So I saw the pictures from Sunday’s demonstrations for “Voting on Marriage”. And I just have to say that I really, truly, profoundly don’t understand the motivations of the anti-same-sex-marriage folks. I’ve tried, and I’m just at a loss.
I do understand that I’m a liberal — self-identified — and as such my views are not shared by many, if not most other folks, and that I’m bound to be more open-minded about such things. I also understand that some of my liberal enthusiasms put me on the margins of the conventional wisdom. But in this case, it’s my lack of enthusiasm that seems to marginalize me. How can a shrug of the shoulders, an inability to be inflamed, be a dangerously radical statement?
I do understand that a lot of people feel an obligation to keep other folks out of sin, so that they won’t be cast into eternal hellfire after they die. But gosh, why don’t all kinds of rotten but legal things get this kind of treatment? Do we get demonstrations against adultery, which is immoral but legal? Usury — borderline legal? Abandoning the poor? etc. etc. I cannot for the life of me understand why picking this mote out of one’s neighbor’s eye would be so important.
I’m not satisfied with the idea that these folks are simply motivated by “hate” or “bigotry”, whatever those are. Even if that’s true, it’s an ethical dead end for how to respond, and leaves us self-satisfied with our own enlightenment. I mean, where does that get you? (“Hey Kris Mineau, you’re a bigot!” “Wow, you’re right! I’ll stop being a bigot right away!”) It’s not enough for us just to be right, to merely not be “one of those people.”
We all need to understand people’s motivations for acting, and address them one way or the other, either by direct refutal or redirection. And make no mistake, same-sex marriage is on its heels in most of America. In Virginia this fall, for instance, “progressives” argued against an anti-SSM ballot issue — not by defending SSM itself, but by stating that the language of the ballot initiative was over-broad, ie. it wouldn’t just ban SSM.
That ain’t gonna cut it. Those of us who live and work in relatively “enlightened” communities and peer groups need to realize that many people in MA are not like us, and don’t think like we do. And we in enlightened Massachusetts have to realize that the pro-marriage arguments we make all the time simply are not heard in most of the country. So while we may (or may not) advocate any means necessary to keep SSM in Massachusetts, let’s not lose sight of the need to make same-sex marriage more widely accepted both here and elsewhere.
I don’t think that’s going to be accomplished by brow-beating — and certainly not by internal strife among those supportive of SSM. Mostly I think it involves stating the obvious: that it hurts no one and helps many.
So far Governor-elect Patrick has been able to smooth over differences by saying “it’s a settled issue” and “we need to move on”, but it’s clearly not settled in many folks’ minds. No, we need a definitive moment of leadership on the issue, perhaps modeled on John F. Kennedy’s 1963 speech upon submitting civil rights legislation to Congress. If it really is a moral issue, then it sure would help to have a new leader of standing and eloquence to make the case forcefully and publicly. Patrick does indeed command the fascination of the national press, should he decide to use it. That would be a great step in turning the tide, not just in Massachusetts but nationally. I hope he avails himself of the opportunity.
…people keep claiming that it is some fundamental right. Let’s be clear. It is not inscribed on the hearts of men, it is not etched in the soul, it is not something self evident. What it is, is a policy preference forced onto Massachusetts by 4 out of 7 unelected judges.
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This a fact. You cannot argue with it.
It seems to me there’s more than ample evidence, including on this very site, that we (and many other people) can, in fact, argue with that assessment, and at great length.
then you have little trouble convincing the public. But that just isn’t the case.
I didn’t say anything about whether we could convince anyone, or even whether we’re right (though I think that we are) — I just said we’re quite capable of arguing until the proverbial cows come home.
does not mean that their is legitimate argument, or that both sides have a point. In this instance the gay marriage proponents have overstepped their bounds both in the legal process and in their rhetoric.
It is rude and contributes nothing to the discussion.
Sorry. I just noticed you were correcting yourself! Many apologies.
We’ve “overstepped” our bounds in the legal process? In the RHETORIC? Damn, I didn’t know free speech (rhetoric) had bounds.
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And I didn’t know that the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts thought we “overstepped,” then went ahead and legalized marriage equality anyway. You must be one helluva judicial expert!
They are not. They are very good at ignoring clear scientific evidence that contradicts their beliefs, religious or otherwise.
Name me the State Rep or Senator who lost their election, yet supported marriage equality.
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Oh, that’s right, you can’t.
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What do I win?
Not only is he in the wrong state, hes at the federal level.
it is only in quite recent history that any kind of equality for women, in terms of voting and participating in the economy on an equal footing with men, has had any kind of traction. It took hundreds of years for this country to get serious about racial equality.
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It is also a relatively recent idea (in the last two-three hundred years) that men and women should have the right to choose their marriage partners…for the longest time, marriages were arranged by families. Marriage has traditionally been a way to consolidate property, or power, or to keep a tribe togther or create alliance with another tribe. The whole notion of “romantic love” as the basis for marriage is rather novel.
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But what I think the whole question really comes down to is, how does allowing two men to marry harm the marriage of any heterosexual couple? Why is it OK if a man and women who have never spent a sober minute together stumble into a chapel in Las Vegas and come out legally married…you don’t mind sharing the “institution of marriage” with them…but if two men or two women who live peacefully together and care for each other are allowed to marry, suddenly you are all “there goes the neighborhood…”?
Those are questions to think about.
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The main question isn’t how it harms anything, but simply how ordered a society is allowed to be legislated. Do you think marriage should be limited to two people, or should that also be outside the realm of public debate? It seems hard to accept gay marriage and eschew sex differences while at the same time accepting the binary nature of marriage which is based on the dichotomy of the sexes.
binary nature of marriage which is based on the dichotomy of the sexes.?
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Modern marriage (except for folks like this guy) is binary, but it’s not clear that dichotomy of the sexes has anything to do with it.
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There are lots of nice properties of two that fail with 3 or more.
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1. Your attention and affection never has to be divided amongst equals. With a binary marriage, there is but one focus for all of your goodness — your single partner.
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2. Naturally, there is no need for jealousy over another partner. My spouse only loves me, and therefore loves me more than everyone else.
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3. Decisions deadlock 1-1. This is good because it forces a couple to communicate and come to terms with the decision. With more than 2, you can have non-unanimous majorities, which means some of the partners are left with no influence over the matter.
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These properties have nothing to do with child-making or child-bearing. They’re really effective properties to create stable relationships. So, while marriage in many communities certainly had much to do with the dichotomy of the sexes, they’re certainly not an if-and-only-if, nor have they ever been.
There may have been a time in the past when men and women did not have equal roles in a marriage. For instance, there was a time when married women in England could not own property. Those times are long gone and the law, at least in Massachusetts, does not recognize any meaningful difference between the rights and responsibilities of married partners based on their gender.
