When Using Logic, Proposition 8 Doesn't Hold Up

I had intended to write a very thorough essay of sorts addressing all of the issues surrounding Proposition 8, an initiative on this year’s California ballot which would alter the California state constitution, eliminating the right of marriage to same sex couples, but being billed as ‘protecting marriage’.  I wanted to talk about each of the many points made by the yes on 8 campaign and shoot them down one by one, exposing illogical conclusions, misrepresentations, and of course outright lies as well.  I thought about appealing to human goodness and a desire for progressive ideologies, hopes of working towards a greater society of tolerant, kind, and supportive communities filled with beautifully respectful and loving individuals.  I even thought about invoking the landmark Loving v. Virginia case in 1967 which overturned the “Racial Integrity Act of 1924” and brought an end to anti-miscegenation laws throughout the United States.  Of course we can look back to this horrendous Act (read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_Integrity_Act_of_1924) and realize clearly, now, that it is and was racist.  But our task at the moment is not to compare movements and persecutions of the past century with those of today.  The question is not why vote NO on Prop 8…but really, why vote yes?  Shouldn’t we have a clear understanding of what we’re voting for, and why?  Would we vote to raise taxes 10% if we didn’t know where the money would be going or why the politicians were asking for it?  I’m curious because, for me (as I believe for most of you), the logic behind this ‘protect traditional marriage’ movement seems shady, boggled, and underformed, at best.

            Which traditional marriages are we talking about here?  It would be silly to say marriages from the good ole days of pre-1967 when racial lines were ‘clearly divided’…and it would be even sillier to say that traditional marriage is the one where the woman, as property, is unloaded by her father to her future husband via a hefty dowry.  Perhaps the next two speculations are a bit less silly.  The Mormons happen to comprise a quite substantial donor base for the yes on 8 campaign, so maybe it is the tradition of polygamy that we are trying to uphold?  Or, as the conservative right rallies around Mrs. Palin, perhaps it is wise to suggest that shotgun weddings, along the lines of the one her daughter is planning to have, are the ones to be preserved?

            It is also possible that a ‘traditional marriage’ is one sanctioned in the church.  This notion butts up against logic pretty quickly, though, as we know that not everyone wants to be married ‘in the church’…and certainly we wouldn’t make Americans conform to some battery of religious requirements.  We all recognize, as good Americans, that the United States is a secular federation based upon religious freedom and the separation of church and state, whereby the church does not, and should not, dictate law.  So, any legislation aimed at preserving marriage as it’s related to religion is unconstitutional and unacceptable.

            The only other argument I can think of in favor of prop 8 is a very misrepresented and fully unintelligent one, using children.  This argument goes something like – ‘the point of getting married is to make babies and raise a family’.  What we must recognize here is that there are many heterosexual couples who are married and, for whatever reason, do not have children.  Are we to say, then, that traditional marriage is a marriage in which children are born and thus, without procreation there can be no marriage?  Should cancer survivors, after having their bodies nuked with radiation and chemotherapy, be denied marriage because they have become infertile or sterile in order to save their own lives?  Or maybe post-menopausal women, whose most atrocious crime is simply aging, should be denied marriage rights?  Having or not having kids, then, doesn’t seem like a good rule with which to identify what type of marriage is traditional and should be condoned.  You don't need to have kids to get married, and you don't need to get married to have kids.  They are often related, yes, but one is not actually, tangibly, linked to the other.  Marriage doesn't produce children, the same way refusing to marry is not an effective form of contraception.

            I’ve yet to get my mind around why we need prop 8.  I don’t understand what the benefit would be, and it brings me to an important point, that making a constitutional amendment is a very, very serious endeavor.  If we do not understand exactly what the Proposition aims to do by ‘protecting marriage’, and if there are no truly compelling arguments in favor of removing rights granted by the constitution, are we not called upon, as conscientious voters, to say NO?  Is it not extremely telling that the proposition’s proponents have a difficult time identifying the ‘why’ in all of this?  We are clear that Proposition 8 states “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California” but there has only been faulty logic and half-baked explanations for such a drastic amendment.

Use your brain.  Ask questions.  Vote NO.