Some Guys Are Normal

Does Gay Marriage Help Marriage?

Tomorrow we are 2 weeks away from the big day, folks. Talk about crazy. Woah! Oh, and we are officially going on a honeymoon in Cancun. Working for a travel company has its occasional perks.

On another note, Mike over at XGW has a post up about the amazingly low divorce rate in Mass., a rate that is among the lowest in the country and is still declining very rapidly in spite of gay marriage being legal for 2 years now. Or is it still declining because of the positive effects of gay marriage?

In this "battle over marriage," I keep hearing those opposed to gay marriage talk about how allowing gays to marry will destroy the institution of marriage. Obviously, I don't follow the logic, especially since the "definition of marriage" has changed quite dramatically over the course of history, and has continued to change even in recent past.

Their point is that marriage has always been man/woman and allowing same-sex couples to marry would forever crush marriage for straight couples and society as a whole. My first response is that it's almost like they think gay marriage means we are going to force everyone to marry the same-sex, rather than just allowing a small percentage of people to do it.

But, my second response is that maybe, just maybe, preventing people from marrying the person they love is giving a bad name to marriage rather than vice versa. I know the people I am close to are very excited about me getting married (even if it isn't legal), and I would hope most of them would see the hypocrisy of my not being able to marry legally. Could it be that they don't take their own marriages as seriously because an institution that allows two strangers to marry but disallows two loving adults wanting to spend their lives together is an institution that doesn't sound as serious as it seems? It kind of goes like this--my best friend can't marry his boyfriend legally, then how serious is this marriage thing anyway. Obviously that's an exaggeration, but you get the point.

What's worse, preventing gays from marrying, or giving the message that marriage may not really be that special if we restrict it from great candidates just because of their sexual orientation. Better yet, which gives the message of how important marriage is?

posted by Brady @ 8:03 AM