for marriage was "love" then would a bi-sexual woman who has "love" for both her female and male partner would be allowed to marry both.

"Love" for one's partner is not an argument for marriage.

Marriage is a religious institution:

There is a truth that marriage, in it's most basic form, is not a government institution; it is a religious institution. For thousands of years marriage has been the cornerstone of religions around the world for forming families and raising their children. But it has also been co-opted by governments around the world as a legally binding status that confers upon their people certain privileges (and in some instances punishments) once they enter into the bonds of matrimony.

And there is nothing wrong with that. Most governments are formed upon a base of religion and the United States is not different. So why shouldn't their laws and institutions encompass these religious standards. However when government begins to dictate back to religion what terms such as "marriage" mean there is a sticky situation that arises because the first amendment prohibits government from such interference.

To get "legally" married in the United States, you have obtain a license from the government. You cannot be "legally" married without the consent of the government and a marriage license. And once you are married, the government confers certain privileges such as visitation rights in the Emergency Room, inheritance rights and power of attorney when no Will is present, pension benefits and judicial protections and evidentiary immunity. Sometimes marriage has also been used to punish people as well such by altering how much in taxes you must pay by lowering deductions. This is the problem; government has adopted the institution of marriage for it's own means rather than accepting it as a strictly religious institution.

One does have a privilege to be married if the church they belong to chooses to marry them and that falls under their first Amendment rights to free religion. But the "right to marriage" only exists if their religion agrees that they can be married and someone is willing to wed them.

For government to consider defining the religious institution of marriage either as exclusively between a man and a woman or as between any number of people regardless of sex and for courts to rule that certain forms of marriage must be allowed infringes upon the freedom of religion. And our freedom of religion is clearly stated in our 1st Amendment as off limits to the hands of government. To define marriage "legally" means that churches would be required by law to wed anyone that came before them that met the legal criteria or be in violation of the law, regardless of the principles of the religion's core beliefs.

Marriage simply is not a right:

One complaint that is trumpeted by gay rights activists is that under equal protection they have a right to wed just as heterosexuals would. Even though shortly you will clearly see that marriage is not a right, we'll deal with this topic first.

The fact of the matter is that homosexual persons have the exact same (what they call) "right" to marry as their heterosexual counterparts do. It is true. A homosexual man has the "right" to marry a woman who desires to enter into marriage with him just like a heterosexual man does. Now while it is true that generally speaking a homosexual man would not want to marry a woman, but rather a man, it is really a moot point when talking about "equal protection". In the light of the more important fact that marriage is not a right, the equal protection argument, the "love" argument and all other arguments do not apply in the first place.

So why isn't marriage a right?

If marriage is a "right" in the same essence as equal creation, Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness then it is something that you are guaranteed to have. It is something that cannot be denied to you. It is something that belongs to all of us innately and an object that our government was instituted to protect and make sure that we all have. Knowing that, if someone wants to marry but cannot find someone to wed then what? If no one is willing to marry a person who wants to marry then where does that leave us? It's a right, isn't it?

If it is a right no one would be able to deny someone else the right to marry for any reason, including simply not wanting to. And if no one wants to marry someone who wants to marry then rights have been violated.

A person with the "right to marry" could say: "I want to marry. I have that right." and then use the legal system to uphold that right. But no one wants to marry them. But they have the right to marry. But no one wants to marry them. At this point we enter into a circular loop of argument. This person's "rights" with respect to marriage are not consistent with reality and at this point the only way to achieve their "right to marry" is to force someone who doesn't necessarily want to marry them to marry them.

That sure sounds like a violation of the unalienable rights to Life, Liberty and pursuit of Happiness of the person forced to marry against their will. And it is.

Thus marriage is not a right, but as originally shown a privilege of one's religion.

So where does that leave us:

It leaves us at the only possible conclusion; marriage is not a right. Not only is it not a right, but government does not have the right to define "marriage" outside of religion's definition which is between a man and a woman. To do otherwise violates the free practice of religion by making the definition a legal one rather than a religious one.

It means that homosexuals don't have a claim to marriage unless they belong to a church that is going to accept and practice such a union.

It means that sometimes the things that we want so bad, and for whatever reason are not ours to be had.