If you ask people on the street what marriage is, they just get tongue-tied. And our litigative and political leaders too have not been very forthcoming on what they think marriage is. Surprisingly little public discourse has gone into figuring out what marriage is and why government should have a role in it. Marriage is the fused intersection of love's sanctity and necessity's demand. We do not count as marriages great loves , like Antony and Cleopatra or Catherine and Heathcliff, whose loves burn gloriously but too intensely ever to be manifest in a medium of breakfasts and tire-changes.
Marriage requires the presence and blending of both necessity and intimacy.
They are the field across which, the medium through which, and the ground from which the intimacies which we consider marital flourish, blossom, and come to fruition. Currently society and its discriminatory impulse make gay coupling very difficult. Still, even against oppressive odds, gays have shown an amazing tendency to nest. Choice improves intimacy. It makes sacrifices meaningful.