Mister and...

Wove..Twoo wove.

Yeah that's a pretty dumb quote but, it's what came to mind. I am going to tackle the fairly sticky issue of marriage in all it's wonderful forms and splendor and in case you're confused, I'm being pretty sarcastic about that. No no, I'm not going to rant about the dread creature known as Bridezilla, though that certainly could be a topic all on it's own, along with the outrageous costs of most ceremonies. No, I want to talk about the real down and dirty stuff.



Gay marriage. It's somehow as if those two words in and of themselves are a simple hand grenade destined to ignite passions on either side of the debate and their mere utterance causes idiots on either side to raise their hackles. Just those two simple words alone can brand me as an ignorant myopic redneck with a penchant for my niece or as a homosexual hiding in the closet, depending on whom they are uttered to.

For the record, both sides are complete fucking morons. Look, I don't care what your personal preferences are in the bedroom. To be completely blunt, it doesn't fucking matter anyways. Who you love, who you screw, who you are, and what you do, these things do not affect me and my life in any way shape or form. What is at issue here, and what is really really wrong perceptually is that people believe we need a government mandate to allow or deny the practice of gay marriage.

Marriage is, first and foremost, a religious institution. Let me say that again for the slow folks in the audience. Marriage is a religious institution. Have you spotted the key words yet? If so, you get to go to the head of the class. Religious. Nearly every wedding ceremony out there is based on religion, and while yes, I am fully aware that you can go to a justice of the peace and just sign a simple license, the concept of marriage itself began and remains a practice of religion.

Two people get together, have sex, have kids, life continues and everything is wonderful. Oh wait! But sex before marriage is wrong according to the church. Granted not all churches and not everywhere but one cannot deny the influence of the Christian religion on the Western world and culture, so I'm mostly going to be referring to that as it's what I know best. So! Back on point, the church says you cannot fuck before you are bound together. Naturally this brings more people in to the church and more people means more money in the coffers so this makes perfect sense from a business standpoint.

So this goes on for ages and ages, and then the government comes along and automatically the practice becomes regulated by the government. But my big question is, why? Why does the government feel the need to be involved with a religious institution? Fairly simple answer. Taxes. That awful T word that I loathe with every fiber of my being which will likely be the source of another rant ere too long. They have to keep track of families for who to charge when people die, track inheritance and so forth.

But here's the real rub of the issue. Now that they keep track, they also control. It's now become dependent upon them to say who can marry whom and when and where and why and how. The source of marriage says that marriage can only take place between a man and a woman. One man, one woman, that's it, the end. This is how some people want it kept. Other people say you should be allowed to marry who you want as often as you want and however you please.

See what happens when the government involves itself in religious affairs? They can't jump one way or the other for the most part because either way they agitate the people and political officials who agitate the people often lose their office fairly swiftly. They want to retain power, so they stay neutral on the subject unless a vast majority of their constituents swing one way or the other, then it becomes safe to take a stance on such a touchy issue.

Here's the philosophical problem. Giving the government the right to dictate who you can marry is the same thing as giving them the right to command who you're allowed to love. That's right, marriage is a display of love. So by asking the government to regulate in either direction is telling the government you aren't sure who you're allowed to love and asking someone else to make the decision for you as you're incapable of making the decision for yourself.

If you really cannot answer that question for yourself what you need is not regulation. You need self reflection. You need time to sort your morals out for yourself. There is no one who should be making the distinction on what is right or wrong for you. It's something you have to sort out for yourself, and while taking that sort of issue to heart is a frightening prospect for some it is necessary. Otherwise what you are asking the government to do is to limit your freedoms, instead of telling them to stay the hell out of your private life, which is somewhere they don't belong.

Look, I'll make it simple. Gerald Ford said it best, and I ask that everyone keep it in mind "A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have."

Now ask, do you really want the government so intimately involved in your life and your affairs?