The debate continued, and a couple of minutes later people sitting near her heard the old girl murmur to herself, “Or was it President Harding?”

What a nation of busybodies we are! We get all excited about things we don’t care about or, in many cases, even know much about. We’ve been bequeathed the priceless gift of democratic government and a brilliant national constitution, and we send our forces and resources pounding around the world attempting to give everybody else the same gift, whether they want it or not. Rather like the motto once attributed to the hostesses of Singapore Airlines: “We’re here to make you happy, goddam it!” But we fail to consider what will be done with our gift, or whether it’s suitable; while, for such dedicated democrats, our own election turnouts are pretty puny.

Here at home, we seem strangely conflicted about the role of government in our lives. We’ve been conditioned to deplore the specter of government-administered health care (which an ever-growing number of us enjoy), even though it’s demonstrably more efficient and less expensive than the bureaucratic mess created by private, for-profit health insurance, and inferior to that enjoyed by our fellow industrialized nations. We expect to be fiercely defended against all enemies domestic and foreign, but nobody, saving New York Congressman Charlie Rangel, could be reelected after seriously proposing a national draft. We want the government “out of our lives,” yet, curiously, want it to get into our fellow citizens’ lives.

For example, the current debate about government involvement in private lives concerns the issue known as same-sex marriage. We should note that in the United States there has been some movement on this and similar subjects. It’s at the same, slow evolutionary pace at which women were given the franchise, African-Americans were granted civil rights, homosexual relations between consenting adults were ruled not illegal, and a few religious denominations permitted ordination to women and gays. But it’s as inevitable during this century as rising sea levels.

Predictably, the east- and west-coast states have led the way, while the heartland has dug in its heels, passing so-called Defense of Marriage acts and even constitutional amendments defining marriage as the legal union of one man and one woman (temporarily, at least; divorce rates are significantly higher in the Bible Belt than in godless, liberal Massachusetts and Vermont).

There are several arguments used in debating Defense of Marriage acts. The one that isn’t ever mentioned publicly is that homosexuality is, to many “straight” people, simply yucky. It’s an ancient taboo perpetuated by that majority. Vikings, for example, taunted each other with it much as we do today; but in their culture, it was an invitation to mortal combat. An argument we used to hear, but don’t so much anymore, now that the evidence is coming in, is that gay marriage will damage or destroy the traditional institution. If it has, the effects have not been discernible.

The argument we hear mentioned most vehemently is the “religious” one: that it’s an abomination before God – like eating shellfish and pork, committing adultery, wearing clothes of different fabrics, and mixing crops in fields. Its corollary is that God decreed marriage to be between one man and one woman; that’s the way it’s always been, and the way it always should be.

Actually, that’s not the way it always has been, in either secular society or the Judeo-Christian tradition. If you’re interested, let me refer you to a fascinating book, First Comes Love? – The Ever-Changing Face of Marriage, by John Morris. An Episcopal priest in the parish of Fairlee, Vermont, Morris used a diocesan grant to take time off from his parish duties and research the history of marriage from legendary early Hebrew times to the present.

Many patriarchs and kings of Israel engaged in polygamy and concubinage, with the blessing of the Almighty, who promised their progeny would be as numerous as the stars of heaven. We practice it today, Morris writes, though now, thanks to relaxed restrictions on divorce, we call it “serial monogamy.” Couples historically have married because their fathers arranged or decreed it; because it was important to perpetuate the family name, fortune, or purity; because it was a wise or necessary political move; and for other reasons, including, even, that they fell in love.

What Morris finds interesting, and irritating, is that the state requires clergymen who perform marriage ceremonies to act as agents of the state if the couple decides to be married in a religious setting. For me, it’s only a small step from there to requiring every couple, no matter their personal persuasion, to be licensed and married in a civil ceremony. Then, if they wish (and the religious group of their choice approves), they may be married by a clergyperson who will not need to see their license. No “special privileges and extra rights” will, as many claim, be conferred. The couple will be married in the eyes of the state and the eye of their god; and the church will not be forced to act as an agent of the state – which is constitutionally prohibited. Yep, one of these days we’ll all have the same right to be happily (or otherwise) married. I can’t wait to see what’s next!