I submitted the following to the Star Tribune over five weeks ago. I think I can assume it will not be published. It was my response to the ongoing heated exchange about the "Marriage Amendment" that will be on this fall's ballot in November.
I don’t know what all the fuss is about protecting marriage. About the only protection marriage needs is from two people who can’t get along together. And that has been happening for centuries.
My parents were married in September 1937 and I was born in March 1938, supposedly six weeks premature, at 8+ pounds! They were divorced when I was five.
My father’s parents took a ferry from Chicago in 1905 to St. Joseph, Michigan, the Cupid Capitol, were married, had lunch, came back and told their parents. At least my father, their eldest, had the decency to wait about four years to be born.
My father’s grandfather abandoned his wife and six children in Illinois and lived with another woman in Indiana for the rest of his long life.
His father, a sailor and ship’s master, married a woman in England and had a son there. He brought them to New York and then abandoned them there. He later had a son with another woman in Baltimore.
As for me, I’ve been married 52 years. My brother has been married nearly fifty years. My daughter has been married 25 years. Given the above history, I guess the six of us just don’t have traditional marriages.
