Huckabee and Gay Marriage

No not another dark secret from Huck's past.

Daily Kos looks at one of his comments about the social destruction that is caused by messing the the tenets of marriage ("There's never been a civilization that has rewritten what marriage and family means and survived. ") and make an excellent point to consider when someone says that gay marriage is an End of the World sign.

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So, I'm wondering, who were these civilizations that re-wrote the meaning of marriage or family, and met some horrible doom. Was it the many civilizations were marriage was arranged and decided long before children were of marriageable age? Was it the Jewish civilizations of Jesus' day where brothers were required to marry their brother's widows? Was it civilizations that allowed siblings to marry? How about first cousins? Could be it civilizations who adopted the silly idea that you should marry for love. Perhaps it was the Mormons who decided to practice polygamy. Perhaps it was those who decided to stop. Or maybe it was the polyandrous cultures in many mountainous or arctic regions.

The truth is that every society rewrites the rules of marriage and family. That's what happens to all our social values as they respond to changes in how we live, what we know, and our available resources. Yes, friction occurs when the boundaries of a social convention no longer match those of a society in which it's embedded, but the societies that survive are exactly those which demonstrate the flexibility to change and adapt.

We stand at the end of a long line of rule-changers, of civilizations that have made institutions like marriage work for them, instead of against them. The dust under our feet is composed of all the civilizations that just the kind of rigidity that Huckabee wants for us now. The civilizations who fail are not those who acknowledge changing conditions and reshape their rules, but those who don't.

"Marriage" has changed shifted in so many ways since people started having "permanent" couplings. Heck, Catholic priest could once get married. Rules change left and right.

So, please, cut the bull conservatives. You just don't like the idea of gay marriage. That's your problem, not the worlds.