"Why get married when you could be happy?"

I linked to this piece in a previous post, but thought I should call it to your attention as a cultural harbinger of things to come.

Natasha Mitchell links to a panel discussion addressing the issue in a download audio HERE, but the summary and reader comments are telling reminders of where the culture (perhaps no longer a 'subculture') is headed.

Here a couple of the comments:

• I think it's good to have this debate but why limit it to gay and lesbian concerns? I have never heard any critique since the revolutionary minded sixties and seventies of the actual raison d'être for marriage as the conservative institution that I think it is; i.e. why should anyone at all want to get married? Perhaps I missed something?
  
  
• Our grandson has 7 grandparents 4 of whom are gay with only two of the hets being married (to each other) so with regard the notion of marriage the issue is not so much to extend it to gay folk but rather to seriously question the marriage/wedding circus. Ritual is important for community but why does this charade still exist in our community - the man/woman thing, the white dress, the father giving away, the often obscene expense. Equality is essential for community: lets debunk the marriage myth and ceelebrate all relationships.