The Sad Punk
Blue Crack Addict
I'm surprised and bitterly disappointed that neither Tassie or SA have legalised it yet. I honestly thought the former at least would get it last year.
Wow. Yeah, THAT'll teach those fighting for equal rights. Now everyone's mind is suddenly reverted back to his own ancient views.
What's the bloody point of killing yourself over something like this?
The belief that gay marriage will harm marriage has roots in both religious beliefs about matrimony and secular conservative concerns about broader shifts in American life. One prominent line of thinking holds that men and women have distinct roles to play in family life; that children need both a mother and a father, preferably biologically related to them; and that a central purpose of marriage is abetting heterosexual procreation. During the Supreme Court arguments over Proposition 8, Justice Elena Kagan asked Cooper whether the essence of his argument against gay marriage was that opposite-sex couples can procreate while same-sex ones cannot. “That’s the essential thrust of our position, yes,” replied Cooper. He also warned that “redefining marriage as a genderless institution could well lead over time to harms to that institution.”
Threaded through this thinking is a related conviction that mothers and fathers should treat their union as “permanent and exclusive,” as the Princeton professor Robert P. George and his co-authors write in the new book What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense. Marriage, seen this way, is a rigid institution that exists primarily for the rearing of children and that powerfully constrains the behavior of adults (one is tempted to call this the “long slog ’til death” view of marriage), rather than an emotional union entered into for pleasure and companionship between adults. These critics of gay marriage are, quite validly, worried that too many American children are being raised in unstable homes, either by struggling single parents or by a transient succession of live-in adults. They fear that the spread of gay marriage could help finally sever the increasingly tenuous link between children and marriage, confirming that it’s okay for dads, or moms, to be deleted from family life as hedonic fulfillment dictates.
In mounting their defense, advocates of same-sex marriage have argued that gays and lesbians who wish to marry are committed to family well-being; that concern for children’s welfare is a chief reason many do want to marry; that gay people are being discriminated against, as a class, in being denied rights readily available to any heterosexual. And to the charge that same-sex marriage will change marriage, they tend to argue that it will not—that married gays and lesbians will blend seamlessly with the millions of married straight Americans. “The notion that this group can somehow fundamentally change the institution of marriage—I find it difficult to wrap my head around,” says Gary Gates, a demographer with the Williams Institute, a research center affiliated with the UCLA School of Law.
Gay marriage can function as a controlled experiment, helping us see which aspects of marital difficulty are truly rooted in gender and which are not. But what if the critics are correct, just not in the way they suppose? What if same-sex marriage does change marriage, but primarily for the better? For one thing, there is reason to think that, rather than making marriage more fragile, the boom of publicity around same-sex weddings could awaken among heterosexuals a new interest in the institution, at least for a time. But the larger change might be this: by providing a new model of how two people can live together equitably, same-sex marriage could help haul matrimony more fully into the 21st century. Although marriage is in many ways fairer and more pleasurable for both men and women than it once was, it hasn’t entirely thrown off old notions and habits. As a result, many men and women enter into it burdened with assumptions and stereotypes that create stress and resentment. Others, confronted with these increasingly anachronistic expectations—expectations at odds with the economic and practical realities of their own lives—don’t enter into it at all.
Same-sex spouses, who cannot divide their labor based on preexisting gender norms, must approach marriage differently than their heterosexual peers. From sex to fighting, from child-rearing to chores, they must hammer out every last detail of domestic life without falling back on assumptions about who will do what. In this regard, they provide an example that can be enlightening to all couples. Critics warn of an institution rendered “genderless.” But if a genderless marriage is a marriage in which the wife is not automatically expected to be responsible for school forms and child care and dinner preparation and birthday parties and midnight feedings and holiday shopping, I think it’s fair to say that many heterosexual women would cry “Bring it on!”
