The Tin Foil Hat That is "Traditional Marriage"

Opponents of same-sex marriage go out of their way to tell us they just want to preserve so-called traditional marriage. To which the only logical response is, “Which particular tradition are you trying to preserve?”

Do you want to preserve the law against interracial marriages – a law that was struck down in the U.S. in 1967, and (thankfully) never existed at all in Canada?

Do you want to preserve the decidely unromantic business transaction that marriage has been for most of human history? Do you want to preserve marriages that weren’t decided by a couple in love, but rather arranged by parents looking for political or financial gain through the negotiation of “bride price” or dowry?

Do you want to preserve marriages that MUST be consummated without contraception, as directed by the church?

Do you want to preserve the farms and homesteads maintained by small armies of free child labour?

Do you want to preserve the biblical law requiring a man to marry his brother’s widow if she has not yet borne a son? Or the law requiring a virgin who is raped to marry her rapist?

Do you want to preserve the practice of ancient Egyptians allowing a man to marry his sister, his daughter or his niece?

Do you want to preserve the tradition of old men marrying teenage girls as soon as they start menstruating? Or prophets in their 50s marrying six year old girls and consummating the marriage at age nine?

Do you want to preserve the teaching that divorcé(e)s who remarry are committing adultery?

Do you want to preserve the tradition of gay marriage as it was practiced in ancient Rome? And which is currently legal in Canada, Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Belgium, Netherlands, and South Africa without too much hand-wringing?

Do you want to preserve the tradition of polygamy, which was common in biblical times and is still practiced today in 48 countries?

Do you want to preserve the tradition of early Christian churches, which did not perform marriage ceremonies, and didn’t insist on doing so by law until the 1500s? Or the custom of a couple announcing their marriage to family and friends and just setting up house, without the intervention of church or state?

My point is that the institution of marriage has always been an ever-changing thing, and neither marriage as a general concept, nor marriage as an act between two people, is truly sacred. That said, I think the modern definition of marriage is the best one we’ve had so far: two people who love each other willingly deciding to spend their lives together as best they can.

There isn’t a single rational argument to be made against marriage equality, and there never has been. All such arguments rely on religion, hate or plain old ignorance of the facts. None of them have anything to do with love. The claim that marriage has been one man and one woman for 5,000 years is some very shaky ground for planting flags, but it’s all they’ve got.

Without that plea for tradition they’d be forced to admit out loud what they really think: there’s a subset of humanity that is incapable and undeserving of love. And if that kind of hate is how you’ve traditionally defined love, then I’d say that’s a tradition we’d all be better off forgetting.