Criticism of gay marriage and defense of a constitutional amendment defining marriage as being between "one man and one woman" is often predicated upon the premise that this sort of marriage - and only this sort - is a "pillar of civilization" which has stood immutable for ages and which should not be tampered with. Unfortunately, it's a premise which is completely false: human culture is quite varied, and so are the sorts of marriages which different cultures have used. Unless critics of gay marriage wish to label those cultures as "uncivilized," they are faced with a problem: they are speaking out of ignorance or they are lying.

Charles Burress writes for the San Francisco Chronicle about a report issued by American Anthropological Association decrying the ignorance about marriage being used to prop up bigoted political agendas:

"[A]nthropological research supports the conclusion that a vast array of family types, including families built upon same-sex partnerships, can contribute to stable and humane societies," the association's statement said, adding that the executive board "strongly opposes a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to heterosexual couples." The statement was proposed by Dan Segal, a professor of anthropology and history from Pitzer College in Claremont (Los Angeles County), who called Bush's conception of the history of marriage "patently false."

"If he were to take even the first semester of anthropology, he would know that's not true," said Segal, a member of the anthropological association's Executive Committee. ... Segal pointed to "sanctified same-sex unions in the fourth century in Christianity" and to the Greeks and Romans applying the concept of marriage to same-sex couples, not to mention the Native American berdache tradition in which males married males.

Most Americans, including President Bush I assume, have never taken even a semester of anthropology - they seem to be afflicted with cultural blinders that causes them to assume that most of the world is a lot like America in their social institutions (and insofar as they aren't, they also aren't worth taking seriously). Most of the time this probably doesn't matter much, but it matters a great deal with that abject ignorance starts being used as an excuse for re-writing history and science in order to serve the political agenda of the fearful and the hateful.

Read More:

• Ethics of Gay Marriage
• Religious Right
• Evangelical Christianity & Homosexuality