I don't care much about the gay marriage activism, so the drama playing out in California kinda bores me to death. It's essentially a conservative agenda as most feminists have long realized. I also don't care much about the internal US politics on that issue as the country is stuffed so substantially that a small 'victory' on a by and large unimportant civil rights issue should not divert attention from how bad things really are over there.Just to be clear, gay people as much as anyone else are perfectly entitled to see their relationships legally recognized (ie visitation rights in hospitals, retirement planning, access to partner's medical plans and so on and so forth). This, however, doesn't seem to be the activists' issue as they have claimed in many countries that civil partnerships that guarantee to same-sex couples the same legal rights and protections as to married couples (except the word 'marriage' won't be used to described those relationships) are insufficient and hugely discriminatory.
Well, here's my main problem with this: In my little universe, marriage as an institution has been an overwhelming failure. Roughly every second marriage today ends up in the divorce courts, and there is an even larger number of people who would get divorced but stick together in unhappy marriages due to religious or other cultural pressures. - And that's just for straight folks. Now, explain to me, why do gay folks clamor so hard for the 'right' of access to the same flawed institution? We do not seem - well, most of us anyway - to be hardwired to sustain marriages as the life-time type institutions that they're supposed to be.
To my mind, the state should not be in the business of sanctioning marriages. Leave it to religious organizations as a special membership benefit. So, queer churches such as the MCC - ignoring anything the bible ever said about homosexuality - can then offer to their gay flock marriages at a discount.
Beats me though, why there is this hysteria about marriage...
