Rachel’s Musings

Although I am excited about the California Supreme Court’s decision to override a ban on same-sex marriage, I continue to be leery about the preferential treatment bestowed upon people simply because they “tie the knot.” According to a compilation of the General Accounting Office, in the U.S. married couples get at least 1,400 rights and benefits that non-married people do not get (an updated version is available as a PDF). While some of these rights clearly intend to protect children (although my own experience with the divorce law make me sometimes doubt that and there is also other evidence of that failure), many of those rights are simply discriminatory. As a single person, my social security benefits are not paid beyond my death. If I were married, my surviving spouse gets those benefits. I could add a spouse to my health insurance but not a very close friend who has lost hers with her job (or never got any health insurance). Although it certainly simplifies things, it does not make sense to me why these rights are not easily available outside of marriage. Easily is the key here because at least some of these rights could probably recreated through complex contracts. So, why not create a simple legal vehicle that would be available to people in any relationship, be it as a couple or siblings or friends? Something like a union contract that two (or more) people could sign that conveys similar rights and benefits no matter who those people are would be much less discriminatory. A marriage could simply be the expression of a commitment between two people - no special rights and benefits are attached to it, except through the union contract that every married couple had to sign. This would uphold the rights and benefits for married people but would end the matrimonial discrimination of other relationships. It is time that we come up with alternatives to marriage rather than perpetuating a discriminating vehicle.

There is an excellent editorial on courant.com, which brings up several good points along the lines I have argued here. Froma Harrop argues that “there is a marriage debate we ought to have — or to put it more accurately, a non-marriage debate.” She continues:

The troubling aspect of the push for gay marriage is the part that perpetuates the notion of marriage as a goody bag for sundry government and corporate benefits. A gay advocate asks, “Why can’t I leave my $4 million estate to my partner tax-free, as Jane and Joe Jones next door can do?” Valid question — but then one asks: “What about Widow Smith and her sister, who have lived together for decades? Shouldn’t tax law favor their estates, as well?” [...] Given the growing percentage of unmarried adult Americans, the whole obsession with same-sex marriage has become rather dated.

Keep marriage as a romantic and religious ideal for those who choose to partake. Public policy, on the other hand, should be marriage-neutral.

This is the marriage issue that the leading candidates should be addressing. You just know that they won’t touch it.

Excellent!

Atheists are routinely asked if there can be morality without religion. I am pretty tired of this question because the influence of religion has created a lot of immorality. It is time to turn this question around: Can there be morality with religion? I would say “no.” Religions provide a list of things to do or not to do but they do not train us in ethics that go beyond these lists. Critical thinking, which is very important to ethics, is suppressed within religion.

If religions were bastions of morality, their followers should be especially moral and ethical. That is clearly not the case. All too often, religious arguments have been used for immoral acts. Here are a few examples going beyond the witch hunt, the inquisition, and “honor” killings, which clearly were immoral and religiously motivated.      Continue reading this post » » »

Bella DePaulo wrote an interesting article on Huffington Post about single voters, especially single women voters. Among her findings:

In their values and their appraisals, single women are on the leading edge of where the country is already headed. Currently, for example, 77% of both married and unmarried women believe that the country is on the wrong track. But single women got there first. In November of 2006, 66% of single women, compared to just 54% of married women, thought that the country was headed in the wrong direction. Single women were on the vanguard in their disapproval of the Iraq War, too.

DePaulo suggests that voters who are single - “people who are divorced and widowed, along with those who have always been single” - are an attractive segment of the population, especially for the Democratic party. It remains to be seen if the Democrats notice us!      Continue reading this post » » »

In the United States, we almost seem obsessed with finding happiness, which is rather ironic because “it is not something to be sought or pursued, but a result of how we live” (Richard Eckersley. Well & Good. 104). From early on, we are taught that we will find happiness once we’ve found our soul mate. We’ll “live happily ever after.” What gets lost in this matrimania myth is teaching on how we can create a life that invites happiness without demanding that someone else be responsible for it.

Eckersley gives us some hints based on his review of what the “wise and famous” said (104):

• Focus on others, not ourselves.
• Balance wants and means.
• Be content with what we have.

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I am reading an interesting book about happiness, Well & Good, written by an Australian researcher, Richard Eckersley. It is a great book that is reflecting some of the questions that I’ve been grappling with: there is something that is tying many of the issues we’re facing together. Eckersley also attributes a lot of our current malaise to misplaced answers to the questions of meaning and belonging. I am a little leery about his references to spirituality but I haven’t read the book far enough yet to know exactly where he’s going with that. I look forward to sharing a book summary in the not too distant future.

I cannot resist, though, to comment on Eckersley’s bold false statement in reply to his questions what makes a person happy      Continue reading this post » » »