(no subject)

[enkigrl]

I finally sat down and watched all of The Tao of Steve, which is Graham's best-beloved philosophy of relationships movie, and it's given me Thoughts. Or maybe clarified some nebulous thoughts I already had.

One of the ideas proposed by Dex in the movie is that the relationship has become our state religion. Duncan North, the fella that wrote the movie, said in an interview:

"Romance is the state religion of America: [we believe] that what you do is hook up with the hottest person in the room, and when you find the other person, you'll find personal salvation. I think we have that now without the divine thing beyond that. It's just like the love partner is the final destination. I personally don't want to be a member of that religious group."

And really, yeah, think about it. It's true. People spend more time pursuing the one true love than they do pursuing that big shiny Yahweh guy. Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of our movies and tv shows are at least partially about that spiritual quest, the search for the other half. And yeah, that's the way it's sold, too - the other half, the hetero, the girl to your boy or the boy to your girl, the pieces you don't have that will make you magically, androgynously complete. So really, when people say that gay marriage is a crime against God, which God are they talking about? I'm beginning to suspect that as much as they fling around that Creator-name, the god MOST folks are talking about is the Media God of Romantic Heterosexual Completion.

So marriage? If you've read any of my journal in the last few weeks, heh, you've probably guessed that I care fuckall about the institution of marriage, anti-romantic that I am. *Grin* If we all lived in magical Katie-World, I'd abolish it completely as a state institution. There'd be a better word than civil union, and there would be legitimacy and ease and sharing of health care benefits and a wide range of easily endorsable legal bindings, marriages and group marriages and friends and tribes and partners and year-and-a-day weddings and blood-brothers-and-sisters and roommates, all honoured across state and national borders. And churches could keep their happy crappy under-god promise-to-obey vows, and they would make them weirder and more esoteric, secret codes and signs added to make them unrepeatable, religious and strange, unduplicatable by the heathen masses, until they became one huge masonic jumble of ritual, and we could all live on our happy Bey-ish anarchic islands, pirate utopias, thumbing our noses. And the pirates would be snogging, cause that's the sort of thing pirates like to do.

So there.

But until then, um, yeay gay marriage.

Comments

[eris-star.livejournal.com]

You kick much ass.

I know...

Katie for president!
(Because at least you're interesting, which is more than can be said for the other candidates)

[nosugarsadded.livejournal.com]

So I'm all down with unions between any sort of person and his/herself or group of people, and everyone can be on my insurance plan, iffin I likes 'em.

Does that mean that the way we 'Mericans have been doing it for the past century or two is bad? Or is it okay if we merely recognize that we put love and "becoming one" and relationships (romantic or otherwise) on a pedestal?

We've got lots of things to choose from when we're trying to "find meaning", and love has always been very fashionable. People looking for love generally look down on those who try to complete themselves with success or drugs or adrenaline. And I certainly can't say that relationships don't cause as much or more damage than the other options (everyone jump on the therapy bandwagon!). But at least it's something. Can we expect the human race to have a simultaneous epiphany, where we realize that we don't need other people, and only think we do because of social/religious brainwashing?

I have no idea where I was going with this, if anywhere. I guess I feel defensive because I think that making connections with other people is very worthwhile goal, regardless of the psychology behind it. And I would think that less terrorism happens in the name of Love-for-the-Girl-Who-Works-at-the-Corner-Store-that-Held-My-Gaze-and-I-Thought-We-Had-a-Moment than Jesus or Allah.

Plus, love just *feels* good. Unless you're Angel.