California overturns ban on same-sex marriage

[Skie]

Originally Posted by Sean

But you're still missing my point. For the sake of argument, let's assume your assertion is correct. Well, simply because more people are taking marriage less seriously today does not inherently mean marriage is less important in helping maintain and advance a healthy society. Consider this as a parallel example - more people today have decided not to take maintaining a healthy diet seriously, and yet maintaining a healthy diet remains inherently important regardless.

And to address your final sentence, the value of marriage is that it plays a significant role in building the character you speak of when taken seriously - just as a healthy diet helps make your body stronger in most cases. In fact, next to becoming a parent, I'd say marriage is probably the biggest character building institution you can enter into. The level of commitment, understanding, compromise, responsibility and selflessness involved in publicly and legally binding your entire life to another person is simply unparalleled. You have yet to counter this fact in any serious way.

I won't argue with you that committed relationships are extremely important in character building. But, it is the individual that commits. Meaningful, committed relationships are possible without marriage. Society continues to prove that commitment and marriage aren't married to each other.

The advantage of getting married is the legal contract to help ensure family stability. My wealth is tied to my family for a minor fee (much less than it would cost to have a lawyer draw up papers with the same weight). Even should I cancel the contract, I am still obligated to support my spouse. The only other reasons that marriage continues to exist are tradition and religion.

I fail to see how the institution has any bearing on whether or not I remain committed to someone. It used to, because things like divorce, children out of wed-lock, and even living together unmarried were looked down upon. These days society is OK with someone who has children out of wed-lock and/or multiple divorces. You're no longer a social pariah for having a committed relationship with someone for the rest of your or their life without getting married.