It is a mechanism used to exemplify these natural, innate feelings of attachment humans have for a life partner. In our culture, “marriage” has become nothing more than the adornment of ceremony, the infliction of restraint, of rules and consequences as well as — probably most disturbing — the special recognition by legal, economic and theological institutions.

Marriage has become contractual in more ways than just between people. It is a denotation — a status of political and (frighteningly) religious obligation. It has become a differentiation of the populace, laying a basis for discrimination. It is ridiculous to believe that the original concept of lifelong partnership, of love epitomized in the bond of two people, can be warped by some self-righteous subjective authority to deny inherent human desires to some while allowing them to others. To restrain and allocate not only the cultural acceptance of, but the disgustingly inbred association of governmental rights and restrictions, is a power ill-gotten through the manipulation of fear, hate and power.

Common opinion is easy to defend because it has the intrinsic characteristic of authority by majority. Of course, whatever constitutes this authority — perhaps some amalgam of stupidity, anxiety, discomfort and social pressure — can be nothing more than the security blanket of the weak-minded.

There is no argument to be made because most people think it. Upon examination, the reason they think it is simply because their neighbor does, or their mother or George Rekers. The hypocrisy of the last one should be enough to convince most that authority by majority is but an excuse to substitute one’s own mental capacities for those of others. When we let others think for us, we’re liable for all the cultural stigmatization, the social pain and suffering caused by our inability to act for ourselves.

Now we have marriage that some presumptuous dogmatist has narrowly defined as only possible between a man and a woman. Defined as only that edifice recognized by the common religious opinion of our nation. Somewhere in the deterioration of our humane senses of ethics and morality we’ve come to believe that only a man and a woman can love each other; that only a man and a woman are allowed the social, political and economic benefits the designatory badge of “defender of common opinion” has honored them with.

Sadly, we’ve normalized the propaganda of sacrificing self-thought for that of common opinion; we’ve taught ourselves that true power comes from the common authority, and therefore fail to see that common authority is only the confluence of fear, hate and desperation.

For a judge to declare that two men cannot marry because marriage is defined as a union between a man and a woman is akin to saying “it is by common authority, and hence from the fear we have of things different from the common opinion; the hate we harbor for things that are not of the common opinion; and the desperation we foster in preserving the common opinion because we fear we might be wrong.

We fear having to confront the hidden truths of the warped and deformed foundation of our beliefs that have manifested because we deferred our mental capacities to an opinion of power. We declare, in obvious circularity, that we cannot allow you to marry because we have decided that you are incapable of loving each other as much as a man and a woman and therefore are not deserving of any social or political benefit that such a contract would bring.”

This is marriage. This is what we have done to it, and people suffer because power still is more important than reason.

Nicholas Earl is a State News guest columnist. Reach him at earlnich@msu.edu.