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duh 
"catpurrs"
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 Posted - 05/30/2008 : 15:46:50
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I saw the part from the Ellen show where she questioned McCain about his opposition to same-sex marriage. I think it was good strategy for McCain to appear on Ellen, but I also think he seemed a bit uncomfortable with the question.
Since then, the thought has occurred to me that I can't think of any good reason for a person to oppose same-sex marriage.
It seems that lots of people are virulently opposed to it. I am puzzled by that virulence. Why would someone care that much about it?
I think life is hard. If someone can find someone to share the journey with and to make it easier and more fun, what difference should it make what gender they are?
I must be some kind of oddball. I think 'peoples is peoples' and I think that sexuality comes in an array of flavors and that marriage is a stabilizing thing that society should encourage.
Isn't it ironic that through the 60's and 70's, heterosexual couples were moving in together 'because we love each other too much to get married,' (bullshit honey, he wants the milk for free) and now same-sex couples love each so much that they want to get married?
In the community I live in, there is quite a divide between the people who don't care what consenting adults do in private, and people who are adamantly opposed to anything 'progressive.'
I know of a woman who married and had kids but then left her husband and moved in with her girlfriend. They conduct themselves with dignity while in public, which is more than one could say for some hetero couples. Anyhow, they attended together, a football game at one of the kid's high school.
My cousin, who is a very nice person, was offended that the two had appeared together at the game. She said how embarassing it must have been for the kid.
I was left wondering, WHY did anyone CARE that the women were a lesbian couple? WHY was there an assumption that their teenager would be embarassed?
So, although gay couples are making progress, they still have a long ways to go towards acceptance.
I've heard that one reason some people are so worried about gay marriage is that they are afraid it will open the door to group marriage and perhaps even some truly aberrant variations. Is that a legit concern? I don't know.
I suppose there could be problems if polygamist marriage was legally recognized, because it seems that polygamist marriages tend to have accompanying perversions such as incest and child abuse and wife battering.
I've heard that at the local high school, the gay students are now a rather large and 'out' group. When I attended back in the early 70's, the gay students were tolerated, but treated somewhat as a joke. They could not be open about being gay even though everyone knew they were gay.
I was not gay, but because I was an oddball, some of the others treated me as though I was gay and made jokes about me being a lesbian. Even one of the gay boys did that to me.
The whole issue puzzled me. As I've stated before, I was 'reared by wolves' and the behaviors of the other kids usually puzzled and confused me.
I could never understand why it was such a big deal as to whether one liked girls or boys or both. Shouldn't it be the person that matters, not the genitalia?
As far as rearing children goes, I do see benefits to the child for having both a male parent and a female parent. I was protective and careful with the children, my husband was playfully rough and encouraged adventurousness. But what matters most is to model civilized behavior and to provide stability for children. That becomes a matter of the character of the parents, rather than gender. |
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Sal[Au]pian 
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 05/30/2008 : 15:57:46
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Bit of a random section for this thread, but anyway... 
I went to a London mayoral hustings. Boris (he is probably not yet known outside Britain but I am sure an international diplomatic incident will change that soon) did not do a very good job of explaining why he said that gay marriage would be equivalent to three men and a dog getting married.    |
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RockGolf 
"1500+ reviews. 1 joke."
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Posted - 05/30/2008 : 16:39:43
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I'm reminded of the old joke about a 90-year-old who said he wanted to die. He was asked for a reason and replied "When I was a lad, I heard about a man who was convicted of being gay and was hung. When I was a teenager, a person convicted of being gay was jailed for 10 years. By the time I was 50, it was one year. By the time I was 70, they'd get a suspended sentence. At 80, it became legalized, and now they allow gay marriage in some places. I want to die before it's compulsory!"
Sure it's an exaggeration, but never underestimate the ability of people to be opposed to things that really make no difference to their lives at all. There will always be people who claim "How can you not be opposed to gay marriage? But they are skewing older, and definitely dwindling. I know I've become more accepting of alternate lifestyles since I was a teenager, but there are still lots of hard and fast moralists who thinking has not changed. |
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ChocolateLady
"500 Chocolate Delights"
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Posted - 05/30/2008 : 17:04:58
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Ro�kG01f makes an excellent point. There will always be people who oppose one thing or another, even to things that will never touch them personally.
But you know, there are still people out there that hold the completely idiotic idea that being homosexual is somehow "catching", or that someone could "turn" a straight person gay - as if it was some huge plot with brainwashing involved. Try and tell them it isn't true, and they'll find arguments to "prove" otherwise.