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Religious views may differ on this. Some think that the wife should “submit” to her husband, but the public at large has decided that this has no place in the marriage laws.
The Puritains only recognized two holy sacraments. Marriage was not one of them.
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Instead marriage was a civil contract. In order to enter into this contract, the woman had to have the right to “own” herself. From this grew the right to enter into contracts and own property generally.
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Rhetorical bonus question: what other civil right that we are now hotly discussing is based on the same precedent of marriage as a civil contract?
Unmarried women could probably own property and enter into contracts, and maybe even vote, though? Were there unmarried women back then? When two people married, they became one flesh, and had one set of property, entered into contracts together, and voted as one vote. They shared the same bed and food and whatever luxury they could afford.
The Goodrich decision was not some “policy preference forced onto Massachusetts,” as you state.
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The FACT is that the Supreme Judicial Court was asked to decide
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And the court did find that
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In other words, the court found that denying equal civil marriage rights to gay couples would violate the Massachusetts Constitution.
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There is the FACT. No new “policy preference,” no “activist” judges. Interpreting equal rights to include gay citizens is not a complicated concept. If all citizens have the same rights under the law–which they do in this state and, indeed, in this country (see 14th Amendment), then even monkeys with typewriters could follow the logic more quickly than the anti-civil rights crowd.
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Please note that Judge Marshall of the Supreme Judicial Court mentioned that “civil marriage” could not be denied under the Constitution, meaning that all those people who pretend to follow Jesus and hate people can discriminate as much as they want to inside their own houses of worship.
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So we still don’t have an answer to Charley’s question: what motivates these haters? We can, and have, cited fact to each myth, rumor, innuendo, fear they have trotted out for display, and yet the hate keeps coming. And these people are not even brave enough to acknowledge their own hate–they hide it behind their so-called religious beliefs, or demented scientific beliefs, or even the most dangerous of all, the mistaken belief that the majority has a “right” to vote about the civil rights of the minority.
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It does need to end. And it needs to end by legislation making illegal to propose amendments or charters or ballot questions that seek to elicit votes to deny rights and to promote discrimination. Then we can go on with our lives. The haters can continue to hate or move out of Massachusetts (and don’t let the door hit you on the way out).
Two dudes kissing is icky. Why do you think people never get concerned about lesbians? Two girls kissing is not threatening.
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Same reason that abortion gets battled over, and stem cell research, while fertility clinics are just fine and dandy.
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No need to overthink it, just remember that a large, large group of people are very, very invested in keeping a portion of the population set on “us vs. them,” hindbrain thinking.
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I mean, if you take away the religious bit (cause lets face it, it is not about what god wants), all you have is the emotional response. And it’s much, much easier to get someone grossed out and fired up by two dudes kissing and fetus’ being killed then it is to get them concerned about, say, a bunch of brown people being killed half a world away in Iraq, or even a horrible bankruptcy bill. Perfectly natural tribalism.
In that case, if the arguments against it are so weak, then why do we refrain from tearing them down? I mean, is there anything more absurd, circular and tautological than “I believe marriage is between a man and a woman”? As if that were all that can be said? I mean, heck, so do I — I just don’t limit it to that.
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If all they’ve got is “ick” and circular argumentation, this should be a blowout, and we should be winning. Why aren’t we? Are we just afraid to make the right arguments in the right places?
are being washed away, and they are clinging to the rock of “between a man and a woman” as just SOMETHING that seems basic, some kind of reference in a world that seems more alien every day. It’s just “the way things ‘sposed to be”–hard to argue with, because it’s not about reason, just a longing for certainty.
What does one say to help neutralize that feeling of transgressing against tradition?
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The feminist movement has been successful because people were willing to help transform old traditions and habits. What’s our strategy here?
Tradition is pretty much what GK Chesterton said it is, democracy of the dead. It the the collected wisdom and practices of those that came before us. There is a time to shrug off tradition, but it must be done so with great reason and acceptance.
I think time is the only real cure…people need to get used to it. As time goes by and there is no fire and brimstone raining down from the heavens, people will eventually realize that same sex marriage is not the end of the world.
If all you’ve ever seen is black and white TV, would you really care about “HD?”
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People who are up in arms about gay marriage, probably don’t know very many gay people and just don’t have the experience. They don’t see how there can be a different kind of marriage and love that would still work.
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Furthermore, the very fact that gay people are “coming out” in large swaths is upsetting. It used to be that a lot of people didn’t mind or even think about gay people because, as they were expected, they didn’t come out en mass. Now that we are, people are having reactions to it. Because those people are uncomfortable with gay people, they’re going to react very strongly when it comes to giving them rights that only straight people have been able to enjoy.
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However, as more and more people come out – and more and more families accept the fact that gay people are everywhere and ANY of their kids could be gay – they’ll come to accept them. There’s NOTHING more powerful, as a means to advance our cause, than coming out and being vocal about it. It forces parents and friends to confront their prejudices and – 9 times out of 10 – those people will eventually become at peace and be more accepting.
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Lastly, for too long we’ve had the all-powerful Ted Haggards, James Dobsons and Pope Benedicts of the world telling others gayness is a disease, or gayness is “disorderly” or a sin.. and a bad, bad, bad one! They use the divide and conquer strategy, to get what they really want passed – or at least to merely keep power. As people get used to gay marriage, we see these marriage-ban amendments having a more and more difficult time passing (and, indeed, in one case completely failing in the reddish state of Arizona). With asshats like Haggard and numerous politicians being exposed on a seemingly monthly basis, these jerks are losing all their power – and fast. Next election, look for fewer marriage ban amendments and look for more of them to fail (while more Democrats are elected).
but I don’t think you get my point. People are not logical beings. We are tribal animals. When your “tribe” is under attack, you don’t spend time thinking out the philosophical ramifications. You hit back.
The whole thing is very contrived. The main argument is a sympathetic one, essentially dealing with children of gay couples and how they are put in a precarious situation because of the legal status of their parents.
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Who put these children in a precarious situation in the first place except for the gay couples? Children do not spontaneously appear from gay couples. It is a willful act either by adoption or in vitro fertilization.
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And that being the case, children in this line of argument are being used as ransom for the legalization of gay marriage.
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Do the ends justify the means? No, and when people do use the ends to justify the means it’s only right to feel uneasy about it, no matter how good the end may be.
Why shouldn’t gay people adopt? Are they innately bad parents? (PS: the shrinks say no.)
for the same reason that is now cited as the need of gay marriage, that it puts the child in a situation that is bad simply because of the unclear legal situation of the parents.
“We should prevent gay people from getting married because if they adopt, we don’t really know if that would be legal since we’re fighting so hard to keep them from getting married.”
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There ya go. Well done.
