If anything was just ripe for privatization, it's marriage. Get it out of the state's hands. Let private companies handle paying benefits, deciding who can get married by them, everything. The only thing the state would do is ensure that contracts (payments, etc.) are enforced. Any company could apply to provide marriage license. You could get married by the Catholic church or Starbucks. One company won't marry you? Go to one that's friendlier to your union type.

The state should not be in the business of providing marriage benefits nor telling people who they can or cannot enter a contract with. Marriage should just be another contract with a fancy name. Get the state out of marriage.

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Marriage is a failed institution. Over half of marriages end in divorce. The tax payers then have to foot the bill for the family courts. If to people want to play house, they can do so with out the state’s involvement.

Why does no one discuss the discrimination that unmarried people face? We lose out on tax breaks. Unlike gays, we are not able in some cases to put boy/girlfriends on our insurance.

Why are the gays and there supporters not also championing polygamy? If to adults have the right to get married why, don’t 3 adults have that same right? It’s because “Progressives” are full of shit and polygamy is in vogue at the moment.

My theory on why American can’t allow gay marriage:

In America, the woman is the victim, and the man is the victimizer.

If there are 2 man or 2 women “family” courts would actually have to examine the case instead of automatically granting the children to the women and ordering the man to surrender his property.

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Someday I hope the human race will begin to understand that love is for all, including the self. Romance is only a small part of what love really is and without the greater understand usually fails. When one understands "real love" one is free and HAPPY. But romance sells more. :-)

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A quick glance at cable TV or the average supermarket magazine rack of 'womens magazines' will reveal how futile your quest to re-define marriage really is.

TV shows like "Bridezilla" on women's cable channels - just to name one - is further proof yet. The Bride business is not just big business, it is SERIOUS business to the average stary-eyed young girl. It is "their day" and you might as well try to repeal human nature ...and female hormones.

THAT is also a big reason that females consistently top men in polls in their non approval of allowing "gay marriage." The prop 8 in California was the final proof *if* anyone really needed any more.

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This article is full of non sequiturs and false logic.

The issue of an inter-racial marriage between a man and a woman, the prohibition of which is and was wrong; is not the same thing as the prohibition of two people of the same sex.

And this person teaches at Princeton?

A fair-minded person would at least consider the notion that redefinition of marriage to "genderless" actually impedes the legitimacy of inter-racial marriage. http://www.manwomanmarriage.org/jrm/ and the article "Marriage and the Betrayal of Perez and Loving" would be a good counter-read to this author's polemic.

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Thanks for this thoughtful article on marriage.

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Why not say it?

While a few groups once excluded from the "privilege" to marry are trying to claw their way into marriage, many familiar with the institution are beginning to embrace the European model: "Marriage, WTF?" and simply want out of the whole thing.
The celebration of marriage is a tribute to our human capacity for living in denial.
Whatever babbling justifications we use, we trap ourselves in our needs until we cannot take them anymore. "Love," seems to be the catch-all word in the mass hypnosis.
Writing articles about rethinking the institution is another subconscious attempt to prop it up in order to save it from self-destruction.

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I have an objection to Melissa Harris-Lacewell’s bulk-assertions that:

“It is impossible not to laugh aloud about the utter absurdity of defending the tragic mulatto narrative in the age of Tiger Woods, Mariah Carey, Ben Jealous, and Barack Obama.”

Surely, Justice of the Peace Bardwell is a moron for not knowing his own place and meddling in other people’s wishes to marry since it is their right, HOWEVER, miss Harris-Lacewell who presumably sees herself as a mulatto is not the only voice in offering dissenting opinions on the “mixed-race” experience.
Not all races are mixed equally, for instance, and not all mixes result in acceptance in the community. As a non-famous half-breed ( black & white ) male, I resent miss Harris-Lacewell’s Starfucker’s assertion as she goes on to name-drop: “hey, look at these famous faces of happy millionaires in our media as living proofs that all is well at the camp…”
Perhaps the election of Barack Obama will do a lot to help the self-image of the mixed-race disenfranchised, one can only hope...( though most will not grow up to become Mariah Carey or Ben Jealous.) but that same stupid argument was once raised to show that so-called Blacks were doing fine because they were allowed on TV like Bill Cosby.

