It was pretty clear all along that California was blue. This spared us a barrage of advertising. Not all advertising, but a lot of it. We didn’t get crisscrossed. We didn’t get targeted. We were not a battleground. We were pretty much left to our own devices. And with one exception nobody spent any money trying to scare us.

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The only prodigious advertising effort came from folks concerned about the purity and sanctity of – hold on to your hats – marriage. You would think that with half of all marriages ending in divorce they would be concerned about limiting or abolishing divorce. Maybe that’s next. But no, they wanted to limit the number of people who can marry. About the only way I can see that this protects marriage is on the premise that if you limit the number of marriages then you probably limit the number of divorces. There’s no reason to believe that gays will be less likely to divorce than straights. So if you keep them from marrying, you will keep down the number of divorces. Granted it’s a crude technique. It’s sort of like reducing the number of people who suffer from, say, the common cold by killing off large numbers of humans. Hey, less colds.

The folks trying to save us from the scourge of gay marriage didn’t emphasize the statistical. Rather they chose to warn us about the threat of exposing kindergartners to the concept of same sex marriage. Frankly, I hadn’t known that kindergartners were being exposed to the concept of any kind of marriage. It seems a bit young. I suppose now kindergartners will have to be told that if they were considering a same sex marriage they should put the idea behind them. It ain’t gonna happen. I’m not sure what to do about the five year olds who don’t already know what a same sex marriage is. We wouldn’t want to explain it to them. That would defeat the whole purpose of the effort to protect them. I guess we will just leave them blissfully ignorant. How the classroom teacher is going to handle that little raised hand situation I don’t know. “Yes, Johnny.” “Mrs. Adams, what’s a same sex marriage?” “Oh, Johnny, you don’t have to worry about that. It won’t be on the test.” Maybe that will work. The information that something won’t be on a test eases the curiosity of most students. I know it did mine.

I like to think that supporters of a ban on gay marriage were only trying to protect gays from the heartache and bitterness of a divorce. This helps me preserve the illusion that the strange coalition of wealthy right-wingers, Mormons and Bible thumpers had a heart and that the effort was indeed protective. But I’m afraid that it isn’t so. It’s probably just another example of their genius for identifying irresolvable issues and putting them on the ballot for resolution. They love to stir the pot that way. They bask in the ensuing divisiveness.

I voted against the proposal. It doesn’t make financial sense either from the individual or the societal point of view. As to the former, two together can live cheaper than two apart. As to the latter, lost fees for marriage licenses, lost fees for those authorized to perform marriages, lost fees for attorneys who handle divorces or those who prepare prenuptial agreements, lost income for jewelers, lost fees for wedding planners and the host of caterers, florists, musicians, dressmakers and tuxedo rental services they bring in their wake as well as lost fees for marriage counselors will all have a negative impact on an already desperate economy. Authorizing gay marriage was a real economic stimulus. It cost the government nothing and relied entirely on the private sector. Banning it is economically stupid. I try to avoid that kind of stupidity.

True, some people don’t put so much emphasis on the economics. They vote on the basis of “values.” Indeed, they are often called values voters. I wonder how that term came about. I mean, I’ve always associated “value” with economics. Something is valuable or of little or no value on the basis of its economic worth. Values voters seem to have no concern whatsoever for the economic cost or consequences of their proposals. They are concerned about a different sort of value. A higher sort they would say. They aren’t able to get real specific about what these values are. Sometimes they call them family values. Sometimes they get real classy and call them Judeo-Christian values. They make vague claims about society’s foundations as if society were a building and about moral fiber as if morality were some kind of cloth or a dietary supplement. But they don’t really provide any measuring stick. You can’t sit down with their proposals and figure out what it will cost and what it will produce. It’s all quite airy. Heartwarming to some. Oppressive to others. But certainly not the sort of thing about which reasonable voters can make reasonable decision. I think we need to rename them valueless voters. They may have values but they can’t really tell you what they are worth. Well, maybe valueless is a bit much. More fair would be voters of unknown or unknowable value.

I worry about them. Last time out they wanted a requirement that doctors inform parents before performing abortions on a minors. Their campaign featured shady young men hustling lovely young girls into abortion clinics. I voted against that one too. I figured if the parents had such miserable relations with their daughters that they didn’t discuss important stuff, it wasn’t up to doctors to reestablish communication between them. If kids feel unconditional parental love, parents are likely to be in the loop. If they sense a judgmental ogre, parents will be the last to know. Statewide ballot measures are not helpful in resolving these family dynamics. Paychologists yes. Propositions no.But they sure can be divisive.

The solution to the gay marriage controversy is pretty clear. Opponents love to say that marriage was instituted by God who defined it as a union between a man and a woman. They offer gays “civil unions” as an alternative. Gays, or many of them, don’t want an alternative. They already have an alternative lifestyle. They want the real thing. It’s easy to say: I’m married. It seems stiff and awkward to say: I’m civilly unified. What interest the State has in any of this is beyond me. I think the State should stop issuing marriage licenses. It should, instead, issue union licenses. If you want to take it to a church and get “married” and thereafter describe yourself as “married,” fine. That will all be left to you and your church. The church can give you a marriage certificate or whatever certificate it wants. The State will give you a union certificate. If you are gay and your church won’t marry you, then you can find another church. The State’s only interest is in keeping track of whether you qualify for certain rights under the law or not. It shouldn’t make any difference whether you want to call yourself married or civilly unified. You have a union certificate. After all, if God has already defined marriage, we don’t really need the State to do it.

I have a marriage license. I’ve only needed it to establish a few legal rights. I could just as easily have done it with a union certificate. It might be nice to have another way of describing my status. When my wife and I are getting along, I can say we are married. When we aren’t, I can say we are civilly unified. I don’t think we would have to change existing forms unless they are government forms. Government forms will have to avoid “marriage”. They could ask for your civil status. They could put “Union or Single” They should be willing to accept married as an answer. It will take a while for sure. For a while we may occasionally get “Pipefitters International” as an answer, but everyone will be able to get unified by the State and married by the Church. It will be as it should be. I’ve got to get started collecting signatures.