Banning same-sex marriage diminishes all of our freedoms

My wife and I will celebrate our 23rd anniversary next week.

Some people think we might not have made it as a couple if gay people had been allowed to marry. The institution would have been devalued, I suppose, or we might have chosen to explore our inner gayness.

Of course, gay people can marry, as long as they don't marry someone of the same gender.

Wednesday the Washington Supreme Court upheld the 1998 Defense of Marriage Act, which bans same-gender marriage in the state.

I wouldn't be too hard on the court, even though the drive behind the law derives from church teachings more than anything else. That should have swayed the justices against the law. But it's the Legislature that needs a talking-to for passing the law in the first place.

If they wanted to help families, they could get busy addressing the condition of education in Washington, or finding ways to help families take care of old and infirm relatives, or those with mental illness or, well you get the point. There is a lot that families need, but DOMA isn't on the list.

Marriage is a lot of things. It can be an affirmation of love, a convenience, a social institution, a religious institution, a financial contract, a legal entity and more. It is not exactly the same for every couple, and it changes over time, but the legal part is what the state ought to concern itself with.

Two adults who want to form a legal bond ought to be able to do so unless there is some compelling reason for disqualifying them.

Our ideas of what constitutes a compelling reason change as we refine our understanding of human beings.

We don't think marrying kids to adults is a good idea. But it used to happen and still does in some parts of the world. Even in the United States there are places where a 14-year-old boy or a 13-year-old girl can be married with special permission.

And there's the example of interracial marriages, which have been made legal across the country only in my lifetime.

People will note that it's not the same as same-gender marriage. It's plain to see how wrong banning interracial marriage was, people say, but it is plain only because we are looking back from the vantage point of a society that has evolved a bit.

They are not the same, but the principles underlying granting or denying marriage rights across color lines and across gender lines have some kinship. Prejudice plays a larger role than logic in drawing a line around marriage and saying who gets in and who must stand outside.

The more we learn about gender, the closer we get to seeing how mistaken we have been to ostracize people in the belief that they were making an antisocial or immoral choice.

Marriage is a complicated thing. It is personal. Two people choose each other. But it still affects more than those two people.

The whole romantic thing and individual choice is new and still not universal.

Did you read about Afghan families sending young girls off to marry older men because the families needed the money? The New York Times had a photograph of a 40-year-old man and his 11-year-old bride-to-be.

The practice is common in poorer countries, but marriage is always about more than two people, and it is laden with issues.

It's OK for Michael Jackson and Britney Spears, but not for Catholic priests. British royals have to marry the proper person or suffer consequences. There are often religious boundaries. A Jewish man who wants his children to be universally accepted as Jewish has to marry a Jewish woman.

It is never just about two people. But in a country that prides itself on individual freedom, the state ought to give individuals the maximum freedom, and restrict its role to legitimate concern for the public welfare.

Of course, democratic politics sometimes bows not to the public good but to the politically safe.

Wednesday's ruling takes some of the joy out of my own celebration. It feels like eating at a banquet while hungry people watch. That doesn't enrich my marriage.

Jerry Large: 206-464-3346 or jlarge@seattletimes.com.

His column runs Thursdays and Sundays and is found at www.seattletimes.com/jerrylarge