Black and White unions, whether or not married, tend to not last and African or Black fathers ( I had one, I can say whatever the hell I want ) are notorious for not sticking around, once they've dropped a life into this hell-hole of a civilization, which makes those mixes particularly potent when it comes to destroying the sense of self-worth of a progeny. All these marriage and family fantasy minded do-gooders want us to think otherwise because they resent any criticism of the consequences of marriage, be they sound or absurd, as in the Louisiana case.

Tiger and Obama notwithstanding, being a mixed child can be hell on Earth in your own skin, and this should be said loud and clear. Of course, Justice of the peace Bardwell is mistaken, as Miss Harris-Lacewell points out in a flash of her own realization: marriage is not required to procreate and ruin a life in that way.

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Can somehow lead one to support it? How quaint.

Remind me again why any "relationship" (and I use quotes because it's clear the author means only one type of interpartner setup - one between two people who "love" each other) needs state protection. Remind me why people *deserve* pre-packaged ways in which they can give up their rights to other people.

Marriage is antiquated; marriage is about property rights; "marriage" that is said to be anything *else* is simply the Pollyanna propaganda of capitalist modernity to make us feel better about living under a regime of rights-infringement, commodification, alienation from our sociocultural lives through our economic lives, and the exploitative limitations on self-formation.

If you've got a "human right" to choose your partner (where "partner" means one person to whom the state will recognize your relationship with a piece of paper), then individualism, choicism, and - therefore - capitalism win. Make me puke. Can we queers actually get back to fighting against the system instead of clawing to be better subjects within it?

Why don't we rethink marriage on its own, actual terms? Why don't we scrub the state of only-in-name secular marriage? Why don't we just let our infamous system of contract law do this work for us? Better yet, why don't we take the example of black slave non-state-endorsed marriages the author cites as a sign that perhaps *the state's recognition isn't more important than how you think yourself*. The only times it would matter is if you had a child dispute or a property dispute. (And let's face it, that's only because in the American legal system, a child is property. We should "rethink" that too - and find really romantic reasons for children to remain property). As protection, one, in love as in anything else, would just write a fucking contract. On one's own terms, not the state's.

That's rethinking. The author is merely thinking-again.

Ew.

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The current national debate on the permissibility of gay marriages is missing the point. We assume that the State has to be heavily involved in marriages, however it can be almost totally removed.

All adult unions of bonding could be considered civil unions analogous to a business contract between partners of a corporation. The State only has a vested interest in enhancing public health (e.g., communicable disease, parent education) and contract enforcement via the courts (e.g., the rights of children on contract dissolution, property allocation) but other than that need not be involved in all.

If certain religious or other groups want to confer or refuse "sanctity" for a couple, that is their right and the gov't should have nothing to do with this, one way or the other.

The sanctity of marriage is never conferred by a State but by the love and commitment of the partners.

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Along the lines of what others have said, I don't think same-sex marriage can or should change marriage. Saying that it can or should is giving in to the right's idea that marriage is a privilege granted and regulated by the state, mortal men, and organized religion, and is subject to the political whims of the voting public.

My argument for same sex marriage is that, whether a marriage between two gay people repels you personally or offends your personal beliefs is beside the point; it's none of your business, nor the state's, nor any organized religion. It's an agreement or contract between the two partners and God, if you choose to include Him.

If gay people are legally allowed to marry, it shouldn't change a thing about anybody's marriage, or the world, because marriage is private. Make marriage about rights, pure and simple, and use another tool to fix the world, or else you're admitting that it's a can of worms.

And if you think marriage is an antequated, medieval torture device, then don't get married yourself. But again, what you think has no relevance to those who consentingly support marriage and decide to enter into one. Some people are happily married; others not so much; and others are happy to be miserably married because that's what feeds their neurosis, but that's their business, and not yours.

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"Marriage is now a minority lifestyle among black people. African American women in all socioeconomic categories are the group least likely to marry, most likely to divorce, and most likely to bear and rear children alone. And although marriage has fallen most precipitously among black people, it has declined throughout the United States."

