Who Owns Marriage?

This is a true story:
    He is 71, she is 70. They have been together four years and have fashioned a shared life that is to them precious. They would have entered a conventional marriage, but for a tangle of legalistic reasons they could not. Instead, they undertook a commitment ceremony.  A clergyman heard their vows to stay together for life; he blessed their union, and he said: "I proclaim that they are united to one another in a holy covenant."
    They are thrilled.  The ceremony put a seal on what matters most to them. The difference from a conventional, legal marriage is peripheral. 
    Friends and family are thrilled as well. Notably, they are thrilled in the same way.  They agree with the clergyman's declaration that the essence of marriage is in the quality of a couple's commitment.
    One friend put it crisply: "Who cares what the government thinks?"
    Polls confirm what that quip suggests. Attitudes toward the definition of marriage are changing.  Some fear that less value is being accorded the traditional man/woman relationship, sanctioned in law, as the foundation of the traditional family. This is a view through the wrong end of the telescope. A better one is that more value is being allowed for other forms of lifelong commitment.
    This liberalization of attitude takes place amid the national debate of gay marriage. They are, of course, connected.  Yet most Americans, being heterosexual, have no direct, personal stake in the institution of gay marriage.  What, then, could have caused the tide of opinion to turn at this juncture toward a broader definition of wedlock?
    Possibly, injury to a sense of fair play and elementary justice.  Possibly, in the debate of gay marriage, the extreme right has discredited its own writ.
    Few of us would dispute the need for government to protect public health and define the parameters of taxation and property ownership.  But the epicenter of opposition to gay marriage has been located elsewhere. It has been focused in highly selective moralisms; in citations of debatable and dubiously relevant religious tradition; in silly predictions that civilization will crumble if persons of the same gender are permitted to fomalize loving relationships.
    Nor is the larger context lost on attentive observers.  Doomsaying on gay marriage comes from the same quarters that produce, on the issue of abortion, discussion of vaginal probes and "legitimate" rape.  In this, self-styled apostles of limited government have revealed a willingness for government to invade the most intimate aspects of life.
    Mean-spirited extremes against gay marriage have attracted attention to the extremes themselves.  As a dog's breakfast of bigotry and hypocrisy is offered up, many Americans are declining to partake. They may have friends or loved ones in relationships that are not less precious for lying outside traditional norms. Or they may simply feel that, if the government presumes to define love, it presumes too much.
    At a level of plain common sense that underpins American public attitudes at their best, vigilante politics on the right may have re-awakened this awareness: Politicians on every side share a defining trait.  They are glad to hold power over the rest of us. Some of them are willing to take as much of it as we'll cede.
    Scare-mongering is not leadership.  It is a herding tactic.  Scaremongering on intensely personal issues has revealed a disrespect for boundaries that protect us all.
    Appearances suggest a backlash. In any event, an attitude is emerging: Valid marital commitments are not limited to what the government of the moment has been willing to sanction.