American tragedy

We have recently heard   sound bites and seen news blurbs along the line of "Carson throws red meat to the evangelicals." This refers to the bottom of the barrel former surgeon and current moron's last desperate clutch at the so-called consciences of the far right self styled Christians.  The gist of his message is that the government needs to "protect" Christians from attacks on their religious beliefs. This is hardly new, since Republican vote whores have been invoking this since Jerry Falwell was cruising men's rooms in Roanoke. Oh, that wasn't him? My bad.

Carson,  just like the multitude of sycophants (a dwindling mass, true) who hang on his every word, just doesn't get it. Some of those on the far right are aware that they are lying but are willing to do it for votes. Ben Carson isn't and never has been, that smart. In the faint  hope that even one person might  accidently  read this and go, "Oh, really? I didn't know that,"  I will endeavor one last time to parse this issue in simplest terms.

The definition generally starts like this: "Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a socially or ritually recognized union or legal contract between spouses that establishes rights and obligations between them......"

The origins of this practice are not religious, but practical, the object being to delineate by law such things as inheritance and property rights.  The Pilgrims, those paragons of early American Christian virtue  considered marriage too important to do as a religious sacrament, rather it was done as a legal proceeding. In many cases, but not all, there might well have been a ceremony following which was religious. In fact, the "definition" of marriage was done by persons of various faiths taking it from legal into the faith related arena. The basic legal nature of marriage is immediately recognized by several factors. First, special dispensation has been passed to the clergy to perform such unions, but judges, ship captains and other functionaries may perform them with zero religious connotation. It remains the only legally binding duty of the clergy. 

So what the Christian right really wants is the right to define marriage as they want, which right they have always had, just like defining "beauty'' or any other subjective issue. They are, of course welcome to, in their private lives cling to that belief. What many either don't know (doubtful) or, more likely don't want to recognize, is that marriage (the legal definition, not the religious one) carries rights and responsibilities without any further burden on the spouses. There are assumed relationships and prerogatives  which are conferred due to wedlock which would require reams of paperwork for non spousal couples to complete just to insure the same basic  rights. 

Hospital visitation, co- insurance, inheritance, shared domicile, joint tax status, etc are but a few such matters. By law, an unmarried couple (same sex or man and woman) have few if any rights. The classic case is a same sex couple of 20 or more years' relationship, who when one becomes ill, the parents of the other step in and forbid the partner even the civility of hospital visitation. In one such case of which I am aware , the parents  came to the house and seized their son's belongings, even though they were actually joint property.

Marry these two and the game changes , dramatically.  Just one piece of paper. Marriage is about property rights,  and all citizens who make that commitment deserve the full protection of the law.  If a couple decides to also hold a religious ceremony, so be it.  No one in the world has ever tried to deny them that. 

Or have they?  Consider  the USSC case of   Loving  vs. Virginia, decided in 1967. In 1958,  a mixed race couple married in the District of Columbia and returned to their home in Virginia. They were promptly charged with violating a Virginia Statute of some 40 years' standing, which forbid "white" and "colored" persons to marry.  Understand, Virginia (and several other Southern states had defined marriage as a union between persons only of the same racial background. Is that Biblical? Hardly.  Is it racist and bigoted? Of course. In fact that darling of mindless conservatives everywhere, Clarence Thomas,  only missed the same fate by four years, marrying his white college sweetheart in 1971.  

So claiming religious rectitude and claiming abrogation of rights simply because you don't get to define this legal process the way others may, has precedent. Loving vs. Virginia was specifically cited as precedent in the recent same sex marriage decision by the USSC. 

It's simple really. In Carson Land, persons who are by their  nature heterosexual are welcome to all the legal benefits of marriage, while persons who are,  just as much by nature, homosexual  face the ire of the Carsons, Cruzes, Santorums and others  who, far from being attacked, are on the offensive in circumstances which harm no one, simply because they think differently. Their rights are not under attack. What they really fear is the loss of the ability to abuse blameless persons by forcing them  to conform to their beliefs.  They are ignorant people who wear that ignorance as if it were the red badge of courage. The American tragedy is that anyone with a brain listens to their vile drivel.