I have been reading an 1850's justification for polygamy which pointed out that, for many women, the "good" men have already been taken--so wouldn't it be appropriate for a "good" man to have more than one wife?" Of course, now in the day and age, when women are not seen as dependent on the man (in fact, it is often the other way around), the argument makes no sense, though it does explain why marriage is not popular. Women do have to put up with immature, often lazy men if they are to be married and it simply isn't worth it. Better to raise the child yourself. Better yet, to have no children at all.

Marriage no longer works as a means to keep families together. It does put women in impossible relationships with men that should not father children. The institution has outworn its usefulness.

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In case you've forgotten, one important reason for marriage is to give legitimacy to children born of a union. That's no small thing (just ask those born "out of wedlock") I support marriage equality because I want to extend to the children of gay and lesbian parents the same legitimacy—social and legal— that children of heterosexual parents enjoy.And I also support marriage equality because I believe that same-sex couples should be allowed to adopt.

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You are right indeed, the world has changed and now is the time. Let people live happy.

Jess
Ultimate Anonymity

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Use them, rather than lament the fact that others can, also.

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This was a great article on the true meaning of marriage. But I wish the author had spent a little more time in discussing the essence of the needed reconstituted marriage. She only described the need. We need to have dialogues as to what should be included in marriages and defining fidelity, commitment, freedom, support. Especially for those married after their children are gone and the couple are looking at 30 years or so of a new life without family obligations.

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Do you people even take a good look at your selfs from time to time? It seems to me that EVERYTHING to you guys is all without consequence. Let's all just run around and have sex with as many people as we can regardless of wether or not they are the same gender. I've never met nor seen any group of people that are as nasty and vile as you. How can you even begin to consider yourselfs human? You care for NOTHING. You don't even think things through when something pops into your perverted heads. What a shameful waste of humans you are. You act in ways that depopluate and bring shame to mankind. "Hey, love is love, now let's adopt a bunch of children and teach them how to be homos". Quit thinking of your selfs and start thinking of the impact you have on the rest of the world.

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Marriage is a state sanctioned contract- nothing more and nothing less. LGBT people have the same right to it as anyone else. The church- any church has no say nor should anyone care.

Holy Matrimony is an ordinance of the Church, has no legal standing and means nothing to those of us outside it.

To frame an issue or dispute is to own it. The marriage equality movement needs to use this simple and straightforward concept to win the marriage equality battle.

As for me, I think marriage is an outdated institution. To each his/her own.

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If you want to get married, go ahead. If you don't, don't.
Human nature isn't going to change any time soon, and most of us end up married anyway.
Sometimes marriage is a pain in the ass, but living alone really SUCKS for most of us, anyway.

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I am sick and tired of the social conservatives trying to get everyone into their one-size-fits-all institution of two-person permanent monogamy. It is the right thing for some, but not for all. Marriage should be available to everyone, compulsory for no one.

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A system is the result of rigid thinking, whether it's applied to marriage, sex, lifestyle, community, religiousness.

Rather than think for oneself, we apply a system, a method, so that we can pretend we are secure. But there is no security. Ever!

To learn to live without systems is to be vulnerable, which is the beginning of intelligence.

In that intelligence one begins to see the stupidity of all imposed emotional systems, including the institution of marriage.

As someone aptly said: It's not that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, it's the fence I object to.

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No they are not getting Married - but My Daughter has heard of Craig Murray

Craig Murray is going for This

http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/

I didn't think my Daughter would be able to go unless she applied for a VISA which would take months and cost a fortune....

But I check the detail of her arrest when she was 15 years old and just walking home having done absolutely nothing wrong...

The police said - as a result of the formal reprimand, she would not be able to travel to America without a Visa and Declaring Her Arrest...

But I checked with the US Embassay in London, about The Precise Definition of Moral Turpitude.

I told them the details of how she had been walking home doing nothing wrong and had been collected in a Meat Wagon - cos she didn't run - giving all the details of the arrest...

So they said well what did the English Policeman Write On The Arrest Form?

He Said

"Well After I Threw Her To The Ground, And Stuck My Knee in Her Back - She Told Me To FUCK OFF"

The US Authorities - said - No That is Perfectly O.K.

Telling an English Policeman to FUCK OFF who did that to you is completely O.K. so far as Entry To The US is OK

So She May be going with her American Boyfriend Soon

Tony

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God fearing individuals are slow to change their marriage traditions. The church has made the ground rules. But there is a new breed that listens only to their common sense. It tells them to do what works best. Speed relationships have become the new trend, it is like changing socks after they become smelly. It seems to work best.

