Comments on: Gays, race and this institutional thing of marriage

By: Rod MacKenzie

Rod MacKenzie — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 20:58:04 +0000

Atlas reader – you’re my Nike man! I actually wouldnt mind doing a Buddhist ceremony together with the chook sometime.

Lindile Ndwayana – beautifully expressed and you have the same heart, “those who categorize other people feel better about themselves after doing so”.

By: Atlas Reader

Atlas Reader — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 09:33:25 +0000

Marry the Chook. Just do it.

By: Lindile Ndwayana

Lindile Ndwayana — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 09:22:07 +0000

I’m also suspicious of ‘some’ institutions, now all I need is a partner who will be suspicious with me, be open-minded and a tad bit politically correct- or maybe not. Then, for the sake of having the obligatory complementary relationship, I’ll be the politically correct one and he can be a bigot.
Anyway, some people have the need to put things in a box to make sense of the World around them so as to not draw any blood from their ‘hard thinking’ closed minds. To them, of course every Muslim guy is going to blow themselves up using some mode of public transportation, of course every gay guy is a raged sex maniac, of course every black person who drives a German sedan is an unqualified tenderpreneur, and of course, every white person wants to jump off this sinking ship called South Africa.
And for some reason, those who categorize other people feel better about themselves after doing so. I bet Marion’s staunch Catholic relatives were glowing in the light of their [Catholic] God the second they disallowed you the right to practise your personal, non-institutional vows in the same bedroom as your partner- a right you decided to waive, if I’m correct, so that they don’t feel ashamed about themselves the morning after.
So, is a labelling and stereotyping World inevitable? Although it’s human to try to understand things, educating oneself about others can go a long way in achieving peace.:-)

By: Juanel

Juanel — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 09:14:30 +0000

@ MHL – if that’s how you respond when you feel indifferent about a topic then I’m curious about the essays you have ready when the topic is of more interest to you. But I’ll indulge your rantings – it is called “identification”. He is sharing his experience, and some of us actually IDENTIFY with his “label” dilemma and discontent for certain institutions.

My partner/man/prince/spouse/pet/soulmate and I have been together for over 5 years. We live together, own our place together and have a child*** – the legal and social hiccups are endless. It’s a bit of a “label-limbo” within our demographic context – either deal with the assumptions and judgements made about being married at this young age or have your relationship not taken that seriously because of the easily applied and recyclable “boyfriend/girlfriend label. I think Rod’s “The Chook” solution has inspired me to find my own nickname… thanks!

*** we are not allowed to call her a “dog” in her presence – I risk it now because her majesty is asleep

By: The Praetor

The Praetor — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 08:32:55 +0000

@MLH…

I find it hard to believe that the identity of a father can be that inconsequential. Was your son never interested in who his father is/was, or maybe wanted to have a relationship with him?

It happens at times that people, for whatever reason, want to keep a child away from one parent. In my view this is plain selfishness. Those people obviously dont know, or simply dont care, that they are damaging their child emotionally by doing this.
It doesnt matter how bad the parent is percieved to be, but it a childs right to know them. In any event, they couldnt have been all that bad as the mother/father saw then as good enough, to sleep with.

You only have to listen to the words of the rapper M&M, to hear how he had been affected by his mother keeping him away from his father, and making him out to be so bad.
Today he obviously hates his mother for doing this, and sees her as the bad one.

The Praetor

By: Eduardo Fernandez

Eduardo Fernandez — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 22:19:32 +0000

“How does one go about continuing to choose to belong to institutions like that?”
Why don’t you let people contininuing to choose to belong to those institutions in peace? If you don’t like them others sure do.

By: Rod MacKenzie

Rod MacKenzie — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 20:17:10 +0000

Massively Lopsided Hormones? I thought I had seen the last of you long ago. Pity. God you can drone and gabble on and seem to still have the same bitter heart. So much gall.

By: MLH

MLH — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 11:47:36 +0000

I can’t believe you still felt the need to tell us. Did you think you were deluding us? I really couldn’t be bothered. Were you proposing to share my bed or my business a little extra detail might sometimes be interesting but why would someone whose only bond with me is an open letter…care to divulge such personal information? I’m more interested in what Chookie might be planting in her NZ window boxes.
And that’s not meant to put you down. Were you to write about Chookie being about to present triplets, it might be pertinent. What is it that makes us decide that the world needs to hear our personal detail? Do we need to get it off our chests?
My son went through 12 years of school without me explaining anything to anyone. Needless to say, his birth certificate was at odds with my explanation when I was asked blatant questions. It said ‘father unknown’. I would say: ‘his father died’. Everyone probably thought that I did have a clue who the father was and was lying. In fact, the truth was mine. When the child was off to Oz for a year, the Ozzies went bezerk at the last moment and wanted the father’s death certificate, which I don’t even have. Hell, we didn’t even attend his funeral!
So now we’ve shared…big deal! Have a nice life. It’s those little details that make absolutely no difference.

By: Gary

Gary — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:27:51 +0000

She’s not your wife if you’re not ‘married’.
And, if you’re a woman, he’s not your husband if you’re not legally married to him.

When speaking about them, using their first name would usually indicate their sex, though not always of course.

By: laurence dann

laurence dann — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:14:07 +0000

many rue the day when institutions and sacred cows take a fall…. i don’t, ever. labels, tradition, maintaining the status quo are not my strong points. ground hog day is my worst nightmare. i was raised on the maxim, ‘if you are aren’t progressing, you are regressing and if you are regressing you are dying.’sticking to stereotypes has merit for some, yet for me, social satire aside, labels are a huge source of conflict which we shouldn’t need in our lives. well said rod!