An Interesting Take on Gay Marriage

[Epigonos]

Bill Leonard is an aging Republican Party hack here in California. He is also an elected member of the State Board of Equalization (Taxes). What is shocking is that in his most recent emailed newsletter, sent out today, even Good Ole Boy Bill seems to be getting the picture. Here is what he has to say about California allowing same sex marriages:

 

“Government in California has endorsed a new definition of marriage that I will never accept. I can try to depend on the good sense of the electorate to reject this definition, but I fear the people are losing their resistance. What then? I find myself thinking the way the "leave me alones" think. Their solution is to take away from government the role of being the arbiter of marriage and returning to churches the role of moral responsibility in this area. This would stop the state's endorsement of an absurd idea and also appeal to those who want the state scaled back.”

 

Now if by the above if he means that only churches, in the future, should conduct marriages - that is just fine with me. Overnight there will be a multitude of new churches willing and able to perform same sex marriages.

By damn the times they are a changing and definitely not for the worst!!!!!

[+ Tom Isern]

Until the end of the 19th century, marital norms in Western Europe and America did not expect monogamy of both partners--only women had to be monogamous. Today, both partners are expected to be monogamous--by law. Adultery, by either partner, is grounds for divorce in (every?) state.

 

It's also a nifty historical fact that monogamy was enjoined on men by movements that were also strongly opposed to prostitution. Somehow a majority of Americans came to believe that prostitution and marriage don't go together and the laws grew around that belief. I suspect that attitude hasn't changed much.

 

We live in a time when the definition of marriage is MORE RESTRICTIVE, at least for men, than it has EVER BEEN. I'm not at all sure this represents progress for too many folks other than the marriage chapels and the wedding cake makers and the divorce attorneys whose businesses are bound to explode.

 

Oh, yes, we're being admitted to the sacred of the sacred for heterosexuality. But while this legal victory will force the culture of marriage to the left, it will force queer culture to the right. The new norm: happy, monogamous consumers. New York has already moved in that direction.

 

Not progress in my opinion.

[Rick Munroe]

>Today, both

>partners are expected to be monogamous--by law. Adultery, by

>either partner, is grounds for divorce in (every?) state.

 

And yet, nobody is ever forced to get divorced due to adultery if they don't want to. Last time I checked, Hillary was still married to Bill. "Emotional cruelty" is also grounds for divorce, but I don't see anybody forcing my parents to get a divorce every time my father calls my mother a "moron." (She loves it, but that's beside the point.)

 

>But while this legal victory will force the

>culture of marriage to the left, it will force queer culture

>to the right. The new norm: happy, monogamous consumers.

>New York has already moved in that direction.

>

>Not progress in my opinion.

 

Some gay couples have waited decades (since before you and I were born) for the right to marry, and it really has nothing to do with you if you don't choose to get married. Nobody's going to stop you from going to the sex clubs or hooking up online or whatever it is that you think you won't be able to do if two 80-year-old lesbians have full marriage rights. Your idea of "progress" is society remaining stagnant and every group staying in its own compartmentalized corner. Would you also prefer that black people had stayed in the ghettos and not moved into the suburbs? Would you prefer public schools to have remained segregated? Times change, Tom, and it's always a good thing when people have more rights and options.

 

By the way, you said elsewhere that your "ex-lover" and you had purchased property together, as "joint tenants with the right of survivorship." Jeez, how bourgeois and heterosexual. Don't you know that "queers" are not supposed to imitate straight people by doing something so mundane and safe as buying property together? That's what straight married couples do. Queers are supposed to just crash on whatever couch happens to be nearby, as they sniff poppers and look for the next sex party to attend.