Today Courtney Martin writes about how her gay friends’ enthusiasm for marriage has caused her to rethink her own aversion to the institution.
What am I to make of my commitment to not participate in a sexist, historically racist institution when my own gay friends are flocking to the coasts so they can join in the gift registry and the white-dress hoopla? Of course they deserve all the legal protections and economic benefits of a legalized marriage; according to the Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, there are over 1,400 state and federal rights guaranteed by marriage, while there are only 300 state benefits and no federal protection for civil unions. But do these rights really trump the woman-as-property history and discriminatory present (on a state by state basis, of course)? Why do so many of my gay friends have such faith that they can transform the institution when I'm still so unsure?
And Matthew Yglesias examines Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s endorsement of Barack Obama’s plan to withdraw troops from Iraq:
Politically, Maliki's statement is devastating for John McCain, who has endorsed an American presence in Iraq for 100 years or more. And, further, McCain has repeatedly argued that any fixed timeline (or, indeed, any policy based on the idea of leaving Iraq to the Iraqis) would constitute a form of surrender.
But there is a larger problem for Obama's critics — the Iraqi embrace of something like Obama's schedule highlights the foolishness of condemning a 16-month timetable as arbitrary. The 16 month figure, of course, is somewhat arbitrary. But that is simply in the nature of any schedule — shift things around a month or a week or a day or an hour in one direction or another and it probably wouldn't make much of a difference.
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