Government Marriage

Carrie Prejean (pictured), the runner up of this year's Miss USA pageant, recently became the center of a fire-storm over her comments about gay marriage. "Both" sides of the argument are using her personal opposition to gay marriage as some kind beacon for their own viewpoints. People like Perez Hilton are using every opportunity to attack and disparage her while Fox News and others on the Right are doing everything they can to defend her "honor". This firestorm started simply because someone that most of the country barely even knew made a statement based on what she probably spent her entire life hearing and believing. She is a person that would have already been out of the spotlight (for what it's worth) had she not made those comments.

What supporters of gay marriage don't understand is that by attacking and insulting her, they are just galvanizing the opposition. Insulting a person is definitely not the way to change their mind. She is also well within her rights to make the comments that she did. As wrongheaded as we might think what she said is, its much better to ignore or debate what she said then it is to attack her. There is nothing good that can come from yelling and screaming at someone and trying into browbeat them to your point of view. All it accomplishes is making you and your point of view look dumber and more reactionary then what you are fighting against. One of the great problems with the current American political discourse is that people can no longer discuss ideas without attacking the other side.

Also, why is the government involved in the business of marriage in the first place? As much as people want to pretend it's not, marriage is a largely religious institution and is, in fact, traditionally between a man and a woman. However, like all religious traditions, there are varying degrees that people and churches practice it. If people are so desperate for government involvement and enforcement of relationships, then at most the government should enforce civil union contracts. That way the government is completely separated from any of the religious aspects. There is then no reason for these contracts to be barred from any two consenting adults. If those two people want a marriage, then it is up to them, whoever they are, to find a religious institution that will marry them. It should also be the church's right to deny whoever they want. Part of being free is that there are people that will do things that you don't like.