Marriage is a part of the same hetero sexist structure that represses gay people, women, and hell even men into specific roles, all focused on a nuclear family of a wife and husband to rear up kids.

Although i come from two loving parents who are still married and were awesome to me growing up, I think if our society truly embraced acceptence and a collective responsibility for life (ie reject norms of social division like homelessness, abuse, racism, homophobia etc, and let’s not forget WAR) then we wouldnt need 2 specific parents, with specific gender roles. I hope the LGBT community will get on board with this perspective. I think it is within the grassroots, trans, young kids, POC groups etc. but not in the Rosie ODonnel lets just elect Barack Obama and everything will be OK camp….

Daniel: my understanding of the background is that City Council was trying to pass a measure wherein the City of San Diego would file a brief in support of gay marriage in the current lawsuit going through California courts. The mayor, as per his republican roots, had threatened a veto. The council probably had enough votes to override (it’s just a simple majority), so he could have gone ahead and done it while probably knowing it would have passed anyways. The fact that his daughter is gay was one of those known-in-political-circles-but-not-openly-discussed situations.

So he went out and publicly changed his stance, something which will probably cause him damage in the republican primary. That’s not a light decision for anyone, but I might speculate it’s a pretty emotionally powerful subject if you feel you’ve been treating your daughter as a second-class citizen and now you’re going to stop. Just as it is moving to watch a man do what is right in the face of what is popular.

Wow. I’m stunned by that statement.

1) If something has flaws it needs to be obliterated?
2) Because you see it as having flaws, you want to unilaterally obliterate it for everyone else?

I really enjoy some of your insights, and I’ve enjoyed reading this blog. But the insularity and insensitivity and huge generalization of that statement just blows me away.

I’m not saying you’re like this, but it reminds me of some on the more “left” (whatever that means anymore), “liberal” (probably just a placeholder term now), deconstructionist side of things who are unbelievably self-righteous and totalitarian.

Certainly a tradition of marriage as ownership has existed in some times places and cultures. I think one would be hard put to find it in America, within the past 200 years, except perhaps as a minority remnant of earlier tendencies. Bear in mind that ownership of one individual by another has been illegal under the US Constitution for almost 150 years.

The practice of marriage as politics still exists, but it is restricted to the wealthy and powerful.

The plain fact is that without a stable environment within which to raise children, the existence of humankind as a civilized species would be flat out impossible. If marriage is not to provide this stability, how then is it to be accomplished? If marriage is to provide for the nurturing of the coming generation, why load it down with baggage that is not about that?
(And I would include in that category most if not all of the nonsense that falls under the heading “romantic love” – as distinct from unselfish love).

People who want to do different things in a partnership should seek to establish institutions suited for those – not hijack an institution that already have a valid and necessary role to play in the context of its previous purpose.

-Steve

That is false. Marriage is “traditionally” about ownership (the man’s ownership of his wife and his children, and the labor of both) and politics (marriage as a way to cement two tribes/countries together), not a loving family. For example, marital rape was only outlawed comparatively recently in the history of marriage — and I believe it’s still legal in at least one state here in the US.

A few cites: What Gay Marriage Teaches About the History of Marriage, A Brief History of Marriage, History of Marriage as an Institution.

I give kudos galore to Jerry Sanders. It takes great courage to stand up to one’s political allies and do what one feels is right. Good for him!

Giving up on marriage without some alternative means of effectively addressing these legitimate concerns would seem to be an exercise in mindless nihilism.

If marriage 1.3 is full of bugs, then lets get to work toward marriage 2.1 (the bug fix release of marriage 2.0).

Bottom line, kids need loving stability growing up. Marriage doesn’t always provide this, but what else is there?

And, it would seem people take marriage to be about a partnership between two people. I think not.(Or at least not simply). There are many kinds of partnerships conceivably definable between two (or more) people. Marriage is traditionally about a partnership specifically devoted to the task of creating a family context within which to raise kids. Other kinds of partnerships could probably be defined, with appropriate rights as needed to support the goals of the partnership. Society should determine what kinds of partnerships there is a valid social interest in defining and supporting. But let’s reserve “marriage” for partnerships in raising a family.

Just a thought,
-Steve