Gay marriage bans show too much government

Since last week’s election, there has been much discussion on both sides of the aisle about the need to — in the words of our president-elect — “set aside politics.” Presuming this is a good idea, I can think of no better place to start than with an issue that has captured its fair share of the political spotlight: gay marriage.

At first glance, this issue might not seem the likeliest one on which to build bipartisan consensus. With the addition of Arizona, California and Florida, 30 states have now enacted gay marriage bans — bans that came in each case with heated and often quite polarizing debates. So where, one might reasonably ask, lies the potential for agreement?

As with most political debates, agreement here requires framing the issue in a manner that exposes what’s at stake. So let’s begin with a fairly basic, and oddly ignored, question: Why should governments be sanctioning marriage — any marriage — in the first place?

When we think of what governments should legitimately do — provide police and fire protection, build roads and lighthouses, defend borders — the idea of sanctioning marriage immediately sticks out as an anomaly, all the more so for those who wish to keep government’s activities to a minimum.

Think about it: Weddings are often religious affairs conducted according to religious traditions. In these cases, what added purpose is there in legally recognizing what a religious body has done?

There are a few answers to that question. From the perspective of those of us who marry, state sanctioning provides numerous legal protections; protections that, for instance, allow us to provide for our spouses after we die and to extend medical benefits to them before then. And when marriages fail, as half do, state sanctioning allows courts to ensure that property and, more importantly, parental responsibility are distributed in the best interests of all parties.

It is precisely because we like such benefits that states provide them. But that isn’t the only reason. Even absent our demand for marital rights, states have a vested interest in seeing people marry. The general thinking here is that marriage provides social stability, and social stability is a good thing. People may quibble with this claim, but it is surely true that in most societies the family is the first and often most important social safety net.

Now, notice in all of this that no mention whatsoever was made of gender. Both the individual and the public interests in marriage in no way rest on it being between members of the opposite sex. In terms of these governmental justifications, the matter of who is marrying — their gender, their race, their religion — is simply not relevant. All that counts is that there is an intimate bond between two individuals, a bond that individuals want protected and that the state wants to promote.

To be sure, one might want to argue that there is more than just stability and civil rights at stake; that the state may (or should) also wish to affirm the sanctity of heterosexual unions. But here we need to remember that the issue is state-sanctioned marriage. If a church chooses not to marry two people — for whatever reason — that’s a religious matter and, as such, is none of the state’s business. Offended couples are, of course, free to find another church.

Unlike religious bodies, however, governments need to tread cautiously. That fact is especially true in America, where religious and moral commitments are widely viewed as private matters. This is not a partisan claim: Conscientious members of both parties would surely reject the idea that we can use the state to foist our deeply held beliefs on our fellow citizens.

And yet, affirming through law the sanctity of heterosexual marriage does just that. In essence the state is anointing an “American way” of intimacy, and it is difficult to imagine how the real American way could be any more imperiled.

The matter is not simply one of high ideals, however, for at the root of these ideals lie very real and troubling concerns most Americans have about religiously based laws. One need only consider that there is nothing in the logic of legislative bans on gay marriage that prevents a similar ban on, say, Christian marriage. That won’t happen any time soon, but that fact hardly makes the logic any less menacing.

So, to paraphrase Voltaire, while you may not like your neighbors’ gay relationship, you should, as a loyal American — Democrat or Republican — defend to the death their right to marry.

• Peter Lindsay is associate professor of political science and philosophy at Georgia State University.