More On Gay Marriage

[joreth]

I've ranted about marriage many times before, but I think people get a little confused as to what I mean when I talk about marriage.

There are two parts to marriage, the legal contract and the religious observance.  It is the legal contract aspect that I rant about.  The legal contract is a very specific thing and has, literally, nothing to do with love or sex or romance.  It is about property.  Any reason to have some sort of emotional or religious ritual for your romantic relationship is NOT what I'm ranting about when I rant about marriage.  It's the unfortunate tradition in our country that we use the same word for two very separate and distinct situations.

With two states putting anti-gay-marriage amendments on the ballot this year, this is a particularly relevant issue.  It's easy for me to just not get married if I don't agree with it, but our society's habit of confusing the two types of marriage is causing a very real civil liberties fight that only emphasizes my problems with legal marriage in general.  summer_jackel has written a very good journal entry about legal marriage with respect to the fight against homosexual discrimination. 

I recommend everyone read it.

Comments

[james-the-evil1.livejournal.com]

Three states. It's on the ballot in Arizona too.