Something pretty big just happened. One cannot yet be sure how it will turn out, but this is certainly big news, regardless of outcome:

In short, a federal district court judge has ruled the banning of gay marriage to be unconstitutional.

Now… I have had thoughts on this subject for quite some time, and this revelation brings about perfect timing to discuss them.

I know that a huge portion of the population is socially opposed to gay marriage, but this, being a legal matter, should not be considered strictly in social terms, but rather primarily in legal terms.

Legally, marriage is a social contract between two people. The contract legally obliges both parties to one another in certain ways, for example, in respect to finances. In return, married individuals enjoy various legal benefits, specifics varying in different states. In short, marriage is a right given by a country to its people.

Does the framework of the constitution allow for specifications on who can receive this right?

I’m no constitutional scholar, but I think I can understand basic statements. Basic statements such as:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

That’s the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment. Its main intent was to give the right of citizenship to African Americans after the Civil War. Nonetheless, the text does more.

How can the civil rights of marriage be made exclusive to certain persons without contradicting the words “no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges… nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

But those socially opposed to giving gays equal rights to matrimony have a solution to this legal dilemma:

Civil Unions. The solution they have is to offer similar rights without calling it the same thing (you won’t be ‘married’; you’ll be ‘butt-buddies’).

But there are currently less than 10 states that really offer most of the rights of marriage in civil unions. Aside from these, only a handful of states actually recognize legal rights for gay couples at all.

But even if this wasn’t so… Even if each state offered civil unions, it just seems like a rehash of the attempted “separate but equal” compromise during the Civil Rights movement. Just as the Supreme Court decided that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal, I think it is evident that separate legal rights for different groups of people are inherently unequal.

Rights are defined for ‘citizens’ in the constitution. All citizens should receive all of the same rights under the law. Yet, so-called “Defense of Marriage Laws” in the Federal Constitution and many state constitutions explicitly deny the right of marriage to certain citizens. Which is why ‘civil unions’ are needed as an alternative.

But what about civil unions makes them inherently unequal to marriage?

The social aspect.

A gay couple excitedly proclaims their status as newlyweds. The retort comes, “you aren’t actually married.” There are no concrete, clear-cut differences. There is only a difference in language which allows for, no, which necessitates discrimination.

I don’t want to pull a Glenn Beck, but that seems to be pretty much the exact definition of Nazi Deutsch.

I do not see, at all, how one could possibly justify the banning of gay marriage from a civil standpoint. In fact, I rarely hear opponents of gay marriage talk about the civil aspect, likely because they know they can’t win that argument.

Instead they talk about marriage as a sacred institution between a man and a woman. They talk about how allowing homosexuals to marry undermines the religious institution of marriage.

Let’s forget, just for a moment, that heterosexual couples do enough themselves to destroy the religious institution of marriage, what with the atrociously high divorce rates in American culture, frequent adultery, domestic abuse, and so on.

Let’s also forget that conservatives protested the rights of interracial couples to marry with the same fervor now applied to homosexual couples.

Just with most “liberal plots to undermine this great society” (i.e. social security, Medicare, civil rights for blacks, women’s suffrage, etc.), the “sinister” nature is forgotten after the previous generation has died off, and that same ‘leftist institution’ becomes a fundamental core of society.

Let’s forget all of that. Let me instead set up a simplified explanation which will properly illustrate my main point.

Let’s say that the civil rights of a couple legally bound together is solely within the realm of law. We have already established that gays are legally entitled to the same enjoyment of these rights as heterosexual couples. So, then, let us make the term ‘marriage’ strictly social. Let us consider this within the realm of the church.

Let’s also just accept that certain churches are fundamentally against the marriage of homosexuals and will not allow it. That works. And under the first Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, it isn’t within the government’s power to support or to prohibit this. This is not an unprecedented scenario. Cannon law of the Catholic Church, for example, is selective in acceptance of marriages beyond sexual orientation.

Surely, each church has the power to establish what it recognizes as marriage and under what pretenses it will marry any couple. And under the first Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, it isn’t within the government’s power to support or to prohibit this.

And, certainly, many religious institutions would be in support of homosexual marriages if it were not for the explicit denial of this support under so-called ‘Defense of Marriage Laws’. Let’s assume these laws did not exist, as it should be (for they are alarmingly unconstitutional, already established in the 14th Amendment). Certain churches would indeed accept the validity of marriage between a man and a man, or between a woman and a woman. And under the first Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, it would not be within the government’s power to support or to prohibit this.

Here’s the bottom line:

From a purely legal standpoint, it is completely unconstitutional to ban the marriage of homosexual couples.

If one wants to make the debate a religious matter, which one often does if one is a conservative against gay marriage, it is impossible to deny the right of individual churches to allow for the marriage of homosexual couples under its own standards.

This doesn’t mean that every church has to recognize these unions. To the contrary, I fully support each church’s full right to deny recognition under its own standards. And under the first Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, it isn’t within the government’s power to support or to prohibit this.

I am, however, fundamentally opposed to the required integration of these perspectives into laws. And, as it turns out, so is the US Constitution. By now, I don’t think I have to explain myself.

That is, unless you can’t read bold text.