Same-sex, whole-milk marriage: 50 Shades of Gay

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Interestingly, both Attorney General (and Democratic candidate for Governor) Jerry Brown, and Governor Arnold Scwartzenegger have filed briefs asking that Judge Walker allow immediate resumption of same sex marriages.

Resuming same-sex marriages “is consistent with California’s long history of treating all people and their relationships with equal dignity and respect,” Mr. Schwarzenegger said in his legal filing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/us/07 ... A_BRF.html

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Fox News readers appear to strongly agree with Judge Walker's decision:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/08/ ... -decision/

[Primula Baggins]

Although I haven't seen any posts aiming people toward the poll, I have no doubt the word was being shared around among people who opposed 8, who then swamped the poll. This is why online polls are silly.

It's instructive to look at the very earliest comments on the poll (they're in backwards order, most recent at the top, so you have to click to the last page to start seeing them). Those would be people who were already reading the site when the poll went up, and there's little doubt how they feel about Judge Walker's decision.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Well 72% of over 313,00 votes are still staying that the Judge was right, Prop 8 is unconstitutional. One would think that that number would be going down once the usual readers saw the poll, but it isn't. I agree that online polls aren't very useful, but I think it might show that this is an issue that has limited appeal on the side of "protecting marriage" beyond a fairly small, committed group, whereas the side of believing that marrying the person of your choice is a fundamental right is growing.

Or maybe not.

[Primula Baggins]

Perhaps we need a check poll on say, Daily Kos, or Rachel Maddow's blog. (Maybe there is one; I don't know.)

My gut feeling is that the trend is toward either approving gay marriage or ceasing to oppose it in civil law even if people personally disapprove on the basis of morals. If Judge Walker does not stay his ruling and gay couples start to marry in California again, that will only push things more in the difrection of supporting or at least tolerating equality. The well-publicized marriages in California, involving well-known and well-liked people, may have helped people understand the real, emotional, gut-level difference between "getting married" and "signing a contract for a civil union."

It's also worth noting that racially mixed marriages were considered immoral by a large proportion of Americans, even at the time the Supreme Court ruled that such marriages could not be outlawed.

[anthriel]

The well-publicized marriages in California, involving well-known and well-liked people, may have helped people understand the real, emotional, gut-level difference between "getting married" and "signing a contract for a civil union."

You know what also may help this cause, in a very twisted sort of weird way? The failure of some of those "high profile" gay marriages. I think, in an odd way, it makes the whole thing look more like... well, marriage.

I think there was/is a bit of "this is being forced down the throats of people just to make a point" feeling going on, here. I hate to state the obvious, but lots of people are uncomfortable with homosexuality. Period. Gay rights activists seemingly trying to muscle in to what has always seemed logically to be a man/woman thing... marriage... has been seen, I feel, as one more way of an "in your face" kind of publicity thing, rather than gay people really wanting a legal union.

There's something very human about someone's marriage failing, though. It's easy to get married in some sort of flag-waving fanfare, but real marriage is hard, and sometimes it fails. No one's divorcing to prove a point. Divorce is sad and difficult, and quite a human struggle.



I don't know if I wrote that very well. :|

[yovargas]

You did. It's a very interesting point.

[Primula Baggins]

You know what also may help this cause, in a very twisted sort of weird way? The failure of some of those "high profile" gay marriages. I think, in an odd way, it makes the whole thing look more like... well, marriage.

Word, Anthy.

It also makes it believable that what people want is not the symbol, but the reality. Warts and all, pain and all. Lots to lose and all.

It maybe also makes it possible, or will eventually make it possible, to separate the sexual union from the legal (and possibly religious) union. In these modern days, marriage really isn't about "wow, you guys get to have sex now," because you can have sex without it and I would guess that most people already have. (It's probably been that way since forever, but now we can admit it.)

