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winterbadgerThat's what President Bush called marriage, "traditional" marriage, "a union between a man and a woman" in his radio address last Saturday. (Thanks to the BBC for tipping me off to this statement.)
More important, apparently, than a system of morals and ethics. More important then the concept of justice. More important than liberty, or peace and security. To be the most fundamental institution of civilization, it would have to be greater than religion, than the preservation and teaching of knowledge, more important than literacy and numeracy. More important than culitvation of crops, than organizaing for common defence or creating art, literature, architecture, medicine...
What has never been explained to me, despite all the frightful declarations and predictions, is how something that is this fundamental to civilization, this important and central to human existence, can be threatened by people who wish to partake of it understanding that it is
Certainly, gay couples cannot procreate, but neither can many heterosexual couples. But gay couples (and infertile straight couples) can bring up children they adopt (or who one of them bears through other means). And certainly one of the knocks on homosexuals throughout recent decades has been that they are too devoted to "sinn and fornication"; they they are too devoted to the pleasures of the flesh; how better to refute that than to seek a wedded state? And how are gay couples less needful, or less deserving, of the mutual society and comfort of a helpmate in times of prosperity and adversity?
How, how is this anything but a fulfillment of the institution of marriage? How can respectful participation in one of society's most valued institutions in any way diminish it? How can it do anything but show how important and worthy is the wedded state?
More important, apparently, than a system of morals and ethics. More important then the concept of justice. More important than liberty, or peace and security. To be the most fundamental institution of civilization, it would have to be greater than religion, than the preservation and teaching of knowledge, more important than literacy and numeracy. More important than culitvation of crops, than organizaing for common defence or creating art, literature, architecture, medicine...
What has never been explained to me, despite all the frightful declarations and predictions, is how something that is this fundamental to civilization, this important and central to human existence, can be threatened by people who wish to partake of it understanding that it is
not to be enterprised, nor taken in hande unadvisedly, lightly or wantonly, to satisfye mennes carnall lustes and appetytes, lyke brute beastes that have no understandyng ; but reverently, discretely, advisedly, soberly, and in the feare of God, duely consideryng the causes for the which matrimony was ordeined. One was the procreation of children, to be brought up in the feare and nurtoure of the Lorde, and praise of God. Secondly, it was ordeined for a remedy agaynste sinne and to avoide fornication, that suche persones as have not the gifte of continencie might mary, and kepe themselves undefiled membres of Christes body. Thirdly, for the mutual societie, helpe, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, bothe in prosperity and adversitye, into the whiche holy state these two persones present, come nowe to be joyned. --from the 1559 Book of Common Prayer
Certainly, gay couples cannot procreate, but neither can many heterosexual couples. But gay couples (and infertile straight couples) can bring up children they adopt (or who one of them bears through other means). And certainly one of the knocks on homosexuals throughout recent decades has been that they are too devoted to "sinn and fornication"; they they are too devoted to the pleasures of the flesh; how better to refute that than to seek a wedded state? And how are gay couples less needful, or less deserving, of the mutual society and comfort of a helpmate in times of prosperity and adversity?
How, how is this anything but a fulfillment of the institution of marriage? How can respectful participation in one of society's most valued institutions in any way diminish it? How can it do anything but show how important and worthy is the wedded state?
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Date: 2004-07-15 08:05 pm (UTC)I mean, one marriage makes a civilization not.
They like to play with language. I don't think that one's workign for anyone but those who would really rather us queer folk be struck by lightning. . .