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One thing that was always a given was that married drivers got lower rates than singles (presumably, they had "more to live for"). When I got married, I called my insurance company and asked if my rates would go down now that I had joined the ranks of the legally paired, only to be told that it only applied to clients who were already married when their policies were issued. There was no shifting them, even when I explained that they were just giving me an incentive to go to another company (which I did).

The first time I figured our taxes after marrying, I did it three times, for joint, separate and as singles. It turned out the best way was to continue filing as singles. Big, hairy deal on some of those benefits.

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No one needs marriage to give birth to children! Marriage should be the best for them though as a stability factor. Then consider that parents who fight injure their children mentally. There are very few families who are the shining stars so what is the big deal about marriage? Some marry just to make sex legal, others marry because they WILL love each other forever. If the same-sex couple WILL love each other forever, without wandering down the path of infidelity then they would also be stable parents. The God factor has nothing to do with marriage, you either plan and will stay together or you will divorce.

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I Read The Judgement Yesterday

It went on for pages and pages. The pages and pages were not concerned with the detail of The Torture That Had Been Committed.

All Of That Had Openly Been Admitted By Americans at THE HIGHEST LEVEL

No that was just very detailed documentation that was in the rhetoric about the Judegement

It Wasn't About The Fact That

TORTURE BY AMERICANS HAS BEEN OPENLY ADMITTED IN A UK COURT OF LAW

The Judges Were Just Helping To Bring a Case of WAR CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY Against ANTHONY CHARLES LYNTON BLAIR

The Legal System in The UK - Just Regained My Ultimate Respect

If We Lost The Judges Then We Would Be Lost

We NEED THE LAW AND JUSTICE

And It Applies To ALL HUMAN BEINGS

Just Because You Are a DICTATOR IN GOVERMENT doesn't mean You Will Escape The Law

Because

It IS COMMON LAW

And The Common People Of ENGLAMD RESPECT AND UPHOLD IT

Otherwise We are NOTHING

Tony

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I'm uncomfortable with people discussing marriage in such negative terms. Sure half of the marriages end in divorce but that isn't because marriage is an "outdated" or "bad" "insitution" but because people give up too easily. We are a throw away society and we don't hesitate to throw out people we claimed we were in love with at one time. People say "I out-grew him" , as he was a pair of jeans ready for the donation pile (or worst the garbage). Marriage is a commitment, a covenant that means something to many people. If you don't agree with this "institution" then don't participate. But don't ruin it for those who wish too and don't impose new rules that change the meaning and beauty of the covenant. Marriage was created for men and women, period. If you chose to live other ways, go ahead, you have the gift of free will and a country that, so far, still allows us to express this free will. Thanks for listening and Shalom.

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In fact we Travel All Over The World and Maintain Contacts With EVEN The People of SOUTHERN FRANCE

MANU was Just on Live RADIO IN THE UK

No - it wasn't the Manu We Know...

Well It Could Have Been

His Musical History = seemed exactly like our Manu who taught his skills to Kids in our Kitchen and who have now Become Musicians

And its possible he has lost a bit of his Northern English Accent, whilst with us in The South

But We Prefer lo Cor De La Plana

Because They Are so Good

At The first Gig,

We didn't bother going to see The Red Arrows Fly Over Them at 3:00am The Next Day when They Were Playing Inside Of The Big Marquee In Front of Over 20,000 People last year

You Really Should Go To NICE

lo còr de la plana - tant deman (sines'08)

I'm not sure if many English Speaking People will understand this - But That Is Not The Point

I am Trying To Portray My Love Of The Musicians I Have Met From sOUTHERN fRANCE - mANY oF wHO'S rOOTS aRE IN mOROCCO

i DIDN'T QUIET KNOW HOW ELSE TO SAY IT

Tony

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Working hard to get a toxic nuclear style family is no improvement. The nuclear family of over-consumption. Groups can pool resources for more financial and emotional security and less abandonment fears, have someone to tend to home and childrearing and all of the complex network of involvements that are getting to be too much stain on relationships. There is also the advantage of a biodiversity in intimacy and the ability to raise less children shared jointly for a sustainable eco-economic 21st century.