Go figure!
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Sal[Au]pian
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 05/30/2008 : 17:07:29
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| Lots of gay people are opposed to gay marriage too (most of these to gay marriage proper, some even to civil partnerships). Their reasoning is that marriage is a heterosexual convention that should not be aped. However, this is totally nonsensical as it is like saying that living in a house (or going to family parties or anything else) as a couple is a heterosexual convention. |
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MisterBadIdea 
"PLZ GET MILK, KTHXBYE"
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Posted - 05/30/2008 : 17:23:48
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The best thing I ever heard about gay marriage was something I've come to think of as the Steak Comparison. Surprisingly, I'm pretty sure I heard it on one of my dad's right-wing talk shows, but I thought it was remarkably insightful. Basically, his statement was, "If gays get married, my steak still tastes the same." I agree, and I think that basically sums up everything that needs to be said.
A caveat to the steak comparison is that the second that gay marriage makes my steak tastes worse than usual, I will picket against it. |
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Whippersnapper. 
"A fourword thinking guy."
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Posted - 05/30/2008 : 17:29:43
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Well, I object to same-sex "Marriages".
I do not object at all to same-sex relationships, same-sex unions or bestowing rights upon those unions. And I do not say that heterosexuals are in any way better than homosexuals.
I simply say that "Marriage" - with a capital M - is the only word which exists (as far as I know) which unambiguously describes a centuries-old cultural tradition whereby men and women (one of each ) enter into a legal agreement usually (although not always) with the intention of creating and/or bringing up their biological children.
To allow this word to become transmuted into a more general description of formalised pairing-off will diminish our understanding, particularly of the past, and not add to it.
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Sal[Au]pian
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 05/30/2008 : 17:39:53
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quote:
Originally posted by Whippersnapper
Well, I object to same-sex "Marriages".
I do not object at all to same-sex relationships, same-sex unions or bestowing rights upon those unions. And I do not say that heterosexuals are in any way better than homosexuals.
I simply say that "Marriage" - with a capital M - is the only word which exists (as far as I know) which unambiguously describes a centuries-old cultural tradition whereby men and women (one of each ) enter into a legal agreement usually (although not always) with the intention of creating and/or bringing up their biological children.
To allow this word to become transmuted into a more general description of formalised pairing-off will diminish our understanding, particularly of the past, and not add to it.
Assuming you're being serious (which is impossible to tell)...
Marriage is very ancient and no one has much idea about what did or didn't ever occur within it in the earliest times.
Words change their 'meanings' (this is a stretch) with regard to the participants they describe. One might just as well say that a new name needed to be invented when there was first a female prime minister.
No idea what the fanciful capitalisation is all about. |
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Whippersnapper.
"A fourword thinking guy."
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Posted - 05/30/2008 : 18:21:15
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Firstly, I am being serious.
I'm not really interested in discussing what we don't know about marriage. We do have quite a lot of information on a few thousand years of it, and that's what informs our cultural definition of marriage. I am not arguing that there may not have been times when "Marriage" may have applied to single-sex relationships. I am saying that within our cultural horizons it has not done so.
Of course words change their meanings. That's exactly what I am objecting to in this case. Sometimes words changing their meanings is a good thing, sometimes it isn't. Here I am arguing it isn't a good thing because of what we lose.
The capitalisation is to make it clear that Marriage is a legal institution, not just a descriptive term and also to separate it from the weaker meanings of marriage, whereby one could reasonably say that two men had been "married" in the sense that they had lived together as a couple. In this loose sense I have no objection as its observational rather than legal.
Incidentally, your dismissal of the views of many other gays as "totally nonsensical" is typical of your unattractive arrogance. You really need to be more respectful about other people's ideas, not least because of the possibility that, in reality, they have understood the issue better than you have.
It could just be the case here that they understand the limitations of pursuing all human rights arguments of the basis of equality. Large parts of feminist thought have come to believe that women's rights are not always about equality and the gay movement may have something to learn from that experience.
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RockGolf
"1500+ reviews. 1 joke."
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Posted - 05/30/2008 : 18:35:28
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| Foxboy: Can you attack both these two and get them on the same side again so we don't get a flame war? |
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silly
"That rabbit's DYNAMITE."
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Posted - 05/30/2008 : 19:05:34
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The biggest threat to the institution of marriage is hardly gays; it's the other big percentage of the world that treat it like a joke.
