Massachusetts, and the downfall of society

[urbpan]

When the Supreme Judicial Court handed down its landmark decision five years ago tomorrow allowing same-sex couples to wed in Massachusetts, opponents warned that traditional marriage would be endangered, while supporters envisioned an equality movement that would spread across the nation.

Over 11,000 same-sex marriages later, neither has happened...

Gay marriage rates leveled off at about 1,500 a year - about 4 percent of all state marriages - in 2006 and 2007. The divorce rate in Massachusetts has remained the same - and the lowest in the country... What's really changed is more subtle...

"When we're out together as a couple, it really doesn't come up, [said one gay married partner,] It's now considered normal." ...

"The sky didn't fall, [said another,] The newness of it has eased. It's just another marriage."

Their rights, however, remain limited to Massachusetts: The federal government doesn't recognize their marriage, and therefore does not extend to them the rights it accords heterosexual families for taxes, inheritance, and survivor benefits, among other things.

Complete article By David Filipov at Boston.com

Comments

[urb-banal.livejournal.com]

i think Elton John said that if gay couples would not get hung up on the word "marriage" and instead go for a legal "civil" contract, they could have the same protection as partners as in the Other legal domestic/civil contract called "marriage".

The more emotional and theoretical aspects are never going to be completely agreed on (my ex thought that admitting to loving another person without ever having "committed the physical act of adultery" was grounds for divorce, note: "my ex".) By law, if you don't want to stay in a contract of marriage there are necessary arrangements to be made concerning property, children and liability, etc...

I do not believe in marriage, nevertheless it does occur in all it's variety. I do believe that everyone who enters into the contract of marriage should enjoy the same rights and privileges of that contract. I didn't enjoy them much. It was a nightmare getting any benefit out of it during or after.

[roaming.livejournal.com]

I have to say I'm proud of my adopted state for being the first. Whodathunkit! "Puritan" Massachusetts! And that Cal rejected it? Whodathunkit!?!

[weofodthignen]

Sadly, California also has vast populations of conservatives. Someone on my f-list has been predicting civil war within the state for a while now--only a little histrionically. Look what we have for a governor right now. And reemmber who elected Reagan governor. And where Hearst operated. Also, the Catholics and especially the Mormons poured money into the Prop. 8 campaign. The propaganda barrage was amazing. In particular, the state has a lot of religious immigrants, and they marched and they voted in huge numbers to "save" their kids from being "indoctrinated" with homosexuality.

It's all very sad. Massachusetts is a much older democracy and knows about the tyranny of religious-inspired majorities.

M

[roaming.livejournal.com]

"Massachusetts is a much older democracy and knows about the tyranny of religious-inspired majorities."

Like the Irish-Catholic Mafia that runs the construction and most of the city councilors here? heh.

I agree with the general opinion that the presence of all the colleges (and notably Harvard and MIT) make the state more liberal thinking and less lock-step influenced by dogma.