Walking Marriages, China Japan and Rome, the Catholic Church, Midieval France...
I'm sure there's about ten million more things I could site, but seriously.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
O RLY?
Rick Warren: "For 5,000 years, marriage has been defined by every single culture and every single religion - this is not a Christian issue. Buddhist, Muslims, Jews - historically, marriage is a man and a woman."
Walking Marriages, China Japan and Rome, the Catholic Church, Midieval France...
I'm sure there's about ten million more things I could site, but seriously.
Walking Marriages, China Japan and Rome, the Catholic Church, Midieval France...
I'm sure there's about ten million more things I could site, but seriously.
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4 comments:
I definitely agree with you Bento-chan.
You missed an important point: in almost every culture (and in most oif the examples you cited here), these were not considered marriages in the sense of a male-female marriage, but were considered a union similar to a marriage.
And whaddaya know, the same people (like Rick Warren) that you're criticizing have no objection to civil unions that are similar to a marriage.
Isn't that the whole "separate but not equal" thing?
Simply enough, it's not equal; a marriage is defined in most cultures as a specific sort of union, often combining civil and religious aspects, between a man and a woman. That's why civil unions were created.
If marriage is defined as a union between a man and a woman, then I have no trouble with those who wish to maintain that definition and those requirements. I also have no problem with anyone who wants to create civil unions for gay partners. But I would wholly support society's right to refuse to redefine marriage to include those unions.
Marriage has roots in religion; in spite of the fact that we separate church and state, our nation and western culture in general has a tradition steeped in religious elements. I think it would be a real infringement of rights to force those groups to redefine marriage to include aspects they find unacceptable. Instead, civil (non-religious) unions serve the same purpose.
Of course, every person is perfectly eligible to enter into a marriage, regardless of whether they are straight or gay. However, in most states they will have to marry someone of the opposite sex.
The key point, of course, is that the examples you point to in your initial argument predominantly indicate unions similar to marriages, not traditional marriages. Those are largely irrelevant to the point you're trying to make, since unions similar to marriage already exist for gays.
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