Who produce them within or without marriage and then can’t or won’t care for them. No one has shown any harm to children from being raised by a loving same-sex couple.
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I was under the impression that children were in no way central to the whole debate anyway…children whose parents are married can never be certain that they will stay that way, anyhow, whether they are heterosexual or not.
I’ve heard opponents bring up children to raise the quease factor.
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I’ve heard Mitt Romney use children’s right to a mother and a father as an argument.
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I’ve never heard proponents use children as the primary argument for gay marriage.
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Andrew Sullivan makes a tertiary argument that gay marriage would encourage people to settle down and raise a family, but it’s not his main argument.
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Much more important are things like the right to visit your partner in the hospital, for example.
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BTW, I do know married gay couples with children. Almost all of them came from previous heterosexual relationships.
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BTW, Andrew Sullivan also thought the Legislature should have voted rather than recessing.
…but it’s not surprising.
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More to the point, VoteOnMarriage aka the Mass. Family Institute started life as an anti-gay group. They changed their focus to fighting gay marriage after the SJC decision.
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Similarly MassResistance was devoted to fighting “the gay agenda” before morphing to Article8 (dedicated to removing the SJC judges) and then MassResistance once that failed.
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MFI was founded by Robert Bradley, who’s founded or funded most of the anti-gay groups in the state. Robert has made it clear that the movement is about driving homosexuals from the public arena, not about “preserving heterosexual marriage.”
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“One of my passions or avocations in life is history, public policy, and so unlike a lot of people I understand the deterioration of the family is a precursor to the loss of strength in society, and? the issue of homosexuality is not a particularly new thing,” said Bradley. “I think the deconstruction of the family in the last 20 years is in peril from without, not from within.”
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Check the Bay Windows archives for more.
This is the correct one. The whole article is interesting reading. It’s a history of the forces behind the gay marriage amendment. The interconnections are amazing.
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http://baywindows.co…
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Bradley would only speak briefly with Bay Windows. Asked about how he got involved in the efforts to oppose same-sex marriage, he said that “if you read the history of Rome, homosexuality was responsible in part for the downfall of the Roman Empire” and he said he was determined to avoid the same fate for Massachusetts.
I’ve never seen a more offensive post in all my days on BMG. You use no statistics whatsoever, then go on bashing MILLIONS of gay parents who are doing a damn well job raising their children.
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You are attacking the very gay children you say are at risk.
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Have you ever met a child raised by gay parents? I’ve met more than one and NOT ONE OF THEM turned out worse for it. I’ve seen them interract with their parents and just WISH I had the same relationship with my father that they do with both of their parents.
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Like the Wicked Witch in Munchkinland, your words have no power here. Not only do they not include a shred of facts (and who can blame you when all the facts get in the way of your failed thought process), but they’re mean, spiteful and hurtful. And bigoted.
and hardly biological. Recall, please, that deodorent was a twentieth century thing. Mixed race marriages used to bring forth ick responses. I’m always surprised at how easy it is to regard this half century’s rituals and practices as if they were descended from time immemorial and had a biological origin.
I always enjoy your comments, and for a change I actually find myself in agreement with you. Maybe it is the spirt of Thanksgiving.
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But, you must be a sociologist.
when I wrote that I often disagreed with you a few topics back. Happy Thanksgiving to you and thank you for your kind words.
Deval can say this is settled until the cows come home. It clearly is not. It cannot be until three votes are taken.
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This recess foolishness is exactly that – wink, wink, nudge, nudge, aren’t we clever. As I said once before, Tom Birmingham has a lot to answer for. Had a vote been allowed to go forward five years ago, I honestly think it would have been voted down easily. Now, those same voters feel rebellious, sullen and manipulated – can you blame them? Then a promise for a vote is made, the vote is cravenly moved until after the election – and once again, ha, ha you silly dolts! Aren’t we clever fellows!
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Do you think calling names changes minds? Using dishonest manipulaion? How does that inspire anybody to try to appreciate your point of view, when your attitude is – we’ll manipulate the vote and run to the courthouse if we lose. But if YOU lose, then it’s sacrosanct!
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Sometimes, it takes my breath away how dismisive and rude BMG’ers are about the Flyover Folk – those quaint unwashed going to their trite church suppers and playing contract bridge in Des Moines. How, HOW, utterly infradig! Like it or lump it, they elected Bush twice, and condescencion from the new Governor of Massachusetts about how unenlightened they are and how outdated and silly their dearly held beliefs are, no doubt in a soothing voice using short words so they will be certain to understand, will do a whole fat lot to advance your cause as well.
What the hell do the people in Iowa have to do with it?
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I agree that the SJC should have allowed the legislature to create civil unions as in Vermont and other states that have addressed the situation since. The notion of Massachusetts leading to way to “marriage equality” is pretty much over. Still, no one’s rights are being taken away…as someone else noted, just because a petition is put before the legislature doesn’t mean they are required to vote on it.
The SJC has ruled on this before, and yes, they ARE required to vote on it. The SJC said that they can’t punish them, but that they are in violation of the law (Term Limits vs. Bulger).
I’m all for creating a positive, legislated right to marry. And I think with the right leadership, that would happen. We’d have a real discussion on the merits.
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Don’t you think it’s interesting that even Romney is diverting attention away from the actual merits of SSM, talking about the procedural matter and “let the people vote”? I’m torn on the procedural issue itself, but I don’t think that can be totally divorced (hah) from the merits of the issue itself. “Let the people vote” — on what? That’s the purpose of this post — and I think in the long run, we win on the merits, if they’re discussed openly.
to Charley’s points. Indeed, it is you who should re-read your comments for “dismissive” and “rude,” as this irrational screed is loaded with both. Your comment does nothing but vilify those who support same-sex marriage and excuse the “rebelious” and “sullen” behavior of those who oppose it, as if that opposition has no real negative consequence or is completely and utterly reasonable.
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Actually, I guess, your response is rather typical of the non-responses that are generally forthcoming when folks are prodded on their opposition to this issue. And before you go screeching off correcting me on your actual stance on this issue, don’t bother, I know, I know. It’s the vote.
You don’t see Peter posting dozens of messages about the health care amendment, do you?
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Nor does Peter ever state a position on gay marriage or gay rights. She just says “show me a place where I’ve said I’d vote for this amendment.”
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To add some non-Peter content, it’s interesting to note that Brian Camenker and Amy Contrada of MassResistance not only oppose this amendment, they oppose marriage amendments in general:
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http://massresistanc…
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Once our side concedes that a basic concept such as marriage needs to be further defined in a constitution, we’re in trouble. Especially in Massachusetts, where the constitution actually refers to marriage, and therefore already assumes the traditional meaning of marriage, our constitution does not need amending! (And the current VoteOnMarriage proposal would just open up a new can of worms, allowing current homosexual “marriages” and civil unions. By not nullifying these concepts, the amendment would imply that they are acceptable.) When will we have to start defining concepts such as parent, or religion, or education in constitutional amendments?
