Passionate  sense

Contributions to the conversation, going back some years
-- if most now mere straws in the wind.

Lesbian writer Jane Rule, in a committed relationship of more than 45 years, warns against "the cage of coupledom" -- celebrating instead taking responsibility "for ourselves and each other, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health," not bound by the model of marriage.

September 2000. With a link to the next piece below.

Heirarchy vs a spectrum of love
A culture "valuing honesty and honouring lust"
may not survive the "marriage snake-pit"

Gareth Kirkby takes a clear (and rare) stand in Xtra West! -- "No, no, no to marriage rights." Why settle for "something that is inferior to our own arrangements and yet suffers a serious superiority complex"?

April 2001. With four letters responding to the editor, and to Jane Rule.

Cries in the wilderness
Perceptions lost: Earlier takes
on the tedious issue

Comments over nearly two decades, by among others activists Ken Popert, Chris Bearchell and Garth Barriere, lawyer Brenda Cossman, Xtra! editor David Walberg and historian Steven Maynard. A look at thoughts too rare in a "debate" where we're meant to say no more than "Yes" or "No."

July 1982 through the year 2000.