Please reflect on your assigned work this week and answer the following questions. Copy these questions into your initial post.

1. What was the most significant learning within the themes presented this week?
2. How has this learning affected your personal philosophy?
3. How can you integrate this learning into your understanding of sex & love?
4. After reviewing your work within this week’s themes, what questions remain unanswered or what questions have emerged?

Articles to read are attached!!

Marriage is one of the oldest human institutions and may even predate our species if we see it origins in the forms of pair bonding practiced by ancestral primates or other animal species. Usually, marriage is associated with economics, politics, spirituality, reproduction, child-rearing, romance, and companionship, but there has been considerable historical and contemporary disagreement both within and across cultures about the definition of marriage. Typically, these disputes are about the purpose of marriage, the persons who can legitimately engage in marriage, and the value of monogamy.

In recent times, popular and scholarly interest in marriage has focused on the struggle of same-sex couples to gain the legal recognition and rights associated with marriage. Various alternatives to marriage have been proposed (e.g. civil unions and domestic partnerships), but after a series of relevant Supreme Court cases culminating in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) which guarantees the constitutional right for same-sex couples to marry in the United States. In many ways, this verdict is consistent with Cheshire Calhoun’s (2000) argument that being a homosexual does not disqualify a person or a couple from participating in domesticity and enjoying equal protection under the law.

Thus, the articles for this week are primarily of historical value to contextualize the leading arguments against and in favor of same-sex marriage prior to the Supreme Court verdict. While most objections and arguments against same-sex marriage are based on conservative religious or cultural views, Stanley Kurtz (2003) presents one of the most influential secular arguments against same-sex unions: that loosening the requirements of one man and woman might open the door for other forms of marriage, specifically plural marriages. Conversely, Kayley Vernallis (2012) we should consider the possibility of plural marriages for the benefit of polyamorous persons, specifically gender-specific bisexuals.