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The Spirit of the Law
By admin | November 5, 2008
Voter approval of a ban on gay marriage in California with the passage of Proposition 8 is in keeping with the spirit of the law governing traditional marriage. Marriage is clearly currently legislated according to age-old spiritual traditions. That “spirit” is rooted in a hierarchical power dynamic in the couple and family, with women and children on the lower rungs of the hierarchy. As someone raised in a traditional home, working class, and Catholic, I have experienced first hand the adherence to that tradition as responsible for the failures of, and pain in, marriage and family. I experience that said “age-old spiritual tradition” as based on the de-valuing and oppression of what is considered “feminine.”
The movement to change the legal definition of marriage is one way we have attempted to address the limits of traditional marriage; civil unions are another way to address them. I believe civil unions can include what we experience in our lives as “spirit,” and that, if civil unions are made available to same-gender couples, as well as to different-gender couples who do not subscribe to traditional marriage, the law will then recognize and protect the sanctity of human relationships and families beyond the traditional marriage model. I do not need to be “accepted” by those who would oppress me. I do, however, need to be protected and supported by those who know another way beyond oppression.
Thus, I adhere to the philosophy “espoused” by Jodie Foster’s character, Dr. Eleanor Arroway, in the film Contact: “I have always believed that the world is what we make of it.”
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