Alexandria

Remember when we advised:

With citizens in the developing world gaining wealth and sure to want their share of gold at some point, do you really want to be underweight gold the next 10, 20, 30 years?

It looks like that point is now.

Stunning images from China: Ten thousand people waiting in line to buy gold.

Over a decade has passed since the Goodridge ruling (4-3) by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, as a resident of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts I hold the unpopular dissenting position that marriage between a man and a woman still matters. Most people know I’m not a bigot, but more of an unrealistic idealist who has the credentials to speak on the subject.

Most of my concerns revolve around father absence. It is assumed; when an intimate relationship between parents no longer exists, it is the mother who has primary custody of the child. When this happens fathers tend to become uninvolved and unengaged in parenting. The majority of the time it is not a willful abandonment by the father, but the complicated logistics of child sharing as both parents move on with their individual lives. My concerns for fragile families existed prior to the change of marriage’s definition, today framed exclusively as what one thinks about individuals who are gay, which is over-extended in our cultural and political discussions.

As one friend defended my concerns,

“You’re calling out a major societal problem that people are uncomfortable discussing, and that doesn’t lend itself to trendy bumper stickers, school clubs, or Hollywood-type backing.
Talking about fatherless isn’t cool, or sexy, or exciting. As you said here in the post, it can lead you to be branded in some not-so-nice ways, because it veers into weighing in on the “social issues.”
Still, it’s a major problem, and it’s tied to so many other social ills.
I look at public speech as courageous when it goes against the grain, or makes people uncomfortable.
Sometimes people work themselves up into righteous indignation regarding policies and issues, but if no one is really taking the other side, it’s hard to see the justification for that…even as someone who supports full equality for gays, I admit that’s not very courageous, because it’s very *easy* for me to say that where I live and work.”

Rarely spoken are the merits of marriage, only found in long policy briefs that only a handful of people will ever read. Twenty years ago the country saw the changes in our culture, which resulted in the steep decline in the participation in marriage. Public policy tried to address this problem in multiple of ways and failed. In both Democratic and Republican administrations between Clinton and Bush, even as recently in 2007, Senator Obama co-sponsored a bill on healthy families and responsible fatherhood with another Democrat.

I look forward to sharing my experiences in Massachusetts and my involvement in public policy matters that affect my community.