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Instead they think Romney should have just outlawed gay marriage himself:
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http://massresistanc…
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Romney could have issued a simple statement that the Court had no authority to enforce its unconstitutional opinion. He could have issued an Executive Order that no changes be made to the marriage license (which read “husband” and “wife”), and that no office holders under his authority facilitate or perform same-sex “marriages.”
…you will see that I HAVE posted several times about the health care amendment. On THEIR threads.
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And my question about where I said I would vote for a gay marriage ban was in direct response to YOUR assertion that I HAD writtn that. Which I had NOT, Hamilton Berger! I have also explicitly stated that I WOULD vote against the amendment if it goes to the public – have YOU done so?
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YOU are a hateful manipulator, and part of the reason the amendment has a bad name.
What I said was:
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You’re on record as emphatically opposing calling homosexual unions marriage. You’re writings do seem to favor civil unions, but you’ve made it clear that you oppose gay marriage.
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You then replied saying you’d vote against the current amendment, but never gave a position on gay marriage itself.
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I did quote you referring to gay people as sodomites and some other statements you’ve made about gay marriage, all with a pointer to your original postings.
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I don’t think that’s hateful or manipulative. I quoted your own words, after all.
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I do think you’re one of the more disingenuous people I’ve encountered. You never quite lie, but almost always do the “weasel dance” (to borrow your phrase).
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That said, how am I part of the reason the amendment has a bad name?
The “weasel dance” is my phrase!
HOW could I not be a legislator?
But you say, “It cannot be [settled] until three votes are taken.” If the ConCon held an up-or-down vote on the petition amendment, and the amendment got fewer than fifty votes, wouldn’t that settle the issue with only one vote? Now, I realize that had they voted this time, it probably would have gotten the fifty votes it needed, which is a shame. So, then, if it were voted down at the next ConCon, are you saying that also wouldn’t settle the issue?
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Also, it’s not clear whether you’re actually accusing Charley here of “calling names” and using “dishonest manipulation,” or of condescension toward middle America and the religious, but I don’t see him doing so in this post — in fact, quite the reverse, he’s trying to avoid the emotional hot-button rhetoric and name-calling that has so far proved to be less than productive, and genuinely find a way to understand both sides.
And no, Charley has never been anything but a gentleman. Others, who talk about their scary adventures in the heartland when business has forced them to go there, and the distaste for their values along with some other posters who routinely use stock phrases like ‘hater’ and ‘homophobe’ to characterize those who genuinely disgree with them, claiming they must be mutants or aliens who just came here, etc., they are the ones I had in mind for ‘calling names’. Trav and Birmingham take the prize as ‘dishonest manipulators’.
Having grown up in MA, largely accepting uncritically those stereotypes of, well, basically the whole country except the northern coasts, and having then spent several years in the midwest, in the company of people from all over the country, being forced to reevaluate my notions of American culture, I am constantly chagrined by the casual dismissal of places-that-aren’t-here, and especially the south, that occur sometimes here, sometimes elsewhere, and sometimes in personal interactions (though I’m not sure it’s fair to characterize it as a characteristic attitude of BMG — some posters feel that way, but I don’t know that it’s a majority). Nothing is gained that way, any more than it’s productive for conservatives to accuse us of being Communists (to be clear: not that I think you have done so).
…that it is wrong to characterize an entire population as bigoted based on where they live. That does not, however, change the fact that historically the south has been resistant to social change and the forwarding of civil rights and that regionally the same posture is being adopted now vis a vis equal marriage. It also does not change the fact that many people, possibly a significant majority of people, who oppose gay marriage are, in my and many other people’s estimation, bigots. In 1954 after the Brown v. Board of Education decision was released people quoted bible and verse and any number of historical precedents to defend their belief that blacks should be segregated. An impassioned, even well reasoned resistance to other people’s humanity based in part on religious beliefs does not free one from being defined as a bigot. People who fought to preserve Jim Crow laws were in fact, as history relates, bigots. History will reveal the degree to which we regard those opposed to gay marriage as bigots. I suspect it will regard most of them as such. I personally believe that anyone who opposes gay marriage is most likely a bigot in at least some regard. It is very difficult for people who have never been the victims of prejudice to understand this and I frankly do not care.
Can you SEE how hypocritical that makes us look to the rest of the country?
…because you are comparing apples and oranges. You are comparing a neighborhood in one city to an entire region of the country. It is not hypocritical to say that the south is more resistant to social change than the north east. That is a historically accurate statement. That being said, just as one cannot presume that a person living in the south is a bigot by nature of their address, on can also not presume a person living in the northeast is not based on the same criteria.
…you’re younger than I think.
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Personally, I never saw a black person in my public school. And that was in Worcester, where many went to parochial school to avoid even the possibility. And no, it was NOT before Brown vs. Board of Education.
…who framed the discussion as a comparison between the south and South Boston, not me, so faulting me for directly responding to your query and presuming that I am either too young or unintelligent to comprehend that segregation in the N.E. was to some degree systemic is dirty pool and quite frankly beneath you. There is a significant difference between de jeure segregation sanctioned by state action and de facto segregation that is a funcion of the action of private citizens which is what you are describing as your experience. Recognizing that the south has a deplorable civil rights record and submitting that the north east has a much better record does not on it face imply that I feel there were no issues anywhere in the north east. There were, but President Eisenhower didn’t have to militarize Worcester to squelch violent civil disobedience in oppositon to civil rights.
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And for the record I grew up in NH and I went to school with black people.
At least you know where you stand, and what your fight is. Throughout the South and Midwest, the Northest, and especally Massachusetts, are seen as hypocrites on this issue – Southie, the busing crisis and Louise Day Hicks being the most public manifestations of the regional bias, and used as an example for region-wide racism that gave lip service to equality while slapping up restrictive covenants as fast as the lawyers could draw them up. Even now, I heard people – Democrats – wonder if a black man could be elected Governor because they thought a black candidate wouldn’t be viable with many Boston and urban voters.
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De facto and de jure. Exactly what the gay marriage amendment fight is over.
…that de facto segregation or intolerance is the more insidious of the two in the end, but after being forced to abolish de jeure segregation the south quickly replaced it with the de facto variety. That being said I do now see your point. There is little point in trying to cast the south as more racist than the northeast because in the end I am just fighting for the prize of best of the worst. It is pointless and brings nothing to the debate. I concede and will resist the temptation to qualify bigotry by its address. The intolerance required to deserve that title is quite enough without having to look petty when identifying it.
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I sure do hate being wrong, but I guess I can’t really expect other people to challenge their own hypocrisy if I can’t challenge my own.
