Quote:
Originally Posted by Nat
The slippery slope argument that often comes up regarding gay marriage often gets me a bit unnerved.
Because there are people in this country who also can't have the marriage arrangement they want.
The thing that comes up most in my mind is polygamy - why not?
But there are other restrictions too. Age restrictions, relatedness restrictions (which vary by state).
Assuming we're talking about all participants being human and consenting - who should and should not have the right to marry and why?
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Nat, I thought about you today and this forum thread...
Marriage is such a tricky subject. It really is.
I am not sure how the discussion about marriage will go, but when I was riding the train to work today I came across an article in a local, independent newspaper that covered issues Asian women are facing when they marry an American citizen. They leave their home country in search of a better life than the one they live in thier homeland and once here, Asian women are treated like slaves. Not only within their own marriages, but often because of not knowing who to turn to for help or violating their immigration status which largely operates in connection with their marital status, they end up working two or three jobs, have no life and suffer terrible emotional and physical patterns of abuse within the marriage they committed to, just to find a particular freedom they couldnt' find in their home country, etc.
Aside from the article I read this afternoon, I couldn't help but think of this forum discussion on what marriage means.
I think of marriage as an institution, in and of itself, but not as an institution that is a complete stand-alone project. To me, it is not just about two people who are in love and get married. It's never that simple, in my mind. While I believe that any parties consenting (human beings) - regardless of how they identify outside the heterocentric sphere - should be permitted to avail themselves of a marital contract (marriage), I also feel that marriage finds its roots in White Priviledge. What I am trying to say is that White Priviledge shares a martial arrangement with a heterocentric think-tank.
When I think about marriage, I think of it as also sharing a bed with economic opportunity, tax benefits, legal benefits, the benefit of aligning oneself with the widely held perception that 'if you're married, then you're a family' - but as most of us who identify somewhere on the continuum of what constitutes being Gay, Lesbian, Bi-, Trans, or Queer, we know intutitively that this is a false construct because we have subverted popular cultural values by constructing our own constellations of who we feel is part of our family. We create our own lines of kinship because we've been excluded from macro- and micro- institutions that others deny membership to us.
I have no idea where I am going with my post tonight, but I do know that for me, Marriage is not a contractual issue to take lightly. On the surface, it appears that there are worthwhile social benefits. But marriage comes with a price index that scares me.
When I think of marriage, I think in terms of what price will I pay to avail myself of the many so-called benefits of marriage and over time, will the price index still reflect the same values held at today's standards and if those standards change over time, then will the 'price index' of Marriage be worth the price one once percieved a marriage to be?
As the years go by, I am not quite sure that marriage is all that one contrives it to be. I don't even know if I find marriage all that alluring as it once was to me, when I was younger and possessed less life experience than the set of life experiences I possess today.
As time goes by, I would count myself extremely lucky to have a relationship of minds with the person I feel closest to that lasted longer than prior relationships I have had - marital or not. I would feel extremely blessed if I had a relatonship that weathered lifes hardships and joys and endured over a significant period of time for much longer than those in my past. I'm not there yet by any means, but I know that participating in a marital relationship, as it is currently defined by today's standards, is less likely to happen for me before my time on earth is over.