But we changed that in the US with Griswold vs. Connecticut in 1965, in which the Supreme Court codified the idea that a married couple may block conception. Yet the subject elicits so much emotion. Most of the resistance really comes from that. People don t want to give us the word marriage because it has a lot of personal, religious, and symbolic meaning. Though I m surprised by how strong that resistance is.
People are a lot more willing to cede the individual component parts.
For example, in the Netherlands, the country that is probably the furthest along, we have every right of marriage except the word marriage. It s called something else there. Opponents of same-sex marriage like the conservative writer William Bennett argue that opening up marriage to gay and lesbian couples will lead to the acceptance of polygamy. God will punish you and your children, and civilization will collapse. Essentially, same-sex marriage can only happen in a society that considers men and women to be not the same but equal.