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I commend your argument.
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Cheers
…my previous post in part. You never implied in your post that I was unintelligent, that was my inference. I stand by the rest.
Even if we all voted on this amendment in 2008 it wouldn’t settle it. This won’t be settled until Congress decides what to do regarding the right to use genetic engineering to alllow same-sex couples to have children together. We can and should decide that right now, at the federal leval, for all states. Marriages that lose their right to conceive would have to be annulled, regardless of how this or any other amendment is settled.
BTW – Mr. Howard – what is your stance on couples who COULD have children but CHOOSE to use birth control?
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Just how intrusive into our daily lives do you plan on becoming?
You’d be put out in the Republican pasture where you can discuss ‘performance enhancing’ drugs with Senator Dole and Rush Limbaugh!
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On second though, what the hell – marriage for everyone! Even past-their-child-producing-years Republicans!
If you still have a right to conceive with your spouse after the egg and sperm law is enacted, you would stay married. If you are married to a woman, you are not affected by an egg and sperm law and still have a right to conceive with your spouse, but if you are married to a man, you would lose conception rights.
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Marriage doesn’t compel couples to have children, it gives them the right to.
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About this intrusive.
wait, are you referring to me posting here on BMG, or the government prohibiting non egg and sperm conception?
Same-sex marriage is just one of those issues that will simply take time for people to accept. The civil rights battles of the ’50s/’60s was the same thing — sure, there was Brown vs. Board of Education and numerous public officials advocating for change. This all helped move public opinion along, but in the end it was people figuring out what was right over time. If the opposition to gay marriage is based upon little more than prejudice, then the opposition will fade over time.
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Support for same-sex marriage in MA has gone from sub-50% to close to 70% recently in polls. The SJC’s 2003 decision was no doubt a catalyst for this change, but I don’t think there would have been a move in MA public opinion towards equal marriage rights if the public wasn’t already predisposed to accepting it. After all, the SJC decision was probably a catalyst in other states AGAINST same-sex marriage.
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Much of the soft resistance against gay marriage here in MA pre-Goodridge was probably because it wasn’t an issue that people thought about at all and thus tended to accept the status quo, especially since it hadn’t been tried in practice. The hard resistance is, I agree, based largely on prejudice (I have yet to hear any anti-gay marriage arguments that make much logical sense). But I believe this hard resistance has been a minority in MA for a while, pre-dating the SJC decision, which is why the decision was by-and-large accepted.
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In places where the hard resistance is much stronger (much of the country), a court decision or great political speech will likely only backfire. In such places, things will only change over time as people gradually change their minds, which can be spurred by winning the small battles using the types of step-by-step “overbreadth”-type arguments you don’t seem to approve of. Shooting for too much too fast won’t work, even (especially) when prejudice is the main resistance.
I cannot recommend Lakoff’s Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think highly enough.
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It gives a very solid account, to my mind, of why conservatives hold the contradictory-seeming collection of views that they hold. The same sex marriage issue is just one among many it illuminated for me. (Lakoff’s popular Don’t Think of an Elephant seems trivial to me by comparison.)
A lot of folks all over the world feel threatened by or at any rate dislike homosexuality. Thus MARRIAGE, ie, legitimizing this immoral disgusting relationship further disturbs their world.
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When I was a preteen and teenager in the 40’s, no one that I knew was NOT bigotted about homos (I hadn’t heard much about lesbians). Once, wandering about the lower West Side in Manhattan, a man I’d met, older working guy, thinking I had nowhere to spend the night, kindly offered me a bed on the barge that he lived and worked on. I refused thinking he might be a homo. This brings up another prevalent notion, that “they” always preyed on people. So it’s not hard for me to relate to people who regard homosexuality as a bad sin to be repented, but being forced into coexistance with it by changes in social mores, to be just beyond outrage to see it invade sacred marriage.
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Charley went to a college that probably pioneered in gay and lesbian acceptance. In my day G/L organizations would have been an occasion for the police. In any case there were none in the open.
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Tom Blandy (Tom from Troy NY)
I agree with Charley’s thesis that we need to continue the public debate, though not by putting a vulnerable minority on trial by mob rule. There is no mystery why so many folks oppose gay marriage and anything that serves to legalize it. Often they’re the same people who supported anti-sodomy laws, who thought police harassment of gays was a good thing, who think bullying in schools is a useful deterrent against sexual non-conformity, and who don’t want to be around GLBT folks ever. In short, anti-gay marriage agitation is for many just another vehicle for waging war against modern-day Sodomites, since God hasn’t seen fit to hurl down fire and brimstone on the South End, the Castro, and Chelsea (NYC). I do not say that all opponents of same-sex marriage act out of such hatred, but enough do to poison the climate. They won’t be satisfied until gays are driven underground and/or browbeaten into conformity with Bronze Age sexual mores. I grew up in Mississippi during the civil rights movement, so I have no trouble seeing how people can hate with such fierce intensity while praying to a God who decrees love.
In 1776 the Declaration of Independence put fort the notion that all men are endowed with certain unalienable rights and this concept helped give birth to our nation. I believe that all rights now recognized by our Constitution, written eleven years later in 1787, as amended twenty-seven times since, were in fact granted to all citizens on that day in 1776 when the Declaration was ratified. Sadly for the history of this great nation, however, many of those rights for many of its citizens, vested not in possession with rights of full enjoyment, but rather in interest, to be enjoyed at a later time when the limitations of human experience evolved to the point where this would be possible, if not in practice truly acceptable by all. If this were not the case how do we account for the mistreatment of so many – slavery, deliberate and legislated segregation and racism, internment of citizens in a time of war because of their country of ancestry, debasement and oppression of women and abuse of children among others? Can we say that on the day that these groups of people were begrudgingly and usually in the face of rabid or violent opposition finally awarded possession of some of their rights that the original grant came on that day and on all days previous their mistreatment was correct and justified? I think not.
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We may recall that in 1954 the Supreme Court decision of Brown v. Board of Education was viewed by many, some would say a majority, as vile judicial activism. Immediately following its announcement the Southern Doctrine was born and the citizens of many states in this nation avowed to perpetuate the Jim Crow laws that oppressed black citizens. It was a violent and tumultuous time that saw the worst kind of civil unrest in our modern history. Based solely on this judicial decision and the will of those who knew they were right in the face of so many who insisted that they were wrong, the country was dragged through a decade of difficult change that included the militarization of Little Rock, AK at the orders of President Eisenhower. It was not until a decade after the Brown decision that the legislature finally followed with the civil rights act of 1964.
