Jones' endorsement could further national debate on gay issues


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Marriage and Civic Equality
by John Buell
 President Bush tells us that marriage between a man and a woman is a pillar of our civilization. Yet long before same-sex marriage debates, who could marry and what marriage meant were contested. Slaves could not marry. For many years interracial marriage was illegal. And if marriage has been a bulwark of our civilization, that civilization has struggled for gender equality. Women had to fight for the right to divorce, and coercive sex within a marriage was not treated as rape. Bush is right in one sense. How we resolve debates about marriage will have major implications for our understandings of privacy, equality, work and child-rearing. Today, many same-sex couples seek the right to marry in their quest for social and legal equality. In many ways they are courageous radicals, but ironically in another sense they are reconfirming values celebrated by the president. I understand why many gays and lesbians seek the right to marry. In the United States, health, pension and disability benefits are often tied to a job. When one partner does not work, his or her connection to these benefits is often indirect and through the working spouse.


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100 gay couples plan to ask for marriage licenses in Cleveland