Marriage not
threatened by gays seeking to wed
EDITORIAL, Home News
Tribune Online, February 19, 2006
The long-awaited showdown over gay
marriage arrived before the New Jersey Supreme Court last week, with much of the
hoopla one might expect: There were more than 20 briefs filed to support
one side or the other in the case; there was a great deal of attention paid by
the media; there was a standing-room-only crowd inside the courtroom, and
between 100 and 200 activists outside, the majority there to support the cause
rather than denigrate it.
But it wasn't clear that most New Jerseyans gave the day, or the case, a second
thought, suggesting what many have long argued: that while the issue
exorcises politicians, and is of supreme importance to those intimately
connected to it — either because they are homosexuals who would like to marry,
or because they are deeply religious people who are convinced their beliefs
forbid it — it does not generate the deep passions in the general population
most of those who oppose it claim.
There is no doubt that society, and with it the government, has an interest in
protecting and encouraging marriage, given that stable families are a seemingly
indispensable force in raising happy, healthy, productive children who become
involved, responsible citizens. It also is true that marriage has long
been viewed as sacred by the world's religions, although modern marriages
receive their legal sanction from the state, not the church.
Despite the public concerns, however, at heart marriage is a distinctly private
issue, a complex and often inexplicable relationship that involves two people.
And the privacy integral to the union is a quality the public seems to grasp
much more readily than any of those who claim to defend its sanctity.
If New Jersey polls are correct, the majority doesn't believe the state should
say who can and cannot marry, any more than people want the state to tell them
in what towns they can live or whom they can call friends; in other words,
neither the social constructs erected around the institution nor the historical
significance attached to it override the privacy at its core.
The issue before the New Jersey courts, of course, was narrower; neither the
state nor the plaintiffs bothered to argue that gay marriage should be outlawed.
State lawyers argued only that the issue should be decided by the Legislature,
not the courts, while the plaintiffs said gays' right to marry was protected by
the N.J. Constitution, and therefore needed no further legislation.
In a perfect world, the Legislature would already have acted with an explicit
law, so the Supreme Court was not left to grant a right that will almost surely
be viewed as overstepping its bounds, at least by those who disagree with it.
So far, however, legislators have been loath to act, mostly because they fear
the consequences. In the next few months, they ought to gather up their
courage, look around them, and accept what the majority of New Jerseyans seem
already to have grasped: the sanctity of marriage, at least as defined by
the state, is not threatened by gays' desire to partake in it.
A state that already has given gays the right to adopt and to receive benefits
under its domestic partnership law ought not to deny homosexuals and their
rapidly growing families the symbolic and social benefits of marriage.
As one protester put it last week: "Every religion should choose what it
does with marriage. But (the question of whether New Jersey should
recognize gay marriages) is a civil-rights issue."
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