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For women their change in status was more about evolution than revolution, although they had their share of that, too. After a long, hotly contested battle that saw too many thrown into jail for daring to imagine that the had the right to vote, the franchise was finally opened to more that half the citizens of the nation with the 19th Amendment of the Constitution in 1920, nearly 150 years after the unalienable right to do so was granted in interest. So many of the other rights that have been won by women, the right to contract freely, the right to own property, the right to an education equal to that of men, the right to freedom in their own body as evidenced by the right not to be raped by their own husbands were granted gradually through a combination of legislation and judicial orders (what some would call activism), the last insidious state marriage rape doctrine not falling until the 1980’s. This in combination with the activist revolution of the 1960’s and 70’s that was rife with opposition helped bring women to the table as equals.
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And here we are again on the precipice of change. The gay rights movement in the US was born out of the small revolution that was the Stonewall riots of 1969. Since then there has been a gradual and hard won fight for acceptance and the time for gay people to take possession of their unalienable right to marriage has come. And for those who would say otherwise, marriage is unequivocally a right, as conceded by the Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia and as evidenced by history where marriage (and in some cases same sex marriage) has been in existence since thousands of years before the birth of Christ. The historical imperative is real and undeniable. Marriage equality is the law in Massachusetts and in Canada, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium and Israel. In many other jurisdictions the right to civil partnership confers all of the same rights and responsibilities as marriage. The clock cannot now be turned back. Just as was the case in 1954 and during the suffrage movement there is undeniable resistance to this change and those who would call themselves the majority claim to have the right to decide who will share in the franchise of our rights as citizens. They are wrong now just as they were wrong all those times before. The loss of power or ideological control over social institutions is a frightening prospect for many but this imperative never triumphs over the rising tide of equal liberty. It may take 20 years, it may take 50 years, but in time equal marriage rights will be the law of our land and history will remember all those who stood in opposition to it as intolerant or misguided or indifferent but unquestionably wrong.
I think that an honest discussion of the history of the institution of marriage should be at the center of this debate. Anti-same-sex marriage proponents feel they are defending “traditional marriage” as something that’s been around forever, is immutable, “self-evident”, etc.; and the arguments don’t go much beyond this core (and mostly unchallenged) assertion. As it turns out, the phrase “traditional marriage” is a little bit of a non sequitur. I haven’t gone into the history of marriage in depth, by any means, but what I have learned really opened my eyes.
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Marriage as western society knows it now — available to all regardless of economic status, as first and foremost an expression of love and monogamous commitment — has only existed since about the mid-nineteenth century. For much of recorded history, marriage or something resembling it was more likely to be entered into for economic reasons than for any other, and only practiced among classes of individuals who owned property, for example. Slaves, even as recently as the African slaves in America had no official marriage rights; that would have interfered with the economics of slavery by making it harder to sell a “wife” and “husband” to different owners, for example.
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That’s not to say there hasn’t been love between married people for thousands of years, but romantic or sexual considerations have more traditionally been secondary to (or accidental by-products of) economic considerations, when you are talking about marriage as a societal institution.
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If anything, the concept of civil marriage — as opposed to marriage within the framework of any faith tradition, which is not the business of the state to define or establish — better reflects the longer-standing (“traditional”, if you will) character of marriage because it treats it as essentially an contract between individuals that have a common economic interest, and all of the downstream ramifications are basically economic. It primarily addresses things like whether two individuals can share a healthcare benefit, file taxes jointly, or assume a dead partner’s mortgage, etc., although it also deals with non-economic issues such as who can see whom in intensive care, guardianship, etc.
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I think the discussion needs to include both an examination of the history of what we call marriage and what’s truly traditional about it; and — at least when we are discussing government’s role, legislation, court decisions, and amendments to the state constitution – we need to continue to emphasize the separation of the concept of civil marriage from other concepts of marriage that are based on particular (and not universally-held) beliefs.
Some interesting qutoes on “traditional” marriage. [note: emphisis mine]
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“By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law, that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least incorporated and consolidated into that of her husband, under whose wing, protection and cover, she performs everything.” ~ William Blackstone, ” Commentaries on the Laws of England”, 1765
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“In the nineteenth century, when a judge ruled that a husband could not imprison and rape his wife the London Times bemoaned,
One fine morning last month, <b>marriage in England was suddenly abolished.'</b> The phrase rule of thumb descends from English common law that said a man could <b>legally beat his wife with a switchno thicker than his thumb.'” ~ Naomi Wolf, “Radical Heterosexuality”<
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“The 1804 Code Napoleon, influential throughout Europe [and Louisiana; remember Streetcar?] recapitulated the old terms of the marriage contract, proclaiming a husband head of his household and dictating the arrangement as one of male protection in return for female obedience. Under this code women were classified with children and mental defectives as legal incompetents.” ~ Jaclyn Geller, “The Marriage Mystique”
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This is the tradition that Romney an Co. are so vehemently defending?
Things have changed enough that we would now say ick and ick in a big way about truly traditional marriage.
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What we mostly have now is modern marriage and it is a marvelous improvement over the old kind of marriage.
BTW, 1891 was the year in which the ‘anti imprisonment/anti rape’ legislation was passed!
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115 years ago, The Times of London was pro rape (well, as long as it was your wife).
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What a sad day for traditional marriage! 🙁
To add a little bit to the history of modern marriage rights:
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Our modern common and legislative law has evolved significantly since the end of WWII. By investigating law and precedent in the pre-war era one would find a cannon of law that spoke specifically to man and woman, husband and wife. The rights and privileges of each were in many ways distinctive. Currently the cannon of marriage law is virtually gender neutral in that it now treats both partners as equals and not as the “man” and the “woman”. It is this phenomenon that has in part set the stage for same sex marriage. Marriage is no longer the union of a man and a woman but rather the union of two equal parties and as such same sex marriage is no longer antithetical to the institution.
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Surely, the arguments made by other fringe groups for their “right to marry” will be at least as persuasive as those in Goodridge.
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As for Patrick, he has shown an incredible lack of courage on this issue.
You’re The Governor now, pal, enough with the weasel words. Stand up and state your position on something, dammit!
…incorrect. Gay people, as a discrete and insular minority recognized by law as a suspect class were awarded marriage based on strict scrutiny of the rights of marriage and whether there was a compelling state interest in their exclusion. Other “fringe” groups such as poly-amorists are not suspect classes who merit a strict scrutiny analysis. To exclude them from the marriage franchise requires only a reasonable basis for exclusion and that reasonable basis is long settled law, bigamy is illegal. “Opening the door” to gay marriage will not open the door to all the other “fringe” groups and to suggest as much is no more that ignorance, paranoia, deliberate fear mongering or some combination of the three.
From Goodridge:
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To my knowledge, no court has recognized gay people as a “suspect class” that is analyzed the same way as groups defined by race. Certainly, the SJC did not do so in Goodridge. So be careful with your terminology.
