No matter what history tells us, western culture stubbornly insists on tethering love to marriage. We love therefore we marry. We stop loving, we get divorced.

Oh, but don't we wish it were that simple?

Marriage begins in the western world with patrilineal lines of inheritance. The caveman comes in from the cold and claims a woman as his own. Now he can know the flowering of his seed and who to leave his carcasses and weapons to. Be fruitful and multiply, said the white male god with flowing beard, and so we did. Romance was not yet invented, Cervantes and Shakespeare coming much later. When the first "marriage" occurred is in dispute - give or take a few millenniums. There is, however, little disagreement over the continuing cultural norm asserted by most conservatives and even many a liberal that this arrangement - one man, one woman - can be the only legitimate expression of love in marriage.

Really. Even if we did all get going on marriage a mere 200,000, 20,000 or even 5,000 years ago, isn't it time we accepted a little change? And isn't it also time that we learned to separate the cultural (including religious) import of the alleged "sanctity" of marriage from its legal functions? Why is it we need a rabbi, minister or priest to marry us, but only lawyers and judges can divorce us?

Consider the raging national debate over queer eyes for civil marriage. There is no question in my mind or heart that same sex couples will eventually win the right to choose civil marriage. Equality under the law will eventually win out, as it must in any secular democracy. But I suspect it isn't civil marriage or equality we're butting heads over. It is, in fact, the heart thing that makes us all tanglefoots. The cultural implications of acceptance and even of honor implied in this ancient tradition set us apart from each other and from those of our friends, family and co-workers whose sentimental attachment to the communal ritual of marriage blinds them and many of us to the shortcomings of this wounded institution.

Feminists are wary. Marriage has not been a site of liberation for most women. It has been and remains essentially an economic arrangement, and for many an economic necessity, made sweeter by the dew of romance, and hopelessly distorted by the moral attributions of religion, but an economic arrangement nonetheless. Were it not so, who would need pre-nuptial agreements and why would we need all those Armani clad divorce lawyers to dissolve a sacred, moral commitment?

As cultural phenomena, traditional (man + woman) marriage is actually less appealing than ever:

The US Census Bureau's newest numbers show that married-couple households - the dominant cohort since the country's founding - have slipped from nearly 80% in the 1950s to just 50.7% today. That means that the U.S.'s 86 million single adults could soon define the new majority. Already, unmarrieds make up 42% of the workforce, 40% of homebuyers, 35% of voters and one of the most potent-if pluralistic-consumer groups on record.

As an economic arrangement, however, marriage has become more and more engaging:

The notion that married people lose out because they pay more taxes through the oft-cited marriage penalty is only partially true. Dual income, high earning marrieds and low-income couples sometimes suffer the penalty, but for slightly more than half of all spouses, marriage actually slashes tax bills, particularly for those with children. That means, for example, that mega-salary executives with stay at home wives get subsidies that single working mothers don't…Indeed, the elements are in place for a new form of social welfare. That's because what's occurring is a wealth transfer to the married class which imposes an array of unseen taxes on singles - no matter how many people they care for or are dependent on them.

We need love. I do. I need Carlie's warmth, sweet and strong to hold me through the night. I need her breath on my neck, her laughter in my heart. I need her to show me the horizon. I want to be with her, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, all that. Have I asked her to marry me? Several times. She says no, not until it's real and maybe not then either. But marriage won't keep us together and love won't repair the inequities of an institution that can and must be re-tooled for a new era. Only the law can do that.

As we struggle to find common political ground to fend off the true abomination that writing discrimination into the U.S. constitution via a "marriage" amendment would be, and as we put shoulders together in the battle to win the right to civil marriage, it behooves us to remember that we have as many or more allies among the heterosexual "unmarrieds" as we do among the married. We need those people on our side. We need them to join us in challenging the orthodoxy of the right and its insistence that culture and religion are immutable forever because they are not. Culture reflects the spirit and imagination of people; and cultures, like people, change. Calls for a stand in defense of same sex civil marriage must not come at the expense of a reasoned critique of the institution itself and its cultural underpinnings. Changes in social and economic policies to alleviate the burden of single mothers, elder couples and other people who need support to care for their families and loved ones are as critical to the future of our queer sisters and brothers as is the right to civil marriage. Consenting to sexual pleasure outside of marriage without legal or economic recrimination is a right, not a privilege. It's not one or the other. A progressive vision for our movement and generations of queers to come must embrace both.

The playwright Tony Kushner reminds us, "The world only spins forward. We will be citizens." Yes, Tony, but let us also not forget that we came as immigrants to the shores of equality and illegal ones at that. If we choose to be citizens, let us be responsible ones. Let us be bold and imaginative. Let us demand the right to equality in civil marriage and let us also demand justice for all the people marriage won't protect.

Happy New Year.