(I originally posted this in November of 2008 when the issue in California came to a head the first time… In light of the recent court ruling yesterday I felt perhaps it might deserve a repost, forgive me. And the latest ruling in CA is just so ridiculously irrational as to be a judicial farce, but that’s a whole other point.)
Many of my blogging friends are outraged and depressed over the passage of anti-gay marriage amendments in Arizona, California and Florida this past Tuesday. The simple fact is that in some of those states the very same people who voted in Obama voted out the rights of gays to marry and it’s making folks more than a little upset. Here at chez Tart, we remain unfazed. Why?

Marriage sucks. Marriage should be outlawed. Nobody should be married. Marriage is for neanderthals and pricks (no not the kind I like, ok?). The only reasons semi-right-minded people get married these days are:

• for health insurance rights (an insult to our inherent rights as a human being to health and happiness)
• to please our families (an insult to our independence and sense of self in the face of a worn out tradition that smacks of heterosexism and oppression)
• to get a boatload of gifts that you could get anyway at a big ole party
• in some states, (now Arkansas, as of Tuesday) to adopt children, yes for you straight people now too
• to declare a legal relationship in order to inherit an estate at a reduced tax rate (that rate is currently zero)

Yeah, that’s my opinion. It’s insulting to some of you, I’m sure. And indeed MeatPocket M.Chutney, my lovely “wife” and I got “married” in that we stood up before a hundred or so of our friends and family and declared our unlawful love for one another 15 years ago. It wasn’t legal then, it isn’t legal now. It was SYMBOLIC folks, we had a blast doing it.

Marriage was created as a legal contract between two parties to establish lineage in order to retain property rights. Period. It is not a spiritual union, it never has been. All that churchy stuff was tacked on to make it seem like a nice community oriented matter in order to sell it to the public and mask its true commercial nature and to provide for yet another opportunity of collective effervescence (aka. a party with drunkenness and general good feeling to bond us together). As capitalism grew as a dominant force in world power, the marriage contract grew in importance — wealth accumulated and we needed to know who would inherit it! But with all the fun we were having at weddings and baby christenings and bachelor parties (not in that order, obviously!) we didn’t have our minds on the accumulation and protection of wealth, did we?

In the 20th century, with the advent of a multicultural and postmodern society, (which values tolerance and inclusiveness), stretching the definition of marriage and allowing other types of couples to enter into that contract should be seen as simply a business arrangement transacted for the benefit of the economic forces at hand. Logically, there is no reason to prohibit two men or two women from entering into this type of contract for their common welfare and the welfare of their children. Just as 40 years ago there was no logical reason for prohibiting two people of different races (at that time African-American and white) to be married. However, those old religious trappings have a lasting impact. People have become wed to the mask and have forgotten the original meaning of marriage. That is what capitalism seeks to do, and what it does so well. That is the essence of its success. It takes what is mechanical, inhuman, and purely market-oriented, and masks that with something that thinks, feels, and acts in a way to react to the lived experience of capitalism itself. In other words, it takes a market transaction and makes it feel like a human experience. When any disruption in forces is sought out or naturally comes about to change the workings of capital intentions (the smooth operations of mechanistic contracts) then conflict arises – emotional flareups occur. Read more after the tunes, it’s long, sorry. (edit: But it gets better, I think)

new song for 2009 Elbow, The Bones of You, from The Seldom Seen Kid …. buy it here (this kind of connection can never be represented in a legal relationship)

Nina Simone Be My Husband Let It Be Me (such a sad song, surely no recommendation for marriage!)

Nina Simone Marriage is For Old Folks I Put A Spell On You (here, she really tells it like it is)

Billy Bragg The Marriage Talking With The Taxman About Poetry (well, he did it anyway, alas!)

The Replacements You’re Getting Married Stink (the song NOT to give someone about to get married)

Amy Ray and The Volunteers Let It Ring Live From Knoxville (gotta have one protest song or I lose my membership in Dykes Anonymous!)

(aww, you clicked, thanks!) To change the definition of this legal contract of marriage so that it includes viable partners of either gender or sex, by extension means that either gender or sex can parent and care for children. That is a huge disruption of capitalistic intentions. It throws into chaos the workings of the market itself because the traditional male workforce is only possible by unpaid labor of a female, stay-at-home workforce. Yes, that is a gendered construction. You cannot simply switch the jobs and put just anyone in the slot. It takes generations of indoctrination to make someone feel that they “should” stay home, that they have little or nothing to offer the world, that they are best suited for raising children and not for the public sphere where really smart people do the thinking and the world-changing. Now don’t argue with me that almost as many women as men are in the workforce until you can prove to me that they are earning equal pay. They are not. They are currently earning about 77% of what men earn in the U.S. according to the Census department.

But back to marriage, why shouldn’t queer people fight for marriage rights and be treated like everyone else? I’m all for granting queer people the same rights as any one else, believe me!. But fighting for gay marriage on a state by state level is not the way to go. We exist, here in the U.S.A. under a federation of States. Each state can make its own laws regarding marriage rights and at some point other states will have to recognize them. That tipping point is a long way off in terms of when Arkansas will recognize Massachusetts’ or Connecticut’s gay marriages. But all that is a moot point because one of the most important elements of marriage is the transfer and inheritance of property, remember? And property on a grand scale is not a state matter, it is a Federal matter. So no matter how much you own of a particular state, you are taxed on a Federal level for it, your income is taxed on a Federal level, your pension is taxed and distributed on a Federal level (all of this is also taxed on a State level but to a lesser degree) and when you die your estate is determined by the Federal government as to whom it may be transferred to.

So all those couples who marry in Massachusetts or Connecticut enjoy their state’s rights but still have to file singly for Federal taxes, and still have no inheritance rights in that they will currently pay 50% tax on the remaining estate just like anyone else who inherits an estate from a non relative (legally married survivors can pass estates with no tax, in all cases after the legal limit on gift tax has been exhausted which is currently something like $12,000). Many states or municipalities have civil union or domestic partnership laws (or you can draw up legal contracts privately) so that queer folk cannot be denied other rights such as hospital visitation, adoption, pension rights, child visitation rights, etc…. So what’s the point? One important point is that you might not be lucky enough to live in such a place. And that, my readers, is why we need a FEDERAL law for domestic partnership rights that applies to queer or straight partners.

In sum, marriage is broken beyond repair because of its association with the church and its limitations due to the powers of states in defining it. Capitalism has done such a fine job of masking its economic basis that we need to start over and take the lead in redefining it altogether as a simple contract about property again and redefine it in terms that benefit us. Only then will we be able to be inclusive and fair about who can enter into that contract.

We can, in my perfect society (as long as we’re at it) make healthcare not a right of marriage but of simply living, make retirement not dependent on your relationship to a breadwinner, and allow you to visit your loved one in the hospital regardless of your legal relationship to them, let worthy people adopt who so desire. But then at the same time maybe we can re-think the parameters of what makes a family and find a way to separate the raising of our children from the economic contract altogether and tie them only to the one relationship which matters – the loving care of two important people in their life, their mother and whomever she chooses to share in that responsibility/joy.

So fuck marriage as it is. Let’s chuck it out all together and start fresh. The worst thing the gay rights movement has done in the past 10 years is attach itself to this gay marriage cart. It will not win this fight. You cannot save a tree with dying and dead roots. You must chop it down and extract the stump and plant something else. Your comments and critique are always welcome, I’ve stated my case, thanks for reading if you got this far! xoxox