I assume you are talking about polygamy, which is of course a “traditional” form of marriage. However, it is also inherently unequal, and doesn’t fit into the framework of marriage law, which throughout assumes a contract between exactly two parties. So no, the arguments of the unnamed (and mostly imaginary) fringe groups are not in any way persuasive.
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I am not sure what you are talking about re/ Patrick. He has clearly stated that he strongly supports same sex marriage.
All I know is, I am so happy to live in Massachusetts, the only state in our nation that allows equal marriage rights to gays and lesbians. Every state will eventually join us, but unfortunately it will take time. For years I had opposed equal marriage rights purely on political grounds — e.g., it’s just not time, the people aren’t ready, etc. Then I read the Goodridge Decision, and I couldn’t believe how I could have felt that way for so long. Mea culpa.
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So, on this Thanksgiving Eve, a special thank you to Hillary Goodridge, Mass. Equality, and all the other folks who fought this battle. On a personal note, all this focus on marriage has certainly made me appreciate my own marriage even more. Is it a coincidence that the one state that recognizes equal marriage rights has one of the lowest divorce rates in the country?
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By the way, I have yet to meet anyone spouting the “let the people vote” line who is in favor of equal marriage rights.
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And welcome South Africa, another place with a history of oppression and bigotry that is moving into the 21st century.
Purely because I do not think the ends don’t justify the means, and deciding that extra-constitutional conduct by one of the branches of government is OK based on convenience is a very bad precedent.
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I have communicated this to my rep and senator, along with a note that when they vote, they will lose my support if they vote anything other than “no.”
I’ll second that welcome sentiment and extend it to the courts in Israel that, IIRC, recently ruled that Israel must recognize and give all legal protections to couples/families who have same sex marriages (granted from other places in the world where they are now legal).
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And one other thing, since you brought up South Africa. It used to be that there were only 2 industrialized countries in the world that did not have universal health care for their people: the United States and South Africa. The latter also had apartheid. Then they did the right thing and abolished apartheid, re-wrote their constitution, and now it includes the right to health care for all. That leaves US.
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I am proud to have supported and to continue to support gay marriage rights and to know that my and my husband’s actions were among the many calls, emails and letters sent to our leges who are staunch supporters of gay marriage.
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I am not proud that most of us here in MA and across the US tacitly accept the barbaric state of our health care system. The opportunity lies before us, within reach, to create a legal constitutional right to comprehensive affordable equitably financed health care for all in MA and to lead the way for the country, as we are so proudly doing on gay marriage.
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Both amendments should go thru the initiative process as it now exists and is defined in the constitution, and at this point in the process the only accurate call is “Let the legislators vote”. And let’s make sure that the health care amendmen gets 50 yes votes on Jan 2, and advances to the ballot where it belongs. And let’s make equally sure that the anti-gay marriage amendment dies for lack of 50 yes votes in 2 successive ConCon sessions, so that this divisive and harmful initiative is truly behind us and stays there, where it belongs.
“And make no mistake, same-sex marriage is on its heels in most of America.”
“And we in enlightened Massachusetts have to realize that the pro-marriage arguments we make all the time simply are not heard in most of the country.”
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I’m not sure what you base that on. Most of the country has never had same sex marriage in the first place. The question is whether we’re getting further from or closer to changing the status quo, and the evidence is mixed.
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In both 2004 and 2006 there are a number of ballot initiatives to prohibit states from recognizing gay marriage, and in both years they were scattered among a number of conservative and swing states. In 2004, Oregon, the most liberal of the states with such a ballot question, still passed it by 56%, which was narrow in comparison to the high 60s, 70s, and 80s most of the other states got. In 2006, Colorado passed theirs by 56%, Virginia by 57%, Idaho by 63%, South Dakota by 52%! And as you know, Arizona’s anti-SSM question actually failed. Even in the deep south, we went from a high of 86% in 2004 (Mississippi) to 78% – in South Carolina, by far the most religious-right state in the country. The overall numbers look like we’ve had about a 15+% shift against banning gay marriage in just two years.
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So maybe the arguments we make are being heard? Or maybe our example is showing people something?
THIS is exactly WHY it is so important to let people vote instead of treating them like slow children! The tide HAS turned, and a genuine right beats a trumpery one any day!
You can’t lump everyone who opposes gay marriage, or everyone who supports the amendment, or everyone who is upset by the ConCon’s actions into one group. Are some people motivated by the desire to keep others out of hell? Probably. Are some people simply bigots and fueled by hate? I haven’t met any, but then again I haven’t met the shopkeeper in Harvard Square with posters calling for GW Bush to be tried for war crimes either.
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I’m a member of Generation Y. I can’t look back at a better time, marriage wise, because I never really knew one. I grew up in a society of broken homes, divorces, and Brittany Spears’ 36 hour marriage. Growing up I had two best friends who were both far, far smarter than I. I was increadably jealous when they would get pulled out of class to go to the gifted and talented room and I had to stay behind.
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Both of them had to watch their parents divorce and it had a huge impact on them. As smart as they were, both ended up as drunks and addicts, and neither made it past the 10th grade. I went on to earn an Ivy League Masters Degree.
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I think the family is the most basic unit of society and when you start messing with it then you can’t be surprised when society looks screwed up. I can’t say there was a directly causal relationship, but I think the fact that my parents are still happily married is a big reason why I did so much better than my friends. How many other children in this country have suffered like Matt and Kevin, and who are doing worse than them? How many of them have spent more time in prison than my friends have? How many all around societal problems do we have because the family has broken down?
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I think if you want to get married it should be tougher to do so. It should also be tougher to get divorced. My friends are Gen Xers and Gen Yers. They shouldn’t be thinking about their first marriages. Marriage should mean more.
…because it is a myth.
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It is also a myth that the family has broken down. The family structure may not be the same as it was 50, 100, or 200 years ago, but that doesn’t mean it has gotten worse. It has evolved – in many ways, for the better. There are plenty of happy and healthy kids who came from ‘broken homes’ and plenty of ‘screwed up’ kids who come from loving homes.
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Sure, the divorce rate may have been lower in “better times”, but it is not indicative of the health and happiness of the family, it means more people were stuck in unhappy or abusive marriages.
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I also wonder, if it were tougher to get married, might that not mean more children are born out of wedlock? What would that do to for the ‘traditional’ idea of family?
Tblade – there is a median between bliss and abysmal, and THAT is where most people were. ‘The honeymoon is over’ was a common phrase when I was young, but there was an element of relief behind it. Now, you could just settle down to being comfortable married people – neither inflamed with passion or trapped in despair.
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Those common and garden homes are the backbone of the myth – mom and dad weren’t wild lovers, but they did stick up for each other and work together to make a better life for themselves and their children. If they rented, they saved to buy. If they owned, they worked to maintain. They were ordinary. Normal. Secure. Staid. Stable.
