Monday, July 4, 2011

Foolish to think the relationship is equal

I wrote last Friday about how gay marriage equality helps straight women, parents of gays, and single gay men. My friend and debate partner replied. I'll only include part of his comments. He wrote:

Re the wildly stereotypical and silly comments [in that posting] about hetero marriage, I am heartily LOL. I'll politely call these ideas simplistic. That's not the first word I thought of.

Its this sort of "gee-whiz, hot dog, marriage at last" thinking that makes me ask (again): I understand very well same-sex couples' need for the legal benefits of marriage... but are gays and lesbians sure they really want MARRIAGE?

When I read the original article about gay marriage benefiting straight women there were lots of comments from partnered and married gay couples saying that almost always one is the alpha and the other isn’t. It is foolish to think the relationship is equal.

However, what I took from the article was that gay marriage undermined the conservative viewpoint of marriage that the man is always the alpha and the woman isn't, the male dominates, the female submits. In the replacement of that viewpoint the two members of the marriage must determine whether one of them is the alpha and which one it is. And that it just might be the female. But it is the couple that decides, not societal or religious dictates.

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