Well, despite the enormous popularity of debating birth control, abortion, or IVF, I have decided to branch out a bit and revisit the debate over gay marriage. The whole idea that two people (no matter what their sexuality) should be able to marry is one that I am extremely comfortable with. Marriage - a commitment, before the law and your family and friends, and god (if you are of that inclination) - is that something that a freedome-loving people really want to deny to someone merely because of their sexuality? How is that really a threat to heterosexual marriage? I still haven't received an answer that I can agree with or even take seriously.
To kick off this discussion then, besides my own opinion, I have decided to print an article from the Nation from Katha Pollitt, published December 15, 2003. This will also be the kick-off to my printing her articles. Most I find thought-provoking; some I didn't agree with, some I did, and many I found absolutely hilarious. So, sit back, read, and enjoy. And if you don't enjoy this one, well, maybe future ones will strike you as funny. Or you may find them offensive. But keep an open mind - something I struggle to do sometimes, and am always a firm supporter of, and well, enjoy!
"Adam and Steve-Together at Last"
Katha Pollitt
Will Someone please explain to me how permitting gays and lesbians to marry threatens the institution of marriage? Now that the Massachusetts Supreme Court has declared gay marriage a constitutional right, opponents really have to get their arguments in line. The most popular theory, advanced by David Blankenhorn, Jean Bethke Elshtain, and other social conservatives is that under the tulle and orange blossoms, marriage is all about procreation. There's some truth to this as a practical matter-couples often live together, tying the know only when baby's on the way. But whether or not marriage is the best framework for child-rearing, having children isn't a marital requirement. As many have pointed out, the law permits marriage to the infertile, the elderly, the impotent, and those with no wish to procreate; it allows married couples to use birth control, to get sterilized, to be celibate. There's something creepily authoritarian and insulting about reducing marriage to procreation, as if intimacy mattered less than biological fitness. It's not a view that anyone outside of a right-wing think tank, a Catholic Marriage Tribunal, or an ultra-Orthodox rabbi's court is likely to find persuasive.
So scratch procreation. How about: Marriage is the way women domesticate men. This theory, a favorite of right-wing writer George Gilder, has some statistical support-married men are much less likely than singles to kill people, crash the car, take drugs, commit suicide - though it overlooks such husbandly failings as domestic violence, child abuse, infidelity, and abandonment. If a man rapes his wife instead of his date, it probably won't show up on a police blotter, but has civilization moved forward? Of course, this view of marriage as a barbarian-adoption program doesn't explain why women should undertake it-as is obvious from the state of the world, they haven't been too successful at it anyway. (Maybe men should civilize men-bring on the Fab Five from Queer Eye!) Nor does it explain why marriage should be restricted to heterosexual couples. The gay men and lesbians who want to marry doesn't impinge on the male improvement project one way or the other. Surely not even Gilder believes that a heterosexual pothead with plans for murder and suicide would be reformed by marrying a lesbian?
What about the argument of history? According to this, marriage has been around forever and has stood the test of time. Actually, though, marriage as we understand it - voluntary, monogamous, legally egalitarian, based on love, involving adults only- is a pretty recent phenomenon. FOr much of human history, polygyny was the rule - read your Old Testament - and in much of African and the Muslim world, it still is. Arranged marriages, forced marriages, child marriages, marriages predicated on the subjugation of women - gay marriage is like a fairy tale romance compared with most chapters of the history of wedlock.
The trouble with these and other arguments against gay marriage is that they overlook how loose, flexible, individualized, and easily dissolved the bonds of marriage already are. Virtually any man and woman can marry, no matter how ill assorted or little acquainted. An eighty year old man can marry an eighteen year old; a john can marry a prostitute; two terminally ill patients can marry each other from their hospital beds. You can get married by proxy, like medieval royalty, and not see each other in the flesh for years. Whatever may have been the case in the past, what undergirds marriage in most people's minds today is not some sociobiological theory about reproduction or male socialization. Nor is it the enormous bundle of priviliges society awards to married people. It's love, commitment, stability. Speaking just for myself, I don't like marriage. I prefer the old-fashioned ideal of monogamous free love, not that it worked out particularly well in my case. As a social mechanism, moreover, marriage seems to me a deeply unfair way of distributing social goods like health insurance and retirement checks, things everyone needs. Why should someone's marital status determine how much you pay the doctor, or whether you eat cat food in old age, or whether a child gets a government check if a parent dies? Still, as long as marriage is here, how can it be right to deny it to those who want it? In fact, you would think that, given how many heterosexuals are happy to live in sin, social conservatives would welcome maritally minded gays with open arms. Gays already have the baby - they can adopt in many states, and lesbians can give birth in all of them - so why deprive them of the marital bathwater?
At bottom, the objections to gay marriage are based on religious prejudice. The marriage of man and woman is "sacred," and opening it to same-sexers violates it sacral nature. That is why so many people can live with civil unions but draw the line at marriage - spiritual union. In fact, polls show a striking correlation of religiosity, especially evangelical Protestantism, with oppostition to gay marriage and with belief in homosexuality as a choice, the famous "gay lifestyle." For these poeple gay marriage is wrong because it lets gays and lesbians avoid turning themselves into the straights that God wants them to be. As a matter of law, however, marriage is not about Adam and Eve versus Adam and Steve. It's not about what God blesses, it's about what the government permits. People may think "marriage" is a word wholly owned by religion, but actually it's wholly owned by the state. No matter how big your church wedding, you still have to get a marriage license from City Hall. And just as divorced people can marry even if the Catholic Church considers it bigamy, and Muslim and Mormon men can only marry one woman, even if their holy books tell them they can wed all the girls in Apartment 3G, two men or two women should be able to marry, even if religions oppose it and it makes some heterosexuals, raised in those religions, uncomfortable.
Gay marriage - it's not about sex, it's about separation of church and state.
Hopefully you all read this far. Let the discussion begin - if it will.
5 comments:
My main comment since that is a lot to read is in regards to the last statement of the article. The separation of church and state although is in theory good and was meant to do as it says separate the two does not exactly exsist. Politicians either say they are religious and are swayed by that religion or use the majority's religion as a platform for you to think it is their own as well, but either way it is part of how they run their office thus run our government. So really there is not that much separation since it is almost like the arguement of nature verses nurture. Well, I've rambled enough so toodles.
well, sort of...I mean, everyone has some sort of religious or non-religious bias in life, but that doesn't mean that they should consciously use that bias in their political lives. Obviously, Bush does run his office on religion as do others - but remember, Kennedy was an unlikely candidate for president because he was Catholic and a lot of people thought he'd make the U.S. some arm of the pope but he made it. The idea isn't that you should be necessarily religiously neutral, you can have religious, but constitutionally, thanks to the First Amendment, you can't use that religion to make decisions, which is what the gay marriage ban is about - religion, according to the article; which I happen to believe makes a good point. That we must continue to strive and make all appearances at least (to the politicians who really don't want to) separate church and state. Some religions allow gay marriage. They have a sanctify gay marriage in church - if an Episcopalian (was that the group, I think so) was a Senator and followed only his religious guidelines toward this, he'd ignore the other religions that don't - but that's not the way he's allowed to work. Constitutionally, his guidelines are correct, but also incorrect because they are based only on religion and not the constitution - see my drift. Anyway, I know it's long.
Didn't read the whole thing, but have a very strong opinion on it so here goes:
I'm not about to say the church, or any church should recognize Gay marraige. It's their right in this country, Guaranteed in the Constitution to say and practice what they want.
However, The Government has no right to discriminate againast a Legal Wedding in a court of law, or even Vegas for that matter, because it conflicts with them religiously.
There is a difference between the Religious aspect of marriage, and the legal one. Most politicians try to blend the two to avoid the obvious.
I was married in Vegas. This was a legal marraige according to the government, however the Church does not recognize it, as it was not done by a Priest. We are taking steps to have a Blessing of the current marriage so we are recognized in the church. See? one marriage, two different Versions. I don't see why the government cannot legalize the civil one, and let the churches decide on the others.
I never get tired of that.
The real crux is the different thoughts on it.
It's not natural, that's the basis of many of the con arguments. It's not natural so we shouldn't encourage it.
course, interracial dating was also unnatural, and shouldn't be encouraged.
Women having thoughts outside the home was unnatural and shouldn't be encouraged.
but I ramble, The argument won't stop because the opposite side will never see it as "natural" for one reason or another (one reason being religious dogma, which can never really be argued since it delves into faith rather than debate) and will simply have to be forced into accepting it.. much like the 18th and 19th amendments and the Civil Rights movements of the 60s made some realize that we're all equal.. ALL equal.
Ramee, I love that list please email it to me so I can print it out and make posters and t-shirts! LOL..and Brad - I know you agree and I get your point about religion. Oh and guys, thanks for commenting and reading it and stuff. A lot of people didn't and it makes me feel good that you did - like you actually care about some of my opinions and how I support them - even if I use funny articles.
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