Gay Marriage

[Occhidiangela]

Thus, any couple can be just as happy in their relationship with legal entanglements as without

Exactly. So why marry? Again, personal POV here, but I grew up at a time where "in the privacy of your own home between consenting adults" took on considerable weight as an acceptable social norm. (Ostrich feathers, anyone?) I also had no intention of marriage through most of my 20's. Had a number of experiences of "cohabitation" or what was called in the 1970's "living together." Called in the 1950's living in sin.

So, why marry?

1. For the social sanction
2. For the money
3. For both
4. Because mom and dad did
5. Because the Church will throw me out if I don't, and I don't want to "Live in Sin"
6. Because it's romantic
7. Because that's what everyone does
8. To create a family
9. To have children who are not bastards

10. to ad nauseum . . . I'll stop t here, it could go on for pages.

As for point 2, which never seems far from the surface when one is addressing this issue, if the driving point is that homosexuals want to codify their pairing as marriage for the beneficial financial incentives, which are in statute, then that makes them . . . equivalent to gold diggers? Marrying for the money? Hmm, that's a bit of a reach. My point much earlier that many heterosexual and homosexual pairs live together without resorting to marriage, successfully, might be something that those who are boresighted through their soda straw on the benefits, think for a minute.

For the money. For the financial advantage.

That takes us back to the motivations of any number of systems, such as 1500's in Europe, where marriages were indeed all about a contract in the higher strata of society, and about advantageous marriages.

"For the children" is a reductionist viewpoint, as was the "for the money" I just threw up there.

The continuation of the community, the village, the clan, the nation, the family, one's own immortality, and any number of other social consideration all blend to form the varying conventions of marriage across many cultural boundaries.

What is the dowry? Do you use the ultra sound machine to detect and abort female fetuses, as has happened in India and CHina (if one believes the TV documentaries and magazine articles.) There's a fine modern tradition, made possible thanks to science that was aimed at the health of the prospective baby. :angry:

What land is to be offered, either by the bride's or groom's family? How is that established? What social contract, what law, what custom?

As to the "blown out of the water" bit, the "marriage is a contract."

That kind of shortsighted, evern reductionist thinking is why divorce courts are so full, and any number of divorce lawyers suck the life out of people for their living.

Marriage: it's more than a contract, when it is entered into freely by two people. If you are going to do a thing, don't do it half arsed.

For Pete: the arranged marriage bogey is noted, but does not strike me as germane. That marriage is an imperfect institution, even with conventional man-woman pairs, is not in dispute. That, however, is not the issue the homosexuals are trying to resolve, or so it appears to me.

The social sanction, the acceptance, is what is being sought. That is what makes the marriage discussion extend beyond the contract issue, which is necessary. To get the social sanction, the campaign to influence people's acceptance favorably requires effort. My earlier comments, before I bit at Lem, apply with no need to repeat them.

So, one group wants to embrace the good and dysfunctional elements of marriage as it stands today, with the prime value added being financial benefits already discussed. (Pete's link in his first reply to me.) Methinks not, thats partly the issue, and partly smokescreen.

I think what is really desired is acceptance and social sanction. With those two, a law change is not hard to enact. Or does it take a bludgeon to enact such a change? Took half a million dead to change, permanently, the dilema of slavery and continuation as one nation.

So, the information campaign will continue, or should continue, if successful change is to be achieved.

The debate should extend beyond the box of soda straws where ever possible. And I will sorta repeat:

Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, anyone? Billy Crystal's sympathetic homosexual character in the Prime Time sitcom SOAP in the 1970's? Will and Grace?

Shows not seen before 1975.

The film "In and Out." "That Kiss" between Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve in "Deathtrap."

Made money, even if they used stereotypes and charicatures of homosexual men.

The information campaign will continue, I think. Seems to be slowly working so far. The omelette just aint done yet.

Occhi