{"id":397,"date":"2009-10-13T14:16:06","date_gmt":"2009-10-13T14:16:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/apagansblog\/2009\/10\/gay-marriage-love-and-the-america-revolution.html"},"modified":"2009-10-13T14:16:06","modified_gmt":"2009-10-13T14:16:06","slug":"gay-marriage-love-and-the-america-revolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/10\/gay-marriage-love-and-the-america-revolution.html","title":{"rendered":"Gay Marriage, Love, and the American Revolution"},"content":{"rendered":"

In November the citizens of Maine go to the polls to vote on
\nwhether their gay neighbors can marry. 
\n<\/span>The usual suspects – the religious right and Catholic church – have
\npulled out all stops to deprive them of this right.  <\/span>But they are fighting a losing battle, however many
\nskirmishes they might win.  <\/span>Here’s
\nwhy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\nIt is no distortion to say the American revolution laid the
\nfoundation for gay marriage. When the Declaration of Independence proclaimed
\nour inalienable rights “to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” it
\nproclaimed that each person ws rightfully free to seek his or her happiness so
\nlong as they did not injure others’ equal rights and liberties.  <\/span>This had never happened before on such
\na scale.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

These abstract statements gradually percolated throughout
\nour society, laying the ground work for 8 states abolishing slavery, many
\nnorthern states allowing women and Blacks to vote (they  later lost it until the Twentieth Century), and the primacy of love in marriage.<\/p>\n

Before the American Revolution marriage were nakedly
\neconomic, political, or rooted in the dynamics of families across
\ngenerations.  <\/span>In all these latter
\ncases, not only was love unnecessary, children were pawns in larger secular
\npurposes played out with nary a thought for their welfare.  <\/span>Among poorer people, children were
\nvalued as future farm hands and the later equivalent of Social Security and
\npensions.<\/p>\n

For example, according to Stephanie Coontz<\/a>, 
\nin the 1690s, passionate love between husband
\nand wife was considered unseemly. 
\n<\/span>Protestant ministers warn spouses against loving one another too much,
\nor using endearing nicknames that will undermine husbandly authority. <\/span>This
\nwas “traditional” marriage – an institution where love was never
\nnecessary.  <\/span>After the American
\nRevolution love increasingly became the primary element in marriage.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere Coontz writes<\/a>  <\/span><\/p>\n

Heterosexuals were the upstarts who
\nturned marriage into a voluntary love relationship rather than a mandatory
\neconomic and political institution. Heterosexuals were the ones who made procreation
\nvoluntary, so that some couples could choose childlessness, and who adopted
\nassisted reproduction so that even couples who could not conceive could become
\nparents. And heterosexuals subverted the long-standing rule that every marriage
\nhad to have a husband who played one role in the family and a wife who played a
\ncompletely different one. Gays and lesbians simply looked at the revolution
\nheterosexuals had wrought and noticed that with its new norms, marriage could
\nwork for them, too.<\/p>\n

Once love entered the picture as a major, perhaps the major,
\nreason for marriage, the institution was transformed. The wishes of the
\nmarrying couple became primary.  <\/span>I
\nsuspect it laid the foundation for recognizing women as equal to men – first
\namong some couples, and later a slow spread outwards.<\/p>\n

When mutual love becomes the major reason for marrying,
\nchildlessness is not always a catastrophe.  <\/span>Sometimes couples choose that path.  <\/span>And when love trumps having children,
\nthe way stood open for gay and lesbians to desire the same social recognition
\nof their love that heterosexual couples were able to get.  <\/span>Even in the early Nineteenth Century leading thinkers such as Condorcet and Bentham raised this possibility.<\/p>\n

What stood in the way was cultural inertia and religious
\nbigotry.  <\/span>(For those who say they
\nare not bigoted, but simply follow their God, I reply, they subordinate
\nthemselves to a bigoted God who has little love in Himself and desires only
\nsubmission from His followers.)<\/p>\n

Bit by little bit once people in the first category, such as
\nmyself, begin thinking about the issue, they shift from thinking the idea of
\ngay marriage is absurd to supporting it. 
\n<\/span>I that is why the numbers of Americans who support gay marriage is
\nslowly creeping upwards. 
\n<\/span>Unfortunately the worshippers of a Sauronic deity will never change
\nwithout growing in their understanding of the Sacred.  <\/span>But they are a minority.<\/p>\n

The long term future of gay marriage is bright.  <\/span>That is why its opponents have pulled
\nout all stops to try and get its denial into constitution, where usually a
\nminority can obstruct change.<\/p>\n

As I grow older and hopefully wiser, increasingly I think of
\nthe American revolution as an important event in the spiritual history of
\nhumankind.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In November the citizens of Maine go to the polls to vote on whether their gay neighbors can marry.  The usual suspects – the religious right and Catholic church – have pulled out all stops to deprive them of this right.  But they are fighting a losing battle, however many skirmishes they might win.  Here’s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pagan-news"],"yoast_head":"\nGay Marriage, Love, and the American Revolution - A Pagan's Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/10\/gay-marriage-love-and-the-america-revolution.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gay Marriage, Love, and the American Revolution - 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