Gay Marriage

[Occhidiangela]

Preface: change is sometimes glacial, sometimes rapid.

The baseline cultural assumption is, and has been for centuries, that marriage is a man and a woman. It was within that mental framework, I presume, the lawmakers were working. At the time that laws were written, that baseline assumption fit the "good enough" standard.

That assumption is being challenged, and it uses a series of arguments that take part, but not all, of the evolving language of our framework law where it is convenient, forgetting, it seems to me, that those laws were also written under the very same cultural assumption.

The fact that voter has evolved into universal suffrage versus the original Caucasian property holder hints at a flexibility in American culture that may, over time, argue that with enough cultural momentum, which may not be present currently, the change will come.

We are at present very much "in process" regarding this marriage issue. Until the attitudes change, the baseline assumption will hold.

Compare how this conversation is going on now, versus how it would have gone in 1964. It is still going, now. Some attitudes have changed, and I would argue that the time for the next pitched battle may be in a half, or a whole, generation, during which the "conventional wisdom" and "general attitudes" are worked on from many angles. Queer Eye For The Straight Guy, anyone?

It does not have to be decided this year. I'd even argue that the President's attempt at creating a Constitutional ammendment advanced the cause, as it may force a decision sooner rather than later, and during a more sympathetic party's reign.

The process is important, and the "I want it now" crap I have no respect for, at all. River banks widen, eventually. For success, I'd suggest more flanking attacks and infiltration, and fewer bloody frontal assaults.

Occhi