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That is what people are worried about tampering with. Ironically, that is also why gay people want to GET married. To have that committment, that bedrock.
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Don’t dis the myth, Tblade – it’s what makes most of us get out of bed in the morning. Or be willing to head to Stop and Shop at 5 pm just before Thanksgiving, to get those last few potatoes for dinner tomorrow. We can come home to the myth, in all its reality.
I am not being snarky or anything, but I don’t follow this post.
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I am not saying family or happy families are a myth, what is a myth that things were some how “better” in the past. That, because child abuse, spousal abuse and marital discord weren’t talked about, the perception is that in has only existed in recent times.
…I don’t follow PP’s comment.
were taboo subjects and swept under the carpet prior to the women’s movement. Back then, there were no shelters for battered women, no therapists for couples seeking counseling (unless you were wealthy), unwed mothers were sent away and shunned, and husbands and wives remained married to their substance-abusing spouses. All these problems have existed since the beginning of time.
Child sexual abuse, for example. This was not a topic explored until the 1970s, and it took feminist activism to forefront it. Before the 70s, the record of child sexual abuse only examined incest.
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There is a perception that the incidence of CSA is much more rampant today, when in fact society repressed the the facts and discussion of CSA.
Think about all the ‘Dateline NBC’ stories on child predators and dysfunctional families. This crap has been going on for years! The Catholic Church covered up decades of pedophilia, and there were no services for children who were abused by their own parents. The Republicans like to paint a Leave It To Beaver image of family life back in the ’50s, but of course this is an invention of the media.
Treating the family like it’s some sort of discrete, monolithic entity immune to an ever-changing society is fool’s work. As you say, the family has evolved, not eroded. Anecdotal stories about kids from “non-traditional” families faring poorly may be interesting to some but, in the end, prove nothing. Indeed, there is no evidence for this claim. In large measure, what affects a child’s success most is an adult’s investment of time and love.
and I certainly was not trying to say that it was way back when. There were issues then, and I am glad we are doing a better job dealing with them now.
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Still, according to the US census, of all the women who married when my parents were in the late 70s, almost half (48%) were divorced before their 20th anniversary. For women who had their 2nd marriage during that same time period, the majority of those marriages (53%) failed before they saw a 20th. On the other hand, more than 3/4% of the men who got married the same time my grandfather did entered into a second decade with their wife.
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Just go down the line and you will see that as you go through the years more and more couples are divorcing. This cleary is not a good thing, especially when you consider that couples are marrying later, and both parties are more free to choose whom and under what circumstances they will marry.
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I see my friends moving in with girlfriends after knowing each other for but a few weeks, and shopping for rings far before they are ready. The problem is, many of my friends don’t see marriage as a commitment they are truly making until death does them part.
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Rather, marriage is simply something you do while it is convenient, and as soon as it isn’t they don’t think there is any problem at all in dissolving it. Growing up seeing the effects of divorce on my friends, and now seeing the heartache endured by my adult friends as they go through divorces themselves, I know that to be untrue.
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I’m certainly not arguing for more out of wedlock births. Then again, by 1990 nearly 2/3 of all black children were being born to single mothers. How much higher can it to get? My generation doesn’t take marriage seriously. They take sex even less seriously.
One thing for ya, Kai. I recently saw a stat that, of marriages that occur after the people are 25, and in which there is not a child in the picture initially, marriages still have a success rate closer to that 75% you quoted.
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Its unfortunately the ‘serial marry-ers’ which make the overall statistics so bad (for every person married four times, it takes 4 ‘death do us part’ marriages to get to only 50%).
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I agree with you that people take marriage too lightly, and don’t see it as the commitment that it should be.
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The thing is that, if anything, I see same-sex marriage as a positive on that front. Seeing how important marriage should be, and how some people have to struggle to be given that right, should remind people not to take these things for granted.
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Meanwhile, us heathens here in Mass that are destroying marriage (not saying thats your opinion 🙂 ) actually have the lowest divorce rate of all 50 states according U.S. Census, and other sources.
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If all the energy that was spent trying to prevent same sex couples from recognizing their marriages, and getting equal rights under the law, was instead redirected at dealing with the divorce problem in this country, we could be doing a lot more to deal with the actual problems with marriage.
It is not at all clear that a higher divorce rate is a bad thing. It is a fallacy to believe that married couples from your parents’ and grandparents’ have happier marriages than couples marrying today. A higher divorce rate means that more women and men feel liberated to leave unhealthy and abusive marriages than ever before. The connection between your stats and your thesis is week. We could also say “Well, more women have undergraduate and graduate degrees then ever before, therefore educated women are hurting marriage and causing more divorce,” which we know to be untrue.
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Divorce is painful and takes its toll, but coming home to a loveless marriage and not being able to pursue an active and healthy romantic/sexual life with a partner that you do love is far less healthy for society.
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You say, “The problem is, many of my friends don’t see marriage as a commitment they are truly making until death does them part.” In my opinion, that is not a problem with marriage, it is an issue of your friends’ marriages living up to your idea of what marriage is supposed to be. You can’t impose your marriage ideal on another couple, nor should anyone be able to impose his/her marriage ideal on you and your spouse.
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Also consider people are living longer than ever. “Till death do us part” was never meant to lock a 20-year-old into a 70-year marriage contract. When the framers of marriage thought those words up, life expectancy was to the age of 36. 1 in 4 childbirths killed the mother. If you didn’t like your wife, just keep knocking heer up – you didn’t need divorce back in the day because you had child birth!
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Marriage and family is constantly evolving. We can’t grow as a society yet stick to one rigid idea of ‘ideal marriage’. To be a healthier society, we must stop looking at any marriage that doesn’t end in death as a failure. We must accept that some marriages that have ended in divorce have been successes!
The SJC thinks entering into a marriage contract is one that is entered into for life as well, as you can see from the Goodridge decision, with my italics:
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the exclusive and permanent commitment of the marriage partners to one another… is the sine qua non of civil marriage.
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I agree that living in a loveless marriage is no way to live, and you will note that I am not advocating for an abolition of divorce. Life happens and divorce is sometimes, and tragically, necessary. However, if some sort of prenuptial counseling was mandated before a marriage license was issued, or if marriage counseling was required before you could file for divorce (with exceptions for cases that required immediate attention, such as abuse), then I think it would go a long way.
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Who, exactly, were the framers of marriage? Marriage has been around as long as we have. It is not an artificial human construct, a social contract. It grew organically, and out of biological necessity. People who divorce may end up far better off than they were when they were married, but if a marriage should end in divorce, it did fail. Not all marriages that end with death are successes, but all that end in divorce are failures.
my mistake, only the fist section should be in block quote. the part beginning with “I agree that” should be regular text.