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And Our Second in 1991

We Loved Each Other So Much, that We Realised That We Wanted To Spend The Rest Of Our Lives Together

AND TODAY

She Just Looked So Beautiful - Even After We Had Made Love

She Was Covered in Shit All Over Her Beautiful Long Blonde Hair

And I Was Covered in Shit All Over My Beautiful Long Blonde Hair

We Were Both Up and Down Ladders Clearing Ivy Off Our House - Our Home - The Place Where We Live

And Decorating Inside - She Was Painting The Ceiling Of The Bathroom Whilst I was Putting Up Wall Paper In The Toilet - I Bought Her an Incredibly Beautiful Toilet Seat. It Was what She Wanted For Her Birthday

Whilst Our Son Was Asleep Inside in his bed in his home after working so hard last night

Our Daughter is away at University - We will be seeing her on Friday.

Tony

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I Just Try and Point Out That The Snowman Standing In The Middle Of a Field in California In Summer

Really Likes It

pERSONALLY i lOVE gLOBAL wARMING

Cos I like Fucking In Warm Sea

Actually We have only tried it once or twice, and it wasn't that great. The warm salt water affected the natural lubrication and she was and still is rather tight - despite two Babies

But when I was a kid I did build an igloo in my back garden in Oldham Lancashire England with the help of my brother in 1963

The Coal Man Still Delivered The Coal on His Horse and Cart - So We Didn't Freeze To Death

The igloo lasted 3 months and Crime Lake and The Rochdale Canal Was Frozen Solid - The Fish Froze In The Ice

Tony

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What if the entire purpose of marriage was to bring children into the world who would be able to live gender equality because they saw their female mother and male father--the very two human beings from whom they spring--living gender equality every day of their lives?

And what if a**holes screwed it up and made marriage oppressive of women so it did the opposite of what it was supposed to do?

And what if when more gender-equal marriage arose in human history, it actually led to democracy at the state level because people were living participatory democracy day in and day out with their sexually different spouse--as the historian Mary Hartman argues?

And what if people ignorant of the true foundations of democracy then undercut its roots by promoting same-sex marriage and asserting the irrelevance of living gender equality intimately as a prerequisite for democracy?

What if we left the a**holes and ignorants to one side, and we reclaimed what marriage was meant to be and do--would we be able to build a society that has a more solid foundation of gender equality and democracy?

I believe we would.

And I rejoice for Valenti and her husband . . . living true gender equality with the other-sexed person you love, naturally bringing children into that gender equality-based home through that faithful love and teaching them how to live as you do . . . . why, this is the most soul-satisfying adventure of all of human life! No wonder they are smiling in those photos!

Red State Gal
RedStateFeminists

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You know, with a PHd teaching at Princton you would think that we would get a little more "meat" in an article. As some of the posters suggested, she has left a lot out--pandering again to "Women Studies" majors. The reality of same sex marriage opens up a can of worms that most of us would rather not delve into. The implication is that Marriage should be about equality, but we all know that Marriage is really about women being able to have children, make their former spouses pay for it and prevent their fathers from seeing the children--regardless of any decrees the courts may attempt to foist on the Mother who in 95% of the cases gets primary custody. Allowing same sex "marriage" confers on the couple the right to adopt. So which child do we decide to be raised by a gay couple? This may sound cruel, but if you have any friends that are gay (and I have), their pain of not fitting in and knowing they are different is profound. Do we take a hetero child and force it to be raised in a gay environment--what are the legal implications? Can this child sue and blame its proposed dysfunctionality on their parents and the state? A recent blog on RH Reality--a feminist pro-choice website said that research suggests that Gays are 50 times more apt to contract Aids than their Hetero counterparts. Do we allow infants to be adopted into this kind of scenario? If you were a Mother and knew you were going to die, would you want your child to grow up with those statistics stacked up against them and possibly catch Aids inadvertantly? How do we prevent this from possibly happening? And what about dissolution of unions which is extremely high in GLBTs? Since neither one is the biological parent, who gets custody and what criterion do we use to make these decisions? As of this writing, a number of Supreme Court rulings show a dramatic bias in favor of the biological Mother. Estimates are that up to 30 per cent of all Fathers are lied to as far as the paternity of what they think are their children. Even when it has been proven that the Mother knowingly lied, to date no charges have ever been filed by either individuals or the state. Will same sex marriages change this current overwhelming bias favoring biological women by the Courts? Will it be equitable? Then there is the issue of discrimination of groups other than GLBT's. Do we allow two hetero men the same right to marry for financial advantage? Can they adopt? Are they allowed to be discriminated against in terms of giving children to traditional households? What about Polygamy and Polyandry? How can we agree to GLBT marriage and not many other non traditional forms of relationships? I don't have the answers, but I do at least have enough intelligence to ask the questions--which is a lot more than we can say for this overly simplistic professor.

