Prop 8, Gay Marriage: Why Do You Care?

No, I’m not asking supporters of gay marriage why they care. My question is for those who are against it.

I have been told that it is naïve to ask this question, but I can’t help coming back to it. Why would you want to control other people’s right to marry? How can that possibly matter? And, how do you justify who you single out for exclusion from the legal aspect of marriage?

Right now as long as the couple consists of one male and one female, both human and both of legal age (which varies), any couple can become legally married. I can think of some restrictions we don’t have that would make sense to me:

You have to love each other
You have to truly intend to stay together for the rest of your lives

I don’t know, something as simple as a genuine intent to honor whatever vows you take? That is something I can understand.

But we don’t have those restrictions. We have divorce. We have people getting married to secure green cards. And then we have the “trial marriage.”

I don’t even know how it would be possible to put that sort of thing into law. I don’t think divorce should be outlawed, because I believe too strongly in freedom and personal choice. But I don’t understand how legalizing gay marriage can be said to violate the “sanctity of marriage” while divorce is perfectly legal.

To get even weirder, I know people who are absolutely not homophobic but are against gay marriage. And, I know people who are homophobes, but still think it’s totally stupid, pointless, and makes no sense to “outlaw” gay marriage.

And that’s another thing. What’s with the term “legalize”? When I hear it put that way I think of it like legalizing pot. I mean, when I first heard it put that way I was totally freaked out because I actually thought that meant that gay marriage was a crime. That was back before I understood the difference between legally recognized marriage and marriage that people enter into of their own accord with or without the government’s stamp of approval. But still, when I hear that term my mind wanders into the whole thing of decriminalizing first, and then….