Among the South American Lache and Caquiteros peoples, homosexual marriage is not uncommon. Same with the Achnutshik of Greenland. 300 miles from the now infamous Wasilla, Alaska, the Konjag eskimo would rear certain male children as females, and they would then marry a chief or tribal elder.

Heck, the Bugis of Indonesia have five genders! The one androgynous gender is not allowed to marry. They are however, considered shamans, not second class citizens.

As the melting pot of the planet, our goal should be to take the best of the other cultures. Instead we are myopic. It’s beyond frustrating.

Last year when I was debating Glenn Stanton on this blog, Stanton admitted that same-sex marriages have existed in cultures around the world. But he refused to accept them as marriages because they weren’t identical to modern same-sex marriages. Yet, by that very standard we should not consider Mr Stanton’s marriage legitimate, for it barely resembles heterosexual marriages of centuries past.

Regarding procreation, the Tiwi of North Australia had no requirement that procreation (or even sex) was a necessary part of marriage. Marriage has traditionally been about joining families into social and economic alliances – other things are extras.

This notion that you need both genders intimately involved or else you totally forget what your plumbing does is a bunch of voodoo nonsense.

(I know it means Bachelor of Science; I think my mom has one.)

As a Anthropology student I am VERY offended. This man has obviously not read Margret Mead, whose studies of Gender do not agree with him. Also there have been studies of both Brazilian transgendered and Indian transgendered, as well as Native American 2-spirited people. (I only have a bachelors in Anthro, so I can’t be called an anthropologist)

I don’t have to work in front of me, if anyone remembers the names of the researchers or their works, you can put it up, I’d have to go through my old texts, which are at home in Texas.

Why do people constantly feel that they can use this field to support insulting views? I know I personally talked to my adviser after the last time this happened, she was PISSED. She studies the tklinkit gender roles herself, and their gender roles are VERY different from what we think of as typical gender roles. I’ll have to pull out my copy of her book when I get home and see what she says exactly.