On Thu, 13 Nov 2008, John Thornton wrote:
> No one has yet to explain to me why marriage today is such a horrible
> institution.
Well you know the answer to that, John. The same connection to history going back to Urshlim that gays like, feminists loathe. For gays it's the magic of being part of a history from which they've always been excluded. For women, the word represents exactly the historical institution in which they've long been imprisoned, and as a global category of people, still largely are.
Again the word has a heft independent of the rights. No one argues you don't need family law. And no one argues you can't modify marriage so it means something very different. But many feminists I know would be more than happy with laws which signified the liberatory intention to make a break with this feudal-and-worse past by burying the term.
Michael