Yelling about gay marriage makes everyone feel better about adultery and divorce, two other things that for most of history were rather frowned upon, but now are everyday conversation and the subject of popular entertainment.
Why don't the preachers work on that for a while?  |
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turrell
"Ohhhh Ohhhh Ohhhh Ohhhh "
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Posted - 05/30/2008 : 19:12:53
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If you are gay and opposed to marriage don't get married (straight people can also not get married it is still a choice). I can't seen why any gay person would be opposed to having this as a choice.
I think people get hung up on marriage as a specific term when it actually has multiple meaning/purposes:
1) a civil contract between two people to share property, parenting rights, protect against estate taxes, etc.
2) a mutual committment between two people to love each other and take care of each other until death does them part
3) a religious/spiritual ceremony to consecrate the bond between two people.
Civil unions take care of the first meaning and is the most critical to gay couples who want to adopt (two unmarried people can't adopt a child in the US - only one person is the legal parent). It also allows the partner to make health decisions in case of incapacity and finally can shelter portions of the estate from taxes upon the death of one of the partners.
Committment doesn't require legal or religious validation and the the religious ceremonies should be regulated by that religion so long as they don't break other laws (underage marriages, multiple spouses, etc.)
SO for me whether you call it civil unions or marriages matters not, but should we should allow people to enter into contracts that give them the same protection as other single people. |
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Whippersnapper.
"A fourword thinking guy."
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Posted - 05/30/2008 : 20:14:51
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Turrell
Of your three meanings of marriage only the first should be a matter of public policy. The other two meanings are the business of the two individuals and any voluntary groups to which they belong and which they want to sanction their relationship.
I agree that the question of the adoption of children is very important.
The question is whether the children of a gay couple are disadvantaged or not. If they are then gays should not be allowed to adopt, if they aren't then they should.
It would be a cheap slight-of-hand argument to say that if gays are allowed to marry, and married people can adopt, then ergo it will be fine to allow married gays to adopt. It will be fine, IMO, if its in the interests of the children and only if its in the interests of the children.
An institution which has thousands of years of history behind it should also have a word to describe it which differentiates it from a same-sex relationship. Human experience is located inescapably within language. Lose the language, you lose the experience.
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silly
"That rabbit's DYNAMITE."
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Posted - 05/30/2008 : 20:49:32
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Not too many years ago, I would not have been able to adopt two of my children, because of racial issues. Not legally, at least.
I have had people tell me that they (the children) will be disadvantaged, regardless, because of racial issues.
I like to think the world has moved beyond skin color, but it hasn't. Same way it hasn't moved beyond gender roles.
I am against divorce (I've only been married 21 years) and infidelity. But I am not actively preventing others from doing these things, because it does not affect me. It does, however, often put their children at a disadvantage.
This can be a rather personal topic, and I tend to get too emotional, so this is the last 2 cents I'll put in on this. Thanks for reading.
 <-- that's no moon, it's a space station! Luke and Leia were adopted, and look how they turned out. My kids are disappointed that they have yet to harness their Jedi powers, but are convinced they will. |
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MisterBadIdea
"PLZ GET MILK, KTHXBYE"
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Posted - 05/30/2008 : 21:08:41
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Whoo boy. I honestly kind of hoped this would not turn into an argument, but of course everyone's gotta have their own opinion. Well, I couldn't be polite in a discussion about Transformers, I'm certainly not going to start for a topic this important. I think Whippersnapper's argument against gay marriage may be the flimsiest and most trivial that I've ever come across. I don't even know how to argue against it, it's like arguing that you're not supposed to wear socks over your head. Sixty years ago, my parents would not have been able to marry and produce my multiracial ass; that changed, and the poor little word had to suck it up and deal with it. If the world decides that marriage now includes same-sex couples, well by God that's how it's gonna be and the word is going to have to deal with that too.
I could have phrased that nicer, I suppose, but I feel ridiculous even addressing this. At least most people arguing against gay marriage say things like it's going to lead to more divorces. Their conclusions are wrong, but at least they picked conclusions that matter. |
Edited by - MisterBadIdea on 05/30/2008 21:10:57 |
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duh
"catpurrs"
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Posted - 05/30/2008 : 21:19:52
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Perhaps I am naive, but so far, I don't think I see an 'argument' here.
I appreciate the different points of view expressed here because I know you folks can talk about these things in principle without getting angry at each other on a personal basis. |
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Gay Marriage
