Let me start by saying that I’m a gay man and I’m very pro gay marriage. I also agree with Lazarus Long’s statement from Robert Heinlein:
Currently a politician from a conservative constituency would be an idiot to endorse gay marriage. It is instantly going to alienate anywhere from a large minority to a large majority of possible voters while gaining only the gay vote (even in the most liberal districts a minority) and their liberal allies. There simply is no incentive to make conservative or even mainstream Americans support the initiative.
However, if re-marketed there could be. If for example the same legislation that allowed gays to have full benefits of marriage could be extended to unmarried straight couples (romantic or platonic) who wish to extend to one another benefits but do not, for whatever reason, want to be “married”, then it would gain more momentum.
How would you “market” the gay marriage initiative in such a way as to appeal to more straight people and by extension more legislators?
Actually, there’s something very important in it for “the straight folks.” And Martin Heidegger defined it in words that have been quoted on this board quite often enough already.
As a liberal Christian, I’m finding that my stance on belief and Christian duty is condemned by more conservative Christians – including in another thread on this board. On another board, I’m forbidden to speak what I’ve said here about one’s Christian duty to one’s gay brothers and sisters – it’s not “orthodox Christian doctrine” and hence forbidden by their rules (one reason I’m seldom posting there anymore).
The person who stands by and allows someone else to trample on the rights of others because it doesn’t affect him personally, will soon find his own rights trampled on – and nobody willing to stand by him.
If that isn’t a good enough selfish reason, I don’t know what might be.
Well, we will get invited to the wedding of a great pair of guys…that is the up side
The down side? I will have to give up this great watercolor by Tristan that a friend and I went in on together for the present=( and I will have to find something else to put on my wall…sigh
Very simple (but undoubtedly very unpopular among the social conservatives):
Legalizing same-sex marriage further normalizes American society’s treatment of gays.
Such normalization and increased acceptance of gays will make gays more comfortable about coming out at a younger age (rather than going through the all-too-common cycle of denial and self-hatred many gay people currently suffer for years).
Reducing the social hazards of being openly gay will result in fewer gay people engaging in an extremely common practice: Denying their (socially unpopular) sexual orientation, marrying straight people of the opposite sex, having children, and then, after years of living an unsatisfying charade, divorcing their spouse.
So gay marriage will be one more step toward equal legal and social treatment of gays, which will lead to fewer divorces, and divorces–I think almost everyone can agree–are bad for both the married adults involved and their children.
Oh, so to the OP: that’s what’s in it for society as a whole.
For that conservative politician, concerned about his self-interest, here is the summary:
“Legalizing gay marriage and thereby increasing public accpetance of homosexuality will make it less likely that your daughter will marry a closeted gay man.”
Possible, but doubtful. Gay people can already live together, and often do. They just can’t formally get married. And gay men living together can come out of the closet. Legalizing gay marriage may antagonize those who are anti-gay, and make them less accepted socially.
I am a 45-year-old straight male. I have never married. But I love women. Maybe too much. I ‘love’ about one every two weeks.
That’s why I’m pro-gay rights in general, and pro-gay marriage specifically.
Huh?
Because I know what opponents of both will do if they have their way – they base their beliefs on the most restrictive teachings of a religion (which otherwise espouses a great deal of wisdom) that seems to believe only married people should be allowed by law to f*ck.
In other words, First they came for the gays. I wasn’t gay, so I said nothing…
If you are religious and not against equal rights for gay people, we have no differences.
I totally agree that normalizing gays is a good thing for society and that, in an ideal world, decisions and legislation should be based on a combination of logic and compassion. However, in a land where demagogues must play to the widest possible audience and fundamentalists are taught that heterosexuality is the only acceptable lifestyle intellectual arguments fall on deaf ears. There must be something tangible for mainstream America if there is to be a grassroots support for gay marriage.
I can’t think of any instance in which increased rights for one group had a negative impact on anyone else. Certainly our society, as a whole, has benefitted immensely from the Civil Rights movement, and also greater equality for women. And when gay people are no longer treated as second-class citizens, it can only result in a stronger society.