The focus is more on what the commitment means in every other way, and the long-term nature it (ideally) has. The humanity of marriage, not the plumbing. Flinging dishpans and storming out of the apartment. That kind of thing.

[yovargas]

Such a romantic.

[vison]

IAWA,P,and Y.

[Ellienor]

Oh, let me tell you. I'm only 12 years into mine and there have been times where I have hung on by the skin of my teeth. The fact that there were children helped. The fact that it would be a major PITA to untangle all the finances and legal stuff also helped.



Nice to be all misty eyed about marriage until you try it.

[Primula Baggins]

And yet, you know, the "grrr, we're in this, we're gonna make it work" feeling is, to my mind, what really distinguishes marriage from not-marriage. The public, legal commitment burdened with everyone else's expectations has an effect.

I don't mean that a lifelong, serious commitment is not possible without these things. Not at all. But I can also understand why people value these things and don't want to be told they can't ever have them.

(I was quite a flinger in my younger years—rarely anything important, and never at anyone, though I did bust a whisk once. Yet somehow we made it through to our 30th last month.)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The focus is more on what the commitment means in every other way, and the long-term nature it (ideally) has. The humanity of marriage, not the plumbing. Flinging dishpans and storming out of the apartment. That kind of thing.

Of course, it IS possible to make that kind of commitment WITHOUT marriage. Although that doesn't negate the value of making marriage available to those who feel that it is necessary/desirable to cement that kind of commitment.

[Primula Baggins]

Yes, as I tried to say in my post just above yours. Which was made with your own story well in mind.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

And, needless to say, I hadn't seen that post when I posted.

Interestingly, I have been going back and forth all day about whether to even make that post, so it is all the more ironic that when I finally decided to do so, you had already made the point yourself.

[Frelga]

Yes, marriage is quite an mystical notion. We have only just began, as a culture, to figure out what it means in the modern context.

Many of the traditional "reasons" to get married have diminished or disappeared. Few families use marriage to forge alliances, or to acquire essential workforce for the family farm. All these chains that forced couples together are rusting and creaking and breaking. Even procreation is no longer chained to marriage, even ostensibly. More and more, people really marry because they think they found a soulmate, heart's desire, other half, etc. What a hopelessly romantic, impractical approach!

And yet, with all that, half the marriages survive. And many whose marriages didn't go into the second marriage with the same romantic hopes, and actually succeed.

Just think about it, half the couples actually manage to tolerate each other for decades. Pretty amazing, no?

[Primula Baggins]

And, needless to say, I hadn't seen that post when I posted.

Interestingly, I have been going back and forth all day about whether to even make that post, so it is all the more ironic that when I finally decided to do so, you had already made the point yourself.

I guess we've just known each other a long time?

Frelga, your post summarizes a pretty strong argument for why people give importance to marriage. If it were simply a patriarchal construct imposed by outside expectations (as it certainly has been and can be), it would be dying out with the changes that have happened in recent decades at least in the West. Instead it seems to be going strong, and people are fighting hard to gain the right to marry.

Yes, it is amazing that half of marriages endure, given how people change from year to year and how young and silly people getting married often are. I think I'd describe staying married as an art, but one that often seems well worth mastering. (Not talking about mistaken or abusive or oppressive marriages, just the ordinary kind between more or less compatible people who manage to more or less love each other most of the time.)

[River]

Before I married, I'd been living with S for a couple years.

After the wedding, everything shifted in a very subtle but very important way. I thought it's be like it was before, just with extra jewelry for me. But no. One year later, we're still trying to figure it out. It's a lot of work though, even more work than being a live-in girlfriend was. I don't know why, though.

[yovargas]

If you ever figure out why, I'd love to hear it.

[Ellienor]

Well, in a live in situation, I think you can tend to "gloss over" or kind of overlook some things in the interests of not rocking the boat. Whereas in marriage you have two things: one is that you know it's now-or-never for fixing things, and the other is that you are more certain it's the other person's job to have to listen to your side.