Tom Keane’s Dec. 16 op-ed “Act on marriage” contrasts the nuptials of Britney Spears and Edith Windsor in terms of duration — 55 hours compared to over 40 years. He bemoans the fact that Spears’s shockingly brief wedding would garner full legal recognition while the decades-long relationship of Windsor would not.
However, these two couplings differ far more in kind than degree of duration. Spears’s relationship had the potential, even after only one night in Vegas, to bring children into this world. Marriage, and the state’s interest in it, revolves around providing children with both a mother and a father — an undisputed and critical public good. That’s why it gets favorable tax treatment.
Comments
Bravo. Very good letter. Those who support same sex marriage tend to couch it in terms that ignore the reason that government DOES offer protections and benefits to married people. It is for the children of married couples, not so any couple can live together and call it a "marriage".
I am sure there are many reasons to support those who wish to marry. Mine is because I cannot see a reason to deny that right to two people simply because they are of the same sex. I cannot get all upset about it. It cannot have any effect on my own very long term relationship with my partner of 25 years. We are one woman and one man and have never married. How my neighbors live in their own home, peacefully, is not my business. Looks to me as though some folks need to find a REAL problem to dedicate themselves too. Perhaps they could attempt to pass laws that REQUIRE children be born to couples that marry. Or perhaps they could just mind their own damn business.
With half of all births produced out off wedlock, the notion that people need(and want marriage) to reproduce is asinine. What about "traditional marriages" that produce no children? Do they count?
This is one of the most absurd letters I've seen in the Globe in a long time.
Probably because I have been a teacher for years, most of my contact with same sex couples has been as the teacher of their children. Yes, these couples, male couples and female couples, are often raising children, sometimes their own and sometimes adopted. If our, and therefore the government's, interest lies in making public policy that protects and supports families with children, then Ms. Mineau's argument is naive, and effectively supports discrimination against these children and their parents. I think we share a concern for the welfare of children, and probably agree that they belong in families, and I hope that Ms. Mineau's minions, despite their no doubt sincere hesitation about same sex marriages, will come around in the end, if only for the sake of the children.
What "matters" is the protection of the contract between two people. Is there any legal requirement for married couples, and only married couples, to produce offspring? Does the state require mothers and fathers of their biological children to remain married? Until either one of these requirements becomes law, your theory is bullpoop.