Anarchy, State, and Marriage
Crustacean publicity still,
courtesy of Irena Belle Films.
When I was cast as the bearded fat lady in Crustacean, the horror-comedy movie I’m editing, I thought it might be amusing to run a photo of me in a dress with a satirical Prop 108 [Update: I meant Prop 8] post about how “the fags are ruining marriage.” It would have been in the spirit of Oscar winning Milk star, Sean Penn, and his joke thanking the Academy for being a bunch of “commie homo loving sons of guns.”
But seriously, gays are maybe a tenth of the population, but one in four adults on average, and for some groups, three out of four, have divorced at least once these days. Many don’t bother to get married in the first place, even if they have kids. Gays have little to do with the transformed American family–it’s all because we’ve abandoned Zoroastrianism.
Which leads me to the reason for this post. My friend J. Neil Schulman wrote an article titled “Why gay rights activists need to straighten up” at Rational Review (not to be confused with National Review although Neil has been published there as well, but on the gun control issue).
The gay rights article was also picked up by Free Republic, filed under their Homosexual Agenda category. But Neil says there’s no such thing as a homosexual!
Schulman told me the article is intended to counter political bullying by overzealous gay activists.
From my point of view, there should be a complete separation of marriage and state. But then, you might expect that kind of thing from an atheist anarchist. Here’s what individualist anarchist Benjamin R. Tucker wrote in “State Socialism and Anarchism” back in 1886:
“In the matter of the maintenance and rearing of children the Anarchists would neither institute the communistic nursery which the State Socialists favor nor keep the communistic school system which now prevails. The nurse and the teacher, like the doctor and the preacher, must be selected voluntarily, and their services must be paid for by those who patronize them. Parental rights must not be taken away, and parental responsibilities must not be foisted upon others.”
“Even in so delicate a matter as that of the relations of the sexes the Anarchists do not shrink from the application of their principle. They acknowledge and defend the right of any man and woman, or any men and women, to love each other for as long or as short a time as they can, will, or may. To them legal marriage and legal divorce are equal absurdities. They look forward to a time when every individual, whether man or woman, shall be self-supporting, and when each shall have an independent home of his or her own, whether it be a separate house or rooms in a house with others; when the love relations between these independent individuals shall be as varied as are individual inclinations and attractions; and when the children born of these relations shall belong exclusively to the mothers until old enough to belong to themselves.”
Amen, Hallelujah!
And consider this viewpoint, from Narnia author C.S. Lewis, one of history’s most famous Christians:
“There ought to be two distinct kinds of marriage: one governed by the State with rules enforced on all citizens, the other governed by the Church with rules enforced by her on her own members. The distinction ought to be quite sharp, so that a man knows which couples are married in a Christian sense and which are not.”
If this entire subject seems off topic, I can justify it as dealing with relationships, caring for people, and communication.
According to Steve Fielding, the Australian divorce rate causes global warming. Pay no attention to the agenda behind that pulpit.
February 21st, 2010 at 4:48 am
Marriage is a contract to establish a family corporation; to partake of many the benefits offered by this type of voluntary association, it is necessary to register a family corporation with the government (just as other acts of incorporations are registered).
While it is true that most religious groups have their own ideas about marriage, we must admit that we find the institution of marriage even in atheist societies. Marriage is not purely religious, even though religions have attempted to control it. We should not cede all control over marriage to the religionists - and in fact, we do not surrender to the church on other important aspects of marriage. For example, some religions prohibit re-marriage after divorce among their congregants, but the government does not enforce this religious interpretation on marriage.