California overturns ban on same-sex marriage

[Sean]

I'm sure many of you have already heard about the fact that California's Supreme Court has overturned a ban against same-sex marriage. It's a great step forward that I personally feel is long overdue.

And today, the Pope reiterated the church's stance that "only unions between a man and a woman are moral". As far as I'm concerned, there was a time and place for advocating only male-female marriages, but it's looooong gone. I tend to look at these things from an evolutionary point of view, and while in the distant past it was a necessity for human survival that we procreate, we really don't face any threat of extinction from dwindling numbers at this point in human history. So marriage between a man and woman that's centered around the idea of populating the planet with our species has rightly evolved to be much more of a social foundation in which procreation is no longer necessary for survival. In fact, there are probably too many people on the planet as it is, so if anything, we could do with a little less baby-makin'. In my opinion, this is one of those issues where the church will end up clinging to the mindset of the past loooooong after the practicality of that mindset has gone bye-bye - like when they executed people who said things like the earth wasn't actually at the center of the universe.

In this current reality, I think that what's important to marriage's survival is more that it be between people who love each other, and who are willing to take on the commitment that pledging your companionship to someone for a lifetime requires. It's an institution that helps us mature as a society by teaching us the importance of being responsible for someone and something other than ourselves, being faithful to them by honoring our publicly stated commitments, and being there to support each other through difficult times. These values are absolutely essential to our positive survival as a society, but are not unique to a heterosexual relationship the way that creating a baby is.

So bravo to my home state of California, and let's hope it catches on.