"Love Supreme: Gay Nuptials and the Making of Modern Marriage"

Adam Haslett, writing in The New Yorker, May 31, 2004. An excellent account of the debate, the issues, and the modern institution of marriage, to date.

According to the 2000 census, the first to collect such data, there are five hundred and ninety-four thousand same-sex couples living in the United States (and that’s no doubt an undercount, given people’s reluctance to report their sexual orientation to the government). But marriage requires the consent of a third party—namely, the state.

"The Domestic Gulag"

Excerpt from Lura Kipnis' Against Love: A Polemic. Harpers Magazine, Oct. 2003, pp. 15-18.

Excerpt from the excerpt:

You can't leave the house without saying where you're going...You can't make plans without consulting the other persons, particularly not for evenings and weekends...You can't leave the dishes for later..You can't not notice whether the house is neat or messy...You can't leave the toilet seat up...You can't leave female-hygiene products out...You can't sleep late if the other person has to get up early...You can't watch soap operas without getting made fun of...Your best friends can't call after ten...You can't have your own bank account...You can't analyze the cinematography in a movie that they were emotional about...You can't not 'communicate your feelings.' Except when those feelings are critical, which they should not be.

Thus is love obtained.