I may be a bit of a romantic, but I’m all in favor of celebrating relationships. I generally support gay marriage as a concept.
The problem, as I see it, is that government has piggybacked all sorts of things onto the one word, “marriage”, and linked them exclusively. Everything from “married filing joint” tax status to “surviving spouse” pension benefits.
Taking that latter example a bit further, such benefits accrue over time, and are funded over years based on actuarial data that depend on the spouses being one of each gender. In 2005, male life expectancy at birth was 75 years in the US, while for females it was 80 — a substantial difference. So every pension that has been building up over the decades would have to have its funding recalculated if significant numbers of male-male and female-female pairs were to join the pool. Potentially, there could be millions of dollars of additional contributions needed.
So far as I know, there has not been a serious effort to inventory all of the places where marriage is referenced in our society. While it would make sense to take such an inventory, evaluate whether each item would change if gay marriage were recognized, and produce a transition plan balancing costs and benefits, this decision does none of those things.
I understand that there is to be a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage on the November ballot. While I would count myself as a gay marriage supporter, I would also likely vote for the amendment — because I’d rather see a historic slight continued than have chaos by judicial fiat. Unfortunately, it seems, there is not going to be a third option of taking a reasonable, thoughtful approach.