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Gay marriage actually is radical in one way that most people don't consider: it forces straight families to deal with gay significant others seriously. They would no longer be able to exclude gay life partners of family members by declaring that they want particular events to be "family only", as happens now, and as is also done to life partners of family members who live in "non-traditional" (non-married) relationships, and not just by conservative families either.

I remember that one of the reasons that parents gave to their offspring for not wanting them to marry inter"racially" (we are all one race, one species) was that being inter"racial" children of an inter"racial" couple is so hard on those children. Somehow I think the real agenda of the manipulative parent is that s/he wanted to avoid having to deal with inlaws of different "races".

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The author, not too surprisingly, entirely omitted a category of people that is large and getting larger. I refer to individuals who happen to have disabilities.

Why is it not surprising that this large group was over-looked? Perhaps it was because in our society such persons are stereotypically looked upon as being asexual or, even worse, simply totally overlooked.

Government policy has mitigated against persons with disabilities marrying under penalty of losing federal benefits needed to sustain life. Huh? Yes, folks it's true.

Perhaps the author might wish to explore this incredible discrimination and report back to the readership.

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........who said, when asked whether she wants to get married again, "I'd rather get run over by a train."
:)

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Let's be real here. Marriage doesn't guarantee financial nor emotional protection/stability for children nor for women but it does guarantee that the government has control over individuals and more control over their money. I tried marriage once and ended up in an abusive relationship with a lazy good-for-nothing wannabe man that left we with more debt than good memories.

The better alternative to marriage is to have an actual contract drafted that outlines everything including what are the parties' rights in the event of a breakup. It will be far fairer and less costly and doesn't allow the government to control anything.

Celebs are figuring out that marriage doesn't need to occur. Far too many of them shack up for decades and are very happy and faithful but the moment they get married the relationship falls apart. Why is that? Clearly money doesn't make people happy and keep them together but perhaps having autonomy does and having the government sanction a marriage elimintes autonomy in many ways.

While I personally don't agree with homosexulity nor same-sex marriage I don't think that two people who are legitimately committed to one another should be barred from doing as they choose. I also think that polygamy should be permitted as it will take away the "thrill" of extramarital affairs since men will then have to be responsible for all the women they bed and women will have to be committed to all the men they choose to sleep with and think about the financial and sexual benefit to the woman with more than one husband - like hello! There will be no more wimpy men thinking they are doing a great job!

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As a man I know it will never be, and I'll never marry. Heck I don't even bother dating anymore, women have become quite vain. Sure they'll have sex with the men still, but right after it, the demands, the wants, the needs, the requests, (entertain me!), all that stuff starts up..

Sure, I'll be a lonely old man someday, well .. I'm 40 and I'm already as lonely as I'll ever be.

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Perhaps I have under estimated Madonna's wisdom.

As a previous commenter noted, when asked whether she wants to get married again,
"I'd rather get run over by a train."

I can understand why marriage in the traditional sense is diminishing from the required institution it once was.

It seems to me that this entire enterprise has descended into a racket, a heavily pushed marketing strategy to invent and maintain an entire industry, pushed mainly at young women who are trained, mostly by their mothers, to live in this hollywoodish fantasy world of what marriage is "supposed" to be, but in the vast majority of cases is not even remotely similar to the fantasy portrayed.

Meanwhile, many young guys out there are looking at all this and thinking, why would I want this, any of this? What a nightmare!

Look, at some point, people have to do a reality check, and get a gander on what really matters in life, and have that be your guide.

As an aside, I was poking around in www.theknot.com

Perhaps there should be an alternative website called www.thequagmire.com

OK, just an idea . . .

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