Plugs, Sockets and Same-Sex Marriage

By George W. Sarris

I may be somewhat naïve, but I am always amazed at how people can be so blind as to not see the obvious.

I’m thinking right now about the ruling of the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco that determined that the voter approved Proposition 8 ban on same sex marriage in California is unconstitutional.

The rationale of the court was clear –

Although the Constitution permits communities to enact most laws they believe to be desirable, it requires that there be at least a legitimate reason for the passage of a law that treats different classes of people differently. There was no such reason that Proposition 8 could have been enacted . . .

The court determined that there was not a good reason in this situation for treating a man with a woman – as opposed to a man with a man or a woman with a woman – differently.

Of course, I’m somewhat naïve, but I thought the legitimate reason for treating those different classes of people differently was actually pretty obvious:

Until about the last few decades, every culture in the history of the world has understood that marriage is between a man and a woman – because every culture in the history of the world has understood that women and men are different.

And, it’s very clear why. Men and women don’t look alike. Men and women don’t act alike. Men and women don’t even think alike. I have personally witnessed the difference on innumerable occasions – I have a wife and four daughters, and they are very different from me and my son.

That is not to say that one sex is not as important as the other. It just means that men and women are qualitatively different. After all, no matter how much I cajole or rant or rave, there is no way that I can bear a child.

In my home, there are many electrical appliances, and they all have plugs that are inserted into sockets. Interestingly, I have never mistaken a plug for a socket. And, every time I have tried to plug a plug into a plug – or a socket into a socket – it hasn’t worked. Plugs were designed to go into sockets.

But, again, I’m just naïve.