While the Supreme Court waffles around with the hot potato issue of Gay Marriage - hoping to kick it quietly back to the states - Have you seen the way they are doing their best to look thoughtfully and intelligently into this complex issue with the big elephant sitting with them that screams, "We don't want to be the ones who have to knock it down please please please let us off on a technicality!"? And the media isn't helping them at all by making the issue out to be about gay rights versus straight hegemony.
What the Supreme Court justices know but are not saying is that the issue is about equality and more specifically the defining strata of equality and how our civic laws and codes of conduct are built upon one foundation, and to change that foundation (which needs to be changed) will set a precedent and open a watershed of new foundation-changing legislation which will have a ripple effect in every sector. The primary and most invasive change would be re-writing the entire way in which America taxes society. Legalizing gay marriage will raise more questions and open more Pandora's boxes than its worth and the justices know this - but they are not opening this dialogue. They are hoping to avoid lancing this blister using the technicality of the case not supposed to ever having been presented to them. The state of California was supposed to bring the case to the Supreme Court but a private party did instead, and in a private party bringing it, the case may not even be qualified for the justices' review....which is what they want - easier to get the issue turned around than to have to deal with it.
And here is what is at stake: our whole tax system, our models for economic growth, our societal codes and business models are all based on the entrenched institution of marriage and family defined as man, woman, children. From a legal perspective, for whatever reasons, and all faith aside, our society created rules, laws and codes based on sex and sexuality. Society has created and structured economic codes around the monogamous relationship between a man and woman. To make legal or to amend the institution to include man-man, or woman-woman isn't just simply about equalizing rights between all genders. The bigger issue is this: legalizing gay marriage opens the door for equal choice - period. If I can name another woman that I want to entitle to call my spouse for the sake of insurance coverage, inheritance, parenting their child, hospital visits, tax filing, etc, then why couldn't I name anyone? Why just one person? Why not two or three? Why shouldn't any person be able to legally give any other person or people of their choice or sexual preference rights to my legal standing? Why a person? Why does it have to be an adult? Why not my pet? My computer? I am not trying to be funny I am trying to illustrate that any combination of people or things should have the right to name and enable any other party to have the rights of a spouse. And that is the door of debate the Supreme Court is avoiding. The more we redefine legal marriage, the more we exclude unrepresented minorities who want to have and participate in the rights they pay for with their taxes. The more we change the foundation that we model our commerce upon, the more we need to rewrite how we tax and represent people.
Foucault wrote and spoke out about the way in which societies build their economic strata and hegemonic order on sex and sexuality. He imagined and or, rather, he challenged all of us to imagine what society would look like if it were not based on sexual taboos and expectations. In his book Sex and Sexuality his thesis is grounded in the axis of when societal economics converges with sexual codes of conduct. This is exactly what the Supreme Court is facing, and they would be well served to seek the work of Foucault as they consider this secular issue that will affect all of us.
Everyone deserves to be treated equally, legally, and taxed equally under society's laws. By advancing gay marriage I would compel all gays to consider how they feel about polygamy and their rights, or legal age and the rights of minors to 'marry', or the rights of animal lovers to 'marry' animals. These are the silent and oppressed minorities who will gain a voice with legalized gay marriage - - and from a legal point of view - - shouldn't they?
Society and what it idolizes and how it worships its idols is all determined by the majority. So, how do you treat everyone fairly? That's what we are dealing with. This is not merely about gays versus straight. It just looks like it on the surface because the surface is the only thing the media is covering, and its the only thing the Supreme Court is ice-skating on.
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