insomnia's bitch

adelamaide:

alinasmith:

“People who say that gay people are seeking to “redefine” the institution of marriage need to look around. We’re not seeking to redefine the institution of marriage, straight people redefined — past tense, already, it’s done! — straight people redefined the institution of marriage until it no longer makes any logical sense to exclude same-sex couples from the institution as straight people rebuilt it and practice it now.

Marriage used to be one man making a gift of a piece of property to another man. One man gave the property called ‘daughter’ to another man, and it became the property called ‘wife’. She had no rights. She was his thing. She could be disposed of, beaten, her children weren’t hers, she couldn’t own property, she was a child, she was chattel. That went on for millenia.

And then straight people — to their credit— in the west, said: “you know what, fuck this” and redefined marriage. And what is it now? It’s two completely equal, legally autonomous individuals who’ve made a commitment to each other. What defines their commitment? Ask them! When you’re talking about heterosexual marriage, it can be monogamous, or not. They can have children, or not. It can be a religious ritual, or not. It can be for life, or not. It’s up to them.

There are certain things we understand about what marriage means for everybody but beyond those very limited things marriage is, every single marriage is whatever the two people in it say that it is. It’s only now, when gay people who have looked at that institution and said: “We deserve in. We deserve equal rights and equal treatments. Our relationships deserve the same protections (and responsibilities, it’s not all cake, right?)” that people say: “Oh no, marriage is about monogamy and children.”

Really, Mark Sanford? It is, Bill Clinton? It is, Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole, Liddy Dole? It is, really? No, it isn’t. It isn’t. My grandfather got remarried in his sixties. That wasn’t about making more babies. It was about something else. Marriage is and does something else. And if it’s about babies; I got a baby. Let me get married. If not for us, for him. If marriage is about protecting children, and children deserve married parents. Let my child’s parents marry.

The same state that made me this kid’s parent will not let me marry this kid’s other parent, and then argues in the State Supreme Court decision in Washington, that upheld the ban on same-sex marriage, argues that gay people shouldn’t be allowed to be married because marriage is about children. And there we are, with our child that the state made us, as a couple, be parents of, going “wait, what?” It’s retarded.”

(I wasn’t sure if I should transcribe the whole thing, but then I couldn’t decide what to leave out.)

thedailywhat:

Early Bird Special: “We Are All Connected” — Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Bill Nye auto-tune the universe.

[via.]

Earlier: Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking in “A Glorious Dawn.”

it is entirely possible to feel connected to something greater than ourselves and that “something” not be god or another religiously-assigned “greatness”.