So, SCOTUS is hearing cases about Prop 8 and DOMA this week. My companion and I have been married 23 years. My parents just celebrated 50 years of marriage. Does recognizing the civil rights of LGBTQ persons to marry whom they wish threaten my marriage or others? No. Think Progress has an interesting article that furthers the conversation about what marriage is. If marriage is only about having children then the folks in Texas should not have given my companion and I a license those years ago, but that was not something we were asked. We did not have to get a license to have children. We got a license to be recognized in a committed, life long relationship. We had a marriage ceremony in a religious setting of our choosing and asked family and friends to bless our relationship with their presence as our public acceptance of being willing to deal with each others baggage the rest of our lives. Here is a paragraph or two and a link.
Beyond Marriage Equality: What Can We Do To Fix Marriage?
By Zack Beauchamp posted from ThinkProgress Election on Mar 26, 2013
Welcome to National Marriage Equality Week. After today’s Supreme Court hearing on the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8, marriage equality has been the topic du jour, and will remain so after tomorrow’s companion hearing on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). I certainly hope the Court sees these discriminatory laws for what they are, but even if it doesn’t, the battle for marriage equality has been won: public opinion has swung strongly and, given the numbers among young Americans, likely irreversibly in favor of marriage equality.
If we assume that deep cultural forces are eroding the traditional, one-size fits marriage model based around norms like permanence and exclusivity, we should start talking about alternatives. That starts by imagining a way to preserve marriage’s social benefits while making it a more fundamentally freeing institution; developing a liberal vision of married life oriented around free choice and equal, mutually life-defining partnership. This move will require a shift in both government policy and social norms, but if we think the marriage crisis is, in fact, a crisis in need of addressing, developing an attractive vision of the institution is a necessary first step.
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Christianity, evangelical, pop, orthodox, or progressive, is often covered in the press for its fight over issues of gender, sexuality, or abortion. Some state legislatures full of orthodox or evangelical Christians that are legislating their religious beliefs effecting the health rights of women in order to extend rights to the unborn who are not yet voters, workers, or tax payers much less Christians. Some state legislatures full of orthodox or evangelical Christians that are legislating their religious beliefs effecting the marriage equality of the lives of men and women who are current voters, workers, and tax payers, some Christian and some not. Why are these same state legislatures not addressing the financial divide that exists between the corporations and their citizens? A real threat to American democracy is the continued growing power of the corporation be it based in the United States or the multi-national corporation that can borrow in America and hire in countries that sustain their upper class and governing class through low wage jobs for their citizens. Sometimes it feels like some is both of our political patries, Democrat and Republican, are trying to create that same situation in the United States. Walmart may have cheap goods, but in small towns where Walmart exists it is carrying on the proud tradition of the old coal companies where workers work for the company and spend their wages in the company store. In the end, Walmart gets the dough and pays most its employees at part-time workers with few if any benefits. When I have a choice I never shop there. I wonder if Christianity, local and global, has become too “corporate” in its structure and world view to address the issue of the economic divide that exists in this country and in many countries around the world.
Recovery in U.S. Is Lifting Profits, but Not Adding Jobs
by Nelson D. Schwartz | The New York Times | March 3, 2013
With the Dow Jones industrial average flirting with a record high, the split between American workers and the companies that employ them is widening and could worsen in the next few months as federal budget cuts take hold. . . With millions still out of work, companies face little pressure to raise salaries, while productivity gains allow them to increase sales without adding workers.
“So far in this recovery, corporations have captured an unusually high share of the income gains,” said Ethan Harris, co-head of global economics at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. “The U.S. corporate sector is in a lot better health than the overall economy. And until we get a full recovery in the labor market, this will persist.”