Same sex unbundling

You have likely seen the theme of “unbundling” in the last couple of years.  News delivery is unbundled from sheets of paper, education is unbundled from classrooms, and cinematic storytelling is unbundled from gathering places like theaters.   The same-sex marriage debate has created yet another unbundling, I think.  The previous bundle was a civil, religious, and social institution called “marriage.”  The driving public forced the hand of highway administrators in reinstating the 70 miles-per-hour speed limit on interstate roads.  Similarly, the general public’s de facto choices have forced the hand of jurists to unbundle marriage into its constituent parts:  the civil piece for property and custody rights, the religious piece for sacred promises, and the social piece for celebrating household formation. 

This is a watershed moment for the United States.  We are on the verge of acknowledging the gray instead of the straight jacket of the black-and-white.  The Founders were neither saints nor villains.  They had good ideas that were meaningful in their day and were formed by the circumstances of their day.  One of those ideas was accountability to a higher authority than self in making profound choices like forming a government.  Religious ideals were an important part of our headwaters.

The gray that we confront is the means by which we define the difference in our internal moral compass (religion, if any,) and our collective social contract (the judicial system.)  Our social contract is based on individual liberty to the extent that it does not harm the greater good.  The preamble to Robert’s Rules of Order justifies  parliamentary procedure:  for a minority to live according to the rules of the majority, the majority must show respect for the minority’s views.  With abortion, pornography, alcoholic beverages, and flag-burning, we have demonstrated that we can abide peacefully amidst the dichotomy of law and religion.  As a society interested in promoting national self-determination for other democracies, we openly long for them to achieve secular governments.  This is our moment to live by this standard in our own behavior. 

With lifetime power vested with the Supreme Court, it is surprising when the pundits speculate that the Court would like to find a way to dispense with Prop 8 and DOMA without making a sweeping declaration of rights.  Many are saying that the Court would like to remand based on proponents’ lack of legal standing, theorizing that this would buy time for public sentiment to evolve sufficiently to harmonize with a broad rights declaration.  One wonders about the numbers game – presumably, the Court will divide ideologically with four each on the right and left, leaving Justice Kennedy as the fence sitter.  If he is the only fence sitter, and he is angling for remand as a way to buy time, I can imagine the torment in his soul.  Not wanting to play the role of god in adjudicating a dispute over a radical divide, he seeks the company of his fellow man to gather around him and signal readiness to move forward.   

Little wonder that he seeks company – the only certainty surrounding this bridge to the future is that we will not be able to anticipate every consequence.  At times like this, to enable action, we seek the comfort of our culture: 

 With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.