In this thread, Sampiro said:
Why on earth would gays be against gay marriage? I could see not personally wanting to get married. But why would some gay people not want to give other gay people the choice of getting married or not?
Sampiro’s assertion is news to me.
I don’t know a fellow gay man who doesn’t believe in equal marriage recognition.
Well, except for him now.
And I have no proof he’s a gay man.
He could be a sentient can of Spam™. He could be a PEZ™ dispenser trying to disseminate a counter ideology.
It’s certainly a minority view, but yeah, there are some gay people, mostly on the radical fringes of queer culture, who don’t support gay marriage. For example, you have this guy, who’s opposed to the term…
http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/this_just_in/documents/04687126.asp
Or this guy:
http://sandiego.indymedia.org/es/2005/02/107636.shtml
It’s definately fringe, but the opinion exists.
It’s not at all unusual for authoritarians to wish to impose their own plans on others.
sigh
sampiro didn’t say that he was against gay marriage. He said that many gays are, and that he didn’t think that being against gay marriage made one a bad person (perhaps a bit of an ideologue, but not a bad person).
As usual, however, you jump right from the shore to the Isle of Conclusion and almost off-handedly try to poison the well against a poster who’s been on the boards for several years, the entire time as an out gay man. I’m usually the one who steps in when the bitchsmacking fests between my fellow fags gets to be a little much for the issue at hand (cf. the battles between Otto and gobear) but your strident offensensivity to every possible perceived slight of any tiny piece of the structure of your personal worldview is getting on my nerves.
The casting of doubt on sampiro’s orientational credentials because he was advocating a widening of viewpoint was uncalled-for, unsupported by fact, and generally below-the-belt.
NO, I didn’t.
I just said that his was the first I had directly heard of a gay person saying that.
Stop putting words in my mouth.
And get a sense of humor. The orientation thing was a JOKE.
You are acting towards me as you accuse me of behaving towards Sampiro.
And out of a bias from the long past.
Get over it.
“Him” who?
Heh…“bias from the long past”. Right.
[QUOTE=jayjaysampiro didn’t say that he was against gay marriage.[/QUOTE]
No one said he did… you misread that post.
Yes, Mockingbird said he did.
At least one person here can read.
I don’t see how I’m misreading. Troy, Mockingbird, can either of you explain who “him” is in the following quote?
:rolleyes:
It is only through him that there is any inking that there are many gays against gay marriage.
What his personal views are were not and are not apparent to me.
What is apparent is your oversensitivity and speed at ascribing hateful motives to me.
I think his assertion about many gays being against same sex unions is bullshit and I think a cite is called for.
I know your assertion about me is bullshit and I won’t hold my breath waiting for an apology.
Secondhand info, I know, but a coworker of mine is gay and thinks the current push for full gay marriage is politically misguided, whereas civil unions could be made more available if gay activists were pushing for them instead.
He lives, like I do, in Virginia, and the backlash against gay marriage here has endangered civil unions as well.
Nearly all gay people I know favor gay marriage. He doesn’t, though, at this time.
I’m not gay, so I don’t know why, but maybe it has something to do with not wanting to rock the boat too much? You know, maybe gays who are against marriage aren’t against them now and forever, just for the immediate future. Maybe they just think the fight for gay marriage should take a back step in favor of the fight of other civil rights, like protection against discrimination or adoption rights. Maybe others are satisfied with their lot and don’t want to ruffle the “straights’” feathers any more than they have to. I don’t agree with them, but maybe that’s how they feel.
There were slaves who were against the abolishment of slavery, I’m sure. Maybe these people felt that benefits of their enslavement outweighed the disadvantages of free life. There were black people who were against integration, too. Some felt that integration would dissolve the unity of the community and distract from the “real” problems facing it (I’m thinking of Malcolm X, before his transformation). Others thought integration right away was an unrealistic goal–that it would be better to strive for economic and social respectability first (I’m thinking of Booker T. Washington). It’s easy for us to judge both Malcolm X and Booker T. Washington as being wrong-headed, but they had compelling reasons (compelling as in they were both persuasive to large numbers of people).
That’s probably for the best, because jayjay has no reason to apologize. It’s very easy to read:
as saying “Sampiro doesn’t believe in equal marriage recognition.” If that wasn’t the intent, that’s clear now, and getting all pissy about it is just pointless bickering and hijacking.
To answer the OP: yes, there are plenty of gay people who don’t support gay marriage. Whether it’s “many” or not, I don’t know, but I’d say it’s not uncommon. The justifications I’ve heard are that it’s not as much an opposition to equal representation for gays, but to the institution of marriage itself. Explanations include:
[ul]
[li]“Gay people are different, and we should be proud of our differences instead of trying to model our lives on those of straights.”[/li][li]“Marriage is an archaic and misogynistic institution.”[/li][li]“Marriage is a religious institution and religion doesn’t accept me, so I don’t accept its trappings.”[/li][li]“Monogamy is an outdated idea.”[/li][/ul]
and others.
And to prevent my inadvertent inclusion in the bitch-fighting of the SDMB gay boy’s club, I suppose it’s necessary to clarify that those are not my opinions at all; they are only opinions I’ve heard from gay men who oppose gay marriage.
I also read Mockingbird’s post that way. I had to go read the original thread to see that Sampiro wasn’t arguing against gay marriage.
OK. Do you folks want to discuss the issue in the OP?
Or would you rather all prefer to snap and snarl at each other, in which case I can move this to the Pit for you.
Everyone go back and read what the OP intended to discuss, keeping in mind any subsequent clarification on the part of him or anyone else, and take up the point of the thread as if the bickering had not been posted.
Or meet in the Pit.
[ /Moderator Mode ]
There are also some libertarians, some of whom are gay, who believe that the government should be out of the marriage business altogether, regardless of the genders involved.
(Guess I have to add that this is not the position of **this **gay libertarian.)
There are many non-libertarians who believe that too. Basically, I am against gay (legal) marriage for the same reason I am against straight (legal) marriage, that being that the government should not be promoting a religious/cultural institution at all, and that such a “title” (when bestowed by the government) actually dehumanizes a relationship. But of course, if straight people have the right to slap “legality” on their relationship, then so should gay people. At least until we get rid of it altogether.
I’ve also heard a few out-there gays who say that gays who want to marry are “acting straight” and that it is weakening the unique and flamboyant gay culture to adopt something so vanilla. Stupid argument, but there it is.