All My Children by Martha Thomases: Brilliant Disguise

November 22, 2008 Martha Thomases 13 Comments

Last week’s column seems to have started an interesting discussion. We were discussing marriage, civil unions, and which citizens should be allowed to enter into these legal (not religious) relationships.

Since I’m nothing if not a whore for comments, let’s continue.

Some of the objections to gay marriage contend that it opens the door to legalizing other relationships, including incest, polygamy and polyandry.  Although I don’t agree that this would happen, let’s leave that aside for the moment.

It seems to me that people confuse marriage as it is defined legally with any sexual relationship.  To me, this demeans marriage.  Not that I think sex is demeaning – quite the opposite.  But it’s an activity, not a relationship.

Thanks to our courts recognizing that we have a right to privacy in this country, most of the laws that criminalize sexual activities between consenting adults have been stricken from the books.

Let’s talk about the next set of exceptions.  Some institutions have their own sets of rules:  professors cannot have sex with students, priests and other religious leaders with members of their congregations, therapists with patients, bosses with subordinates.  In these cases, the law recognizes that there is an imbalance in power between the two people, and that the less powerful person might feel coerced, not able to freely choose.

So, for the most part, we’re free to have sex with whomever we choose, providing we’re both adults.  And, as long as there is consent, we’re free to have whatever kind of sex we want. Yes, there are still a few backwoods places that consider “sodomy” to be evil, but I suspect most people don’t realize that, legally, sodomy is anything but penis/vagina sex, and I doubt if, even there, folks are being arrested for blowjobs.

This is not to say the laws shouldn’t be repealed.  They should.  As long as they’re on the books, people can be threatened with jail, blackmail or public humiliation.  Laws like this are perfect for the kind of selective enforcement that is biased by definition.  Also, the idea of cops spying on people to see if they’re breaking these laws creeps me out – although it would be a funny Simpsons episode.

There are also no laws regulating how many sexual partners a person can have.  We are, each of us, allowed to negotiate this in our relationships.  You can date more than one person at a time, have friends with benefits, or be a serial monogamist.  Adultery can be grounds for divorce, but only if one of the parties sues on those grounds.  If they agree it’s okay with them, it’s okay.

We have all kinds of relationships with people that are not defined legally.  Marriage, however, is so defined.  That’s because, among other things, marriage is about more than sex.  It’s a partnership between two people formed for the purpose of having a family.  Married couples make medical decisions for themselves and their minor children.  They share financial responsibilities.

My husband has the right to take me off life-support if it’s extending my life artificially, and I might have to do the same for him.  We cook and clean up after each other.  We co-mingle our funds.  He knows the correct answer to “Do I look fat in this?” (which is, “Of course not, darling!  In fact, you need pie!”)

It is the daily ness of our relationship, our interdependence that makes us married.  I don’t think any other two people would have the same relationship, nor would they be satisfied with it if they could.  And vice versa.  Couples are even more different from each other than individuals.

It helps society that we form families.  They keep neighborhoods are more stable, and take care of children, the elderly and the weak.  Instead of limiting these responsibilities, we should be finding ways of encouraging people to want them.

In 1990, when Clark Kent proposed to Lois Lane, I got a lot of questions from reporters about whether or not they had sex before marriage.  (Yes, our national discourse is in the gutter, and has been for decades.)  Being a responsible publicist and only wanting to give truthful answers, I asked then-Superman editor, Mike Carlin.  He told me, “That’s private.”

I think the Constitution should recognize that this is true for all of us.

—
Media Goddess Martha Thomases wishes everyone a Thanksgiving and thanks them for this new year.