In Defense of Marriage?

There are a number of laws, proposed laws, editorials and statements being made of late concerning the issues surrounding the issue of same sex marriage. The arguments on both sides are almost entirely emotional.

One major point raised in favor of the laws would be that it would keep the courts from becoming involved with marriage issues. The idea is that the rules are simple and that the passage of the law would keep such issues out of the courts.

I am not a lawyer, but it is clear to me that the language in some of these bills would cause great confusion and many nasty court cases if strictly followed. I am not going to talk about the impact to homosexuals, but the impact to others. As I researched these issues I was surprised by the numbers involved. There are probably at least five hundred thousand people in the United States alone.

Here is the wording of the “simple” proposition proposed for my state of Arizona:

Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state.

Sounds simple enough right? Well let’s start taking this simple sentence apart. We must agree on the meanings of the words. So what does it mean to be a man or a woman?

Let us start with some simple definitions:

A) It is what is on a person’s birth certificate:

Here we have some issues that will bring in the courts. What if the person does not have a birth certificate? What if a typographical error has been made and is discovered only after a marriage has occurred?

We all know from television and many from personal experience how the system is supposed to work. The doctor/midwife looks at the newborn baby and states “it’s a girl” or “it’s a boy”. What is not well known is that sometimes the answer is: “it’s ah….. hang on a minute..” Many babies have some characteristics of both sexes. It is not always clear at birth what the sex of a baby is!

These cases are infrequent, but estimates of the numbers run from one in a hundred to one in ten thousand. There are several thousand people in the United States who would be affected.

In the past there were no genetic tests to decide the issue. The doctor is standing there and knows that family members are frequently waiting in the waiting room for the status of the baby and a decision must be made soon. If the child is born and goes home from the hospital and a decision has not been made, talk will swirl around the child for the rest of the child life. Some tests are done and in many cases a guess is made. Frequently surgery is performed to “normalize” the appearance of the genitals. Female gender assignment is popular as the surgery is generally simpler.

The birth certificate is signed and mostly they pretend nothing unusual has happened until the child reaches puberty. Hormones are frequently prescribed to reinforce the decision made at the birth. Hopefully the child will be informed of the issues. In some cases the individuals have only discovered the truth after they fail to have children.

If you wish to obtain more information start your searches with the words “Ambiguous Genitalia”

B) Use Genetic Test Results:

We do not test everyone at birth genetically to see what their sex is. These tests would take time. If these test are important enough to be given at birth, do we also need to give them to people who are applying for a marriage license? Based on the above, some people will be surprised by the results.

There are other circumstances where the genetic test results are ambiguous or just wrong. I do not want to spend the time here to detail all of the examples that exist. To start your search, look for “Klinefelter”, and “Human Chimeras”. If believe this stuff is fabricated, consider Siamese twins. And you can search for “Britney and Aby”. I hope they do not get dragged into court if one of them decides to get married as they could have problems with the word one in the proposed Arizona law.

There are probably more unique cases that are not known to the public.

C) Don’t allow people who can’t have children to marry.

I don’t think I need to say much about this as I do not think the primary reason for marriage is to create children. If you think that is the purpose we should require fertility tests, and force a divorce on any couple who become too old to create children….

The current state of things

Ok, it is a mess. There are almost certainly same sex marriages in every state of the union. Probably the current rule in place in most of the states is that two people can get married if one of them is living as a woman and the other is living as a man. Perhaps not a bad rule but the edges are quite gray.

Despite all the attempts that have been to change the nature of the law, interpretation of marriage laws is currently left up to the courts. A judge can look at the intent of the marriage and decide if it meets his/her criteria. We can put the laws that have been proposed on the books, but if an attempt to enforce them is made lots of innocent people will be hurt.

I have to ask what the threat is to my twenty plus year marriage is that will justify the possible distress to the others who made no choices that led to their issues.