IN RESPONSE TO ZANE

[_guns_galore]

Zane, you need to also think about the queers who voted yes on prop. 8. Historically, marriage has just been another institution that "normalizes, legitimizes, and privileges." (see: Cathy Cohen. In her piece she is talking about dominant power itself, but the verbs can be used to talk about marriage too, I think). Little over a century ago,

Comments

[ininetyfour]

Right on to most of that, but overall there's still a serious issue of granting the government power over personal (and spiritual, if you define marriage in that way) choices.

Despite marriage being an institution and one's personal decision to avoid it, why does that grant he or she the right to deny others the opportunity to make that choice for themselves?

[btau]

The problem isn't that people need the government to recognize something like marriage. It's that state governments and the federal government provide tax incentives and all sorts of other legal rights to married couples that cohabitating couples don't receive. In order to receive those same benefits and rights, gay couples are excluded.

I'm all about creating a category of civil marriage or civil unions -- where two people can create any sort of relationship that they want and transfer any sort of rights to their partner and blah blah blah, but imagine the uproar over that kind of a proposal. "Homosexual and liberals want to abolish marriage and create a pseudo-marriage institution with another name." Every Mormon's worst nightmare.

[sphinxtenelka]

I was just getting at the some/the Mormon community of Utah (which might actually be directly connected and funded by the state government) has intervened in another state's voting process. And while I do share the same interest with you in the categorization of people/ compromise of individuals rights, that's not really what I was talking about. No on prop 8 is a compromise, just like most of the law/bills etc etc etc in the US, but I would like to assume that it's a step in the right way. It's hard these days to care about the individual.

Also, I'll try and get around to reading some of Cathy Cohen's work. Anything I should look out for?