I really feel sorry for people who don’t understand this.
What’s in it for people like me? A warm fuzzy feeling knowing that another segment of our society has taken another step towards a level playing field.
That’s enough, particularly since I can’t for the life of me see any downside to equal rights for couples, regardless of their choice of a partner.
I’m sure there are some white males out there who truly believe that increasing rights for minorities and women have made them worse off than before. Heck, Rush Limbaugh’s career is built largely on pandering to that audience.
While I’m short on cites right now, there have been many studies suggesting a strong correlation between marriage and successful lives. Married people tend (please, please, I stress TEND; do not shit on me if you’re not married) to be more financially successful, healthy, and happy than unmarried or divorced people.
If that is in fact the case, then it is quite conceivable that gay marriage will help to increase the number of people with stable lives that lead to financial and profesisonal success, health, and happiness. I would presume that if gay people have the same legal marriage options open to them, which will lead to more social acceptance of this, there will be an increase in the number of gay people in successful long term relationships, e.g. marriages. Reactionaries often criticize gays by saying they’re more promiscuous than straights. There is evidence this is true, but it seems absurdly obvious to me that the REASON it might be true is that they don’t have the social and legal support for their relationships that straights do. (Again, this is a statistical trend, not a universal truth.)
That change would benefit EVERYONE. If you are richer (assuming you didn’t steal the money from me) that benefits me. You can buy more products, creating more jobs. You will pay more taxes. That means I live in a richer country and someone else is helping me more with the tax load. If you are healthier and happier you will absord fewer health care resources and you and your family will be less likely to commit crimes or resort to the dole.
Everyone benefits if one person is richer and healthier. Marriage, some evidence would suggest, tends to make people richer and healthier. Therefore everyone can benefit from more marriages. Legalizing gay marriage will cause more marriages to take place.
Okay, I am really stretching it here, but let’s give it a whirl.
Expanded health care coverage: gay people who are only covered on a partner’s coverage will then be able to engage in more preventative health care, reducing their drain on health care and making them more productive. (For those companies which already offer domestic partner coverage, I salute you.)
Economic boost from marriage (and later, probably, from divorce). Face it, weddings are expensive, and more marriages would lead to more spending in the wedding industry, which leads to more productive wedding businesses, more tax revenues, more jobs, etc. The same will also probably be said for the divorce industry after gay marriage become legal.
If we want to talk emotional considerations, there really does need to be more of a movement among mainstream/moderate heterosexuals in support of gay marriage. As it stands, people have more than once assumed I was gay due to the fact that I consider myself more or less moderate politically, but I’m rather liberal in my support of gay marriage. It makes it harder to hook up with heterosexual guys!
(PS: Just to note, I consider myself an ally and supporter of gay marriage, but I would not identify as liberal.)
It’s nowhere near selfish enough - too amorphous, too long term. That argument is, IMHO, appealing to people’s better nature.
I know I’ve read more than once male writers who said they never gave feminism a second thought, until they had a daughter. It was the thought that someone might one day tell their little girl that she couldn’t follow her dreams because she was a woman that finally made them understand the point. And even still - that’s only enough for some, not everyone. And I can’t see a way to give every family in the US a gay child.
Money might work. I have read a cite that legalizing SSM will bring in more in taxes than same sex couples will cost in benefits. Perhaps that’s your argument - lower taxes!
In the gay community there is a hightened level of high-risk behavior. Multiple partners, higher instance of drug use, etc. This leads to a higher incidence of sexually-transmitted diseases, hepatitis, drug addiction, and AIDS, all of which create drains on our society – monetarily, socially, and intellectually.
At least part of this behavior is an outgrowth of society’s rejection of them. Our country doesn’t recognize a committed relationship between two of them, and this in part pushes them away from entering such a relationship. Recognizing gay marraiges, or at least civil unions, will give such relationships higher attractiveness in the gay community. That will, in turn, reduce the amount of high-risk behavior in that community.
And, I believe, awareness of gay couples in the heterosexual community will bring about greater acceptence, which in turn will reduce high-risk behavior even more, perhaps bringing it down in line with the rest of the country.