Beyond that, gay marriage can function as a controlled experiment, helping us see which aspects of marital difficulty are truly rooted in gender and which are not. A growing body of social science has begun to compare straight and same-sex couples in an attempt to get at the question of what is female, what is male. Some of the findings are surprising. For instance: we know that heterosexual wives are more likely than husbands to initiate divorce. Social scientists have struggled to explain the discrepancy, variously attributing it to the sexual revolution; to women’s financial independence; to men’s failure to keep modern wives happy. Intriguingly, in Norway and Sweden, where registered partnerships for same-sex couples have been in place for about two decades (full-fledged marriage was introduced several years ago), research has found that lesbians are twice as likely as gay men to split up. If women become dissatisfied even when married to other women, maybe the problem with marriage isn’t men. Maybe women are too particular. Maybe even women don’t know what women want. These are the kinds of things that we will be able to tease out.
The Gay Guide to Wedded Bliss - Liza Mundy - The Atlantic
Beyond that, gay marriage can function as a controlled experiment, helping us see which aspects of marital difficulty are truly rooted in gender and which are not. A growing body of social science has begun to compare straight and same-sex couples in an attempt to get at the question of what is female, what is male. Some of the findings are surprising. For instance: we know that heterosexual wives are more likely than husbands to initiate divorce. Social scientists have struggled to explain the discrepancy, variously attributing it to the sexual revolution; to women’s financial independence; to men’s failure to keep modern wives happy. Intriguingly, in Norway and Sweden, where registered partnerships for same-sex couples have been in place for about two decades (full-fledged marriage was introduced several years ago), research has found that lesbians are twice as likely as gay men to split up. If women become dissatisfied even when married to other women, maybe the problem with marriage isn’t men. Maybe women are too particular. Maybe even women don’t know what women want. These are the kinds of things that we will be able to tease out.
Besides that, figuring out the roles when there's no predefined gender assigned tasks requires MUCH more communication. That's where most straight marriages fall short and end up in divorce, usually it's a lot of added problems that all root in a lack of communication. Yet when you need to talk about a lot of things already, it gets easier to talk about the little things as well.
I don't have any numbers, but I'd love to see a comparison between divorce rate of gay and straight people. I've a feeling they'd be rather different.
in my experience, you get a truer sense of how men and women are different by observing differences between gay men and lesbians.
which, in a way, is kind of ironic, especially since many gays and lesbians feel entirely liberated from gender roles and expectations. yet it seems that there are some things that, in general, are man things, and some that are female things.
I don't have any numbers, but I'd love to see a comparison between divorce rate of gay and straight people. I've a feeling they'd be rather different.
I'd like to see that too, but I've read a few articles that say that even same-sex couples have communication problems despite being of the same gender. Some think two men or two women would have flawless communication, but not so.
my understanding is that, right now, the "gay divorce rate" is actually much lower than for straight people. but that's probably because the gay people who have gotten married in recent years have been successful long established couples who have lived together for decades. i also think that gay people will look at marriage with extreme caution and give it serious care and consideration, much like they do with having children, because it isn't something they expect to happen, nor is there quite as much pressure to get married like there is on heteros, especially hetero women.
also, you'll never have a gay shotgun wedding.
and in a moment of levity:
Watch Saturday Night Live: New Xanax online | Free | Hulu
but over time, i'm sure gay people will get more and more impetuous and young and foolish and become more and more like straight people. i expect the gay divorce rate to go up.
but over time, i'm sure gay people will get more and more impetuous and young and foolish and become more and more like straight people. i expect the gay divorce rate to go up.
it did surprise me, though, that lesbians seem to divorce at a higher rate than gay men.
but then, the more i thought about it, the more sense it made. it's counterintuitive, but i get it.
this does not really belong here, but I did not want to start a new thread
so being lazy, and because of the same sex angle
Florida teen rejects plea deal in controversial same-sex case - CNN.com
Sounds like the common denominator in divorce rates is women.
Men are better at marriage.
We had two families keep their kids home from my school on Harvey Milk Day because a "Christian" radio station told them to. It was "against their core values." Here's the kicker: no one on our staff even knew it was Harvey Milk Day, and only about three of the staff knew who Harvey Milk was, and then I think I was the only one who knew who he was beyond the movie.
:theresnotabigenougheyerollforthis: