# Gay dopers: Any of you against gay marriage? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 24, 2009, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-dopers-any-of-you-against-gay-marriage/497481 "2009-05-24T18:43:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2009, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-dopers-any-of-you-against-gay-marriage/497481/1 "2009-05-24T18:43:21Z")
I was at a concert yesterday and happened to make friends with the group of people next to my friends and I. Two of them were gay (one male and one female, although I don’t know if that matters much) and making conversation in-between bands I asked the male “So have you ever thought of moving to a place where they allow gay marriage?” (Living in Indiana we don’t have it). His response was (paraphrased) “Even though I am gay, I don’t believe gays should get married. They can have ceremonies and benefits, but don’t call it marriage”. Then I asked the girl the same question. She said she probably won’t move, but does believe they should get married. I personally don’t know a lot of gay people, but all of the ones I do know are, seemingly obvious, for gay marriage; this guy was the first guy whom I have met that is against it. So I ask the dopernation…If you are gay are you against gay marriage? Or does anyone know anyone else who is? ---
**Author:** ![Electric\_Warrior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@Electric\_Warrior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Electric_Warrior)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2009, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-dopers-any-of-you-against-gay-marriage/497481/2 "2009-05-24T21:20:48Z")
I’m bisexual and I’m against government-recognized marriages, period. I believe ‘marriage’ as a governmental institution violates separation of church and state. So civil unions (or something along those lines) should be recognized by the government for both gay and straight couples (and be granted by a court), whereas marriage should be a religious ceremony (and it should be up to each particular religious institution whether or not to marry a couple). ---
**Author:** ![TheMadHun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@TheMadHun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheMadHun)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2009, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-dopers-any-of-you-against-gay-marriage/497481/3 "2009-05-24T22:44:27Z")
I’m not gay, but the ones I’ve known had all had messy breakups. On the other hand, and for the same reason, I don’t recommend regular marriage. My divorce cured me. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2009, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-dopers-any-of-you-against-gay-marriage/497481/4 "2009-05-24T22:56:43Z")
Some queer people are opposed to same-sex marriage – or at least, they may be opposed to getting married themselves, even if they don’t necessarily oppose legalizing it – because they believe it panders to the heterosexual model. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2009, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-dopers-any-of-you-against-gay-marriage/497481/5 "2009-05-25T00:11:01Z")
> [@matt\_mcl](#): > > Some queer people are opposed to same-sex marriage – or at least, they may be opposed to getting married themselves, even if they don’t necessarily oppose legalizing it – because they believe it panders to the heterosexual model. I’ve certainly heard this from lesbians. But most admit it’s more realistic to fight for marriage rights for all than to expect the entire institution to crumble. I suppose it is a bit odd to demonstrate or argue passionately for something you never intend on taking advantage of. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2009, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-dopers-any-of-you-against-gay-marriage/497481/6 "2009-05-25T00:18:45Z")
There will always be a Judas in every group, and there will always be people confused by growing up in an environment that is hostile to who they are. So it would surprise me more if there _weren’t_ gays against gay marriage, but I’m sure they are a very very small minority. Think about it . . . there are immigrants against immigration, there were blacks against the civil rights movement, there are atheists for Jesus. On my honor, I knew a Jew who legitimately admired Adolf Hitler. ---
**Author:** ![Eats\_Crayons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/278dde/32.png) [@Eats\_Crayons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eats_Crayons)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2009, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-dopers-any-of-you-against-gay-marriage/497481/7 "2009-05-25T00:27:47Z")
> [@matt\_mcl](#): > > Some queer people are opposed to same-sex marriage – or at least, they may be opposed to getting married themselves, even if they don’t necessarily oppose legalizing it – because they believe it panders to the heterosexual model. This has been my experience as well. I personally don’t know anyone in my queer social circle who is against gay marriage, but I have heard/read the view that the hetero model isn’t great to begin with (usually due to “women as chattel”), so why would gays want that to begin with. IIRC, kd lang said something along those lines in an interview. She wasn’t anti-gay marriage, but rather was baffled that gays wanted to adopt the hetero system. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2009, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-dopers-any-of-you-against-gay-marriage/497481/8 "2009-05-25T02:43:45Z")
Dunno if it really helps much, but his reasoning was that he was a stout christian, was his whole life, and believes in the biblical definition of marriage. Although I must say, the gays not getting married because its a “hetero” thing is something I have neither heard of, nor really thought of. It’s a very interesting concept. ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2009, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-dopers-any-of-you-against-gay-marriage/497481/9 "2009-05-25T03:42:34Z")
Interest in alternatives to marriage seems to be growing on our campus, especially among the LGBTQA population. The organized group that comes up the most frequently is [Beyond Marriage](http://www.beyondmarriage.org/). ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2009, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-dopers-any-of-you-against-gay-marriage/497481/10 "2009-05-25T03:48:40Z")
As a gay male who can’t get a date 🙂 I could care less about something that will never effect me. But I do feel strongly in favour of it. The basic thing amounts to this “Why not tell Rosa Park to sit in the back of the bus. It gets there the same time as the front.” Gay marriage isn’t about marriage, it’s about equal. It’s saying I as a gay person am not entitled to the same rights as you. I can have “almost the same rights.” Or I can just “sit in the back of the bus” If the back of the bus ain’t good enough for Rosa Parks then a civil union ain’t good enough for me. In reality there are a lot more pressing issues gay people need to address, even amongst ourselves, but gay marriage really is about equality not marriage. And let’s face it even among straight people marriage has become a “joke.” I just saw an ad for a reality show on the CW about giving people a choice “we’ve been together long enough get married or I’ll dump you.” Oh yeah that seems like the way to start a successful marriage 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2009, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-dopers-any-of-you-against-gay-marriage/497481/11 "2009-05-25T04:04:00Z")
None of the gay people I know are against gay marriage; all of them are adamantly for it, and see the legalization of gay marriage as a bellwether for the general advance of gay rights. So I was surprised - shocked, really - to learn that this is apparently a recent phenomenon in the gay community. Check out this passage from a recent profile of Andrew Sullivan (who, if you don’t know him, is an influential political blogger, who is also, coincidentally, gay): [Link](http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/story/andrew-sullivan-thinking-out-loud) > [@](#): > > Of all the debates Sullivan has been embroiled in, his collision with the gay left is the hardest to reconstruct, because the gay-rights debate has been transformed in the two decades since, not least by his own writing. Yet Sullivan wrote the first major article in America calling for gay people to be given the right to marry—and he was savaged by other gays. His talks were picketed by a group called the Lesbian Avengers, who waved signs with Sullivan’s head in the crosshairs of a gun. In gay bars he was denounced as a “collaborator” and physically attacked. He was anathemised by mainstream gay-rights organisations, who refused to engage with him. Why? > > The Village Voice writer Richard Goldstein spoke for this tendency when he claimed that Sullivan was “promoting the bargain of assimilation. But this deal comes with a price. It requires gays to maintain the illusion that we’re just like straights… [But] we were interested in messing with the codes of sexuality.” By advocating marriage, Sullivan was opting into the very system gay people should destroy. He was just “Rush Limbaugh with monster pecs,” a self-hater who “would solve the faggot problem by urging gay men not to act like fags”. > > Today, marriage is the Number One demand of the gay-rights movement. So why was Sullivan demonised for being the first to articulate it? He says now, haltingly: “It was the middle of a plague, we were all dying, and here’s this brash British guy who’s a Catholic and right-winger talking about something unfamiliar, that challenges their assumptions… [But] I was too narcissistic to realise that it wasn’t about me.” I honestly can’t even wrap my mind around this. I mean…I guess there are always extremists with nutty ideas out there, but even “mainstream” gay-rights groups were against Sullivan on this issue?! Can’t understand it. At all. Any gay dopers who are old enough to remember this period who can confirm or deny that mainstream gay groups were against marriage rights? ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2009, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-dopers-any-of-you-against-gay-marriage/497481/12 "2009-05-25T06:01:14Z")
The way I see it, just because we’re demanding the \*\*\*right \*\*\*to marry, doesn’t mean we _ **have to** _. But it’d be nice to have that choice. ---
**Author:** ![Moirai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/96bed5/32.png) [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2009, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-dopers-any-of-you-against-gay-marriage/497481/13 "2009-05-25T14:54:05Z")
> [@Markxxx](#): > > If the back of the bus ain’t good enough for Rosa Parks then a civil union ain’t good enough for me. > > In reality there are a lot more pressing issues gay people need to address, even amongst ourselves, but gay marriage really is about equality not marriage. This. We even said this out here in CA when Proposition 8 passed- blacks appear to have voted overwhelmingly FOR Prop 8. How could they (as a group) be so eager to keep another group at the back of the bus?!? ☹ It was mostly white people who passed civil rights legislation, it was mostly white people who elected Barack Obama, and it’s going to have to be mostly straight people who pass equal rights legislation for GLBT people. The minority cannot get it done alone. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2009, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-dopers-any-of-you-against-gay-marriage/497481/14 "2009-05-25T14:57:56Z")
There’s a huge difference between not wanting to do something yourself, and wanting to deny the right the do something to someone else. Nobody is demanding that gays (or straights) have to get married. Pro-choice, you know. ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2009, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-dopers-any-of-you-against-gay-marriage/497481/15 "2009-05-25T15:05:12Z")
> [@EJsGirl](#): > > This. We even said this out here in CA when Proposition 8 passed- blacks appear to have voted overwhelmingly FOR Prop 8. How could they (as a group) be so eager to keep another group at the back of the bus?!? ☹ Being oppressed doesn’t necessarily make one more sympathetic, and from what I understand, black culture in the US is pretty homophobic (and anti-semetic) on the whole. ---
**Author:** ![Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2009, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-dopers-any-of-you-against-gay-marriage/497481/16 "2009-05-25T17:18:43Z")
> [@Rodgers01](#): > > I honestly can’t even wrap my mind around this. I mean…I guess there are always extremists with nutty ideas out there, but even “mainstream” gay-rights groups were against Sullivan on this issue?! Can’t understand it. At all. Any gay dopers who are old enough to remember this period who can confirm or deny that mainstream gay groups were against marriage rights? (Not gay, sister is, I asked her.) My sister recommended looking up [The Trouble with Normal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trouble_With_Normal_(book)) which was written larely in response to Sullivan’s book and is pretty much the basis of early anti-SSM sentiments in the GLBT community. > [@Wiki](#): > > The second chapter, titled “What’s Wrong with Normal?”, argues that as well as being a limited goal, less urgent than the elimination of violence and discrimination against queer people, same-sex marriage actively causes negative consequences both for queer and straight people, because in validating a single, prescribed type of relationship it devalues and makes more difficult other kinds of interpersonal relationship. Warner argues that the campaign for gay marriage threatens to turn the gay rights movement, previously a powerful force against the stigmatization of sex, into a tool for the normalization of queer life. In my sister’s opinion, the theory is valid in the sense of challenging “normalcy” (at least from a theoretical point of view), but it is short-sighted as far as addressing the issue that marriage laws are discriminatory. ---
**Author:** ![alexandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e68b1a/32.png) [@alexandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alexandra)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2009, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-dopers-any-of-you-against-gay-marriage/497481/17 "2009-05-25T17:58:02Z")
> [@EJsGirl](#): > > This. We even said this out here in CA when Proposition 8 passed- blacks appear to have voted overwhelmingly FOR Prop 8. How could they (as a group) be so eager to keep another group at the back of the bus?!? :(. I thought it was only a 10% increase on the white vote (which was around 50%?). Significant but there are still a large minority of black people who voted no and a load of white people who Californian gays have to worry about. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2009, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-dopers-any-of-you-against-gay-marriage/497481/18 "2009-05-25T18:14:14Z")
10% is HUGE when you’re talking about the voting population of California. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2009, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-dopers-any-of-you-against-gay-marriage/497481/19 "2009-05-25T18:32:12Z")
> [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](#): > > In my sister’s opinion, the theory is valid in the sense of challenging “normalcy” (at least from a theoretical point of view), but it is short-sighted as far as addressing the issue that marriage laws are discriminatory. I’m just wondering what’s wrong with “the normalization of queer life”? That should be the goal of the gay rights movement, it seems to me. I’m all for the stigmitization of sex, I just don’t think gay sex should be stigmitized anymore than straight sex. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Electric\_Warrior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@Electric\_Warrior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Electric_Warrior)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2009, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-dopers-any-of-you-against-gay-marriage/497481/20 "2009-05-25T18:55:56Z")
I don’t get it either, **Captain Amazing** , but I think at least in my case it may be a generational difference. The original gay rights movement may have felt so marginalized that the idea of trying to make their culture more like straight culture was insulting. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-dopers-any-of-you-against-gay-marriage/497481.md?page=2)