EDITOR’S NOTE: Jon Frosch is a guest columnist not normally appearing in The Daily Reveille.
A very wise (or at least very famous) man once inquired, “War (huh, yeah), what is it good for?” He promptly answered his own query with a resounding “Absolutely nothing!”A great many of my fellow denizens of these United States sadly do not agree with this apt assessment. We can hardly seem to get enough war: wars on drugs, poverty, terrorism, crime, etc. We even elevate football to war, as evidenced by Nike’s recent introduction of the ProCombat line of gear.Perhaps more distressingly, this is also the country that managed to turn the commemoration, on Armistice Day, of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11thmonth of 1918 that brought an end to the senseless slaughter in the fields of Flanders, a celebration of peace if there ever was one, and turn it into the paean to the military-industrial complex known as Veterans Day.Deep-seated issues of federal psyche aside, why does this matter? Well, in the week leading up to this celebration of war, marked also by the launch of explicitly war-themed football uniforms, 53 percent of the citizens of Maine who felt strongly enough to vote decided to declare war upon their fellows, who want nothing more than the freedom to associate as they see fit. This 53 percent launched an invasion into bedrooms and lives that great generals of history would be envious of — simply because their numbers are greater. Ah, the tyranny of the majority.The point, however, is not to cast aspersions upon the good people of Maine; after all, we in the glass house of Louisiana had 73 percent of voters approve the same thing. Rather, the point is this: How in the world did we get to the point where the majority of a body politic thinks it’s their business to proscribe how people outside the majority may choose to form and describe their relationships?The question is simply this: What business is it of mine (or anyone else’s) whether you want to marry a man, a woman or your pet manatee? An even wiser man than Edwin Starr provides the answer for why it is not: “It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”Wherefore, then, the furor? What harm could one marriage, whatever form it may take, possibly do to another couple not party to the civil marriage contract? Some will spread the red-herring argument that letting men marry men, women marry women and people marry spider horses devalues marriage. If the action of another so easily defiles one’s own marriage, perhaps it was of no great value to begin with.Such statistics as skyrocketing divorce rates also indicate that marriage, at least in the civil realm, is what one makes of it, not some incorruptible shibboleth handed down from the mists of time. As far as the state is concerned, it is a contract, nothing more. Additional meaning from one’s own beliefs is private and cannot be devalued by the actions of others.How can we fix this sad state of affairs? Simply remove the state from our affairs. The state needs to get out of the marriage business. Prior to the awakening of the modern state’s desire to control every aspect of life, a very serviceable structure for marriage existed: a dual system of both religion and repute.Religions, as free associations of like-minded persons, can morally set restrictions on marriages between their adherents, as one can leave at any time. Repute simply refers to the old custom of considering a group married if they have lived as married for a customary period of time. Simply boot the state from the bedroom and end the war, “Cuz it means destruction of innocent lives.”Jon Frosch is a 24-year old library and information science graduate student from New Orleans._____Contact The Daily Reveille’s opinion staff at [email protected]