Thomas Jefferson said,"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves, and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion."
Same-sex marriage will never be a civil right until the people in their discretion make it one. Judiciaries are not the answer. And when the people speak, they should be heard.
Thank you, 80% of Tennessee!
Now - let's see about outlawing no-fault divorce so that marriage will really be a protected and honorable estate.
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Now - let's see about outlawing no-fault divorce so that marriage will really be a protected and honorable estate.
finally, something sensible! ;) my mom keeps saying things about me and dan getting married, like once we do it he'll be more committed to me. there are a few things wrong with that statement (i won't even bother addressing the idea that dan isn't already committed), but the worst is that marriage somehow makes people into committed and caring individuals. if you're not committed before marriage, you're unlikely to become that way. marriage isn't magic. it just takes whatever relationship you have and intensifies it.
*shrug* while i recognize that marriage can be a beautiful thing, i am currently having a REALLY hard time reconciling that feeling with the reality of brokenness that surrounds marriage in this country. i want to marry dan, but i do not feel that the marriage itself will bind dan to me forever. it's love and honor and communication and honesty that do that, not a legal process or religious ceremony.
i am sick to death with all of the dishonor and betrayal that exists in most marriages. those things are so common that they are the fodder of comedy, which breaks my heart. how can we truly engage in loving relationship with our spouses when the messages surrounding us in the media, our own families, our friends' relationships, and in politics all tell us that we must lie and hide things and demean our spouse in order to be normal? it makes me sad and confused and i feel unable to express that or even to feel it in most settings. i don't want to participate in jokes among the women about how men are stupid and we're really charge, or how we have to hide our purchases from our spouses so they don't get mad, or how we have to trick them into doing the things we want them to do. it all makes me sick. and i don't know how to express that to anyone. dan and i are committed to each other. for the rest of our lives. and i'm scared that this hulking, betrayal-ridden institution of marriage will ruin it.
you should email me. :) tell me about your thanksgiving. tell me what you think about what i said.
Interesting.... Some things I would want to tease out a bit. here.
First, a legally contracted marriage puts external pressures on a couple to stay together. It does this by incentivizing the relationship (through social approval, monetary rewards, conferal of benefits, etc...). It also exerts pressure by making the divorce process undesirable (social stigma, legal fees, waiting periods, prenuptial agreements, etc...). None of these will turn a rotten boyfriend into a loving, attentive husband. But it will lend a heaviness to any decisions that would endanger the relationships. Marriage mores are like drug laws or padlocks; they not aren't there to stop determined transgressors but to give pause to honest men (and women) in a moment of weakness.
Secondly, admitting that the institution as it exists in America has problems is not an argument for not getting married. It's an argument for reformation, not refrainment. The same is true of church membership. It's a sick, consumer-driven institution in this country. But we aren't free from our duties toward sacred assembly. Neither are we free to crap out on marriage, which God instituted of our first parents even before the Church.
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