A recurring issue in American politics, but one that is being debated in almost every country around the globe, is gay marriage. A few countries, and I'm pleased to say that South Africa is one of them, recognize gay marriages. I heard this question being posed again today in a television interview (in America) and it got me thinking - what is all the fuss about? Why can marriage not simply be a legalized union between two committed people? Why is it necessary for the marriage debate to be couched in religious terms? Why do many of those who oppose gay marriage fear its legalization so much?
It seems to me that two people committed to a monogamous relationship should be something that most people would welcome. The loudest voices against gay marriage are also those who decry the eroding of what they see as traditional values and the footloose and fancy-free lifestyle of many of the current generation. Surely there is nothing as socially traditional as marriage, wherein two people pledge to remain faithful to each other to the exclusion of all others. I am fully aware that these people would also say that being gay is part of this process of eroding traditional values, but gays have always and will always be part of every society's makeup and wishing them away will not make it so. Therefore, why not include them in the traditional social structures where they can be held accountable to traditional values, including those of marriage?
Among the strongest voices against the legalization of gay marriage are those from the religious rightwing. Rightwing Jews, Christians and Muslims base their views on their scriptures, documents of myth, legend and superstition, through which they invoke the "revelations" of their god as a condemnation of homosexuality and hence gay marriage. But beyond this, they use their scriptures to claim that the word "marriage" refers to the union of a man and a woman for purposes of procreation and therefore do not want the word used in homosexual relationships, which cannot result in the production of children. One then has to wonder whether a traditional heterosexual marriage that does not produce children, whether due to biological problems or by choice, can still be regarded as a marriage.
Another possible, unspoken, issue regarding legalizing gay marriage is that it would undermine society's self-appointed moral "authorities". These people trumpet their vitriolic views from their morality platforms, bolstered either by their worshipping flock of adherents who provide them with a sense of their own importance, or by the fact that their evangelical views are beyond the realms of normal law, protected as they are by the guise of religion. Should gay marriage be legalized, their ineffectiveness as bulwarks of an increasingly dwindling conservative society would be more fully exposed.
Marriage is a union of commitment, loyalty, faithfulness and love, but it is equally a legal status that lends protection and rights to those in the marriage. It is intolerable to me that long-standing gay relationships, which have all the emotional aspects of a traditional heterosexual relationship, should be denied legal, and equal, standing as marriages. Some have argued that gay unions can and are indeed legalized in many countries that have not yet legalized gay marriage, although they are not called marriages, the idea being that a rose by any other name smells just as sweet. But no well-informed person would call a rose a daisy.
Dion Marc Delport
11 January 2009