To add to Scylla’s question, so WHAT if homosexuality is accepted as “normal”? If it is inborn (which science is weighted towards and even Quint Essence grants as a possibility), it’s not contagious. So how would its “normalcy” affect the vast majority of people, who are heterosexual?
Good response. We need to take it further though because there is an actual counterargument to this. Again, this is not actually my viewpoint, but something I had to think through.
The argument can be made that while what you say is possible and can happen in marriage as it exists now, there is a control in heterosexual marriage that dampens or discourages this effect that would not be present in a gay marriage. In a heterosexual marriage their is a tendency for a woman to get pregnant. The time off from pregnancy and caring for an infant means that in a heterosexual marriage the man will have the tendency to have an unbroken commitment to business while a woman will not, and therefore the man will likely always tend to be the business owner, and this effect that you describe, while possible, will never be large enough to be a problem.
Again, I’ll leave why this is invalid as an exercise.
Keep telling yourself that. When I got married I thought that meant I was going to be able to have sex all the time.
Unfortunately, it always seems to come down to some variation on the idea that homosexuality is so inherently attractive, and heterosexuality so horribly unattractive, that if homosexuality becomes “normal” then nobody will be heterosexual ever again and no children will ever be born again and society will go down the toilet as the species goes extinct.
It’s like these people suspect that the vast majority of humanity is champing at the bit to experience gay sex and only being held back by the incredibly thin strand of disapproval of homosexuality.
So is being left handed. Are you going to try to ban left-handed scissors on the grounds that you do no want to validate people’s handedness choice?
How are you defining “normal”? If you mean “usual”, then you are correct. If you mean to imply that it is a mental illness, then the psychiatric community disagrees with you.
And either way, what difference does it make? Homosexuality may not be the norm, but neither does it negatively affect the ability of people who are gay to function as normal human beings. No more than being left handed negatively affects one’s ability to function. So why should it not be validated? Because it’s not as common as being straight? That’s the only definition of “not normal” that fits, and it’s not reason enough for discrimination.
The word “vote” was once loaded with the meaning of “white male property owner”. Should we have used a different word to describe what a woman or minority did when casting their ballot?
If women had been offered the ability to cast ballots in elections, but to have it called something other than “voting”, would you say that they were seeking validation if they protested?
This is a matter of equality, not of seeking validation.
Actually, it has happened. The decision reached by the Massachusetts supreme court means that gays can get married and call it marriage. It’s just a matter of reaching the deadline for changing the Massachusetts marriage laws, and we’ll be seeing actual, bona fide gay marriages.
Whether this will help to “normalize” homosexuality remains to be seen. I predict that, in another hundred years or so, being gay will be about on the same level that being a minority is right now. Some bigots still make trouble, but it’s not considered an abnormality.
Easily solved these days.
-
It doesn’t actually touch on the argument being presented, in that two single business partners of opposite genders who get hitched for whatever reason probably aren’t gonna get pregnant. Further, if they divorce their spouses to do this, it is no longer such a shameful thing (especially in this case, since it’s a sham).
-
With reliable birth control, whether or not a woman gets pregnant can become almost entirely her own decision. Because of this, we’re seeing a major postponement in the birth of children to women who are on a professional career track. Too, the birth of a child is no longer viewed as reason enough to stay unemployed. Plenty of mothers are seeking that big promotion or are working from home as well as raising a child.
-
There is a great deal of evidence that men and women have been marrying for citizenship and immigration purposes in somewhat significant numbers. Does this not also count as a major strike against the institution of straight marriage as it stands today?
I’m 19. Don’t shatter a young man’s dreams.
Priam:
You nailed it. The only thing you missed is something I found particularly compelling. Once we look at it the way I’ve described it becomes inescapable that the liberation of women, their independance, their ability to postpone childbirth, their ability to get day care is a much greater threat to the institution of tradittional marriage than gay marriage ever could be. Also we’ve only looked at it from the perspective of men getting married. A lesbian marriage also has interesting connotations in this area. If you think it through it is logical that a lesbian marriage actually serves to strengthen the bonds of tradittional marriage in this regard.
If we are to conclude that we must disallow gay marriage to protect straight marriage, than how can we ignore the much greater threat of women’s liberation to the tradittional family? In order to secure the benefits to society of tradittional marriage we are forced into a couple of conclusions.
If you are against gay marriage and wish to support tradittional marriage you must also logically be against women’s rights and independance and their control over their reproductive processes, as this poses a much larger threat.
Or, you can support gay marriage under the grounds that male same sex marriages will have no effect on tradittional marriage but female same sex marriages will introduce forces which support heterosexual marriage, and compensate for the negative effect on marriage that women’s equality has brought about.
It’s really interesting if you think about it. A lot of the problems being associated with gay marriage are actually a result of changes in child rearing brought about by the freedoms women enjoy from things like reproductive control and child care.
It makes we wonder if the objections to gay marriage really aren’t misdirected arguments against the roles women are creating for themselves that dare not be actually voiced or even recognized.
It seems likely to me that objections to gay marriage are rooted in male chauvinism.
Excellent point, Leaper.
The problem is that some people are incorrectly convinced that it is contageous. They think you can “catch it”, as if it were a disease or something. They don’t want their kids around gay people, thinking that we are all hell-bent on converting anyone in our wake.
And I think that this is one of the concerns over gay marriage. What if people start thinking this is acceptable? Then there will not only be more married gay people, but more gay people in general. They will all want to jump on the bandwagon. Everyone will want to be gay because it is the new thing.
Well, it doesn’t work that way. You either are gay or you are not. You don’t have much say in the matter. You can choose to not act upon your sexual feelings if you choose, but if you are gay, you are gay. If gay marriage is to become legalized, and I think it will, you may indeed notice more gay people in society. It’s not that they are freshly converted though. They were always gay. It just might help a lot more gay people get over their fear of being honest about themselves and finally coming to terms with their sexuality. They might be willing to poke their head out a little more in a society that shows that they are evolving towards a more approving stance towards gay people. And if the introduction of gay marraige into our society helps more people become less afraid of coming out, it is a good thing. People need to understand that being a closeted gay person is a horribly tragic way to have to live life. It hurts people. It hurt me. To live a lie is no way to live.
I have a right to enjoy all of the legal benefits of society that straight folks enjoy. I’m sorry that some religions teach intolerance but that should be no matter. We are supposed to be safe from religions persecution in this country. I have a partner that I intend to spend the rest of my life with. We love each other and are committed to each other. We have the right to have the same life that you do, regardless of something as insignificant as gender. We mean you no harm and we have no intention of doing anything any more sinister than living our life together as a couple. Why on earth would someone think this harms society?
I sure wouldn’t want people to think that having ones legs removed and having to depend on a whellchair is a healthy normal alternative “choice”.
Homsexuality is a mental illness. It is not normal nor should it be treated as if it were. Disagree all you want but I am hardly alone in this feeling and as I said befoer it is no differnt than any of the other mental illnesses that surround sexuality like pedophilia, bestiality, BDSM and others. I am not going to pretend these are “normal” behaviors, and neither are the voters in this country.
Scylla, there are quite a few people who hold that homophobia, in and of itself, is rooted in male chauvinism. The theory goes that all acts of male homosexuality involve at least one man who allows other men to treat him physically like a woman. This is unthinkable to those who hold that men are superior to women, and therefore is the basis for the entire concept of homophobia.
Ah, an unreconstructed homophobic bigot. Haven’t seen one of those in a while, not out of camouflage at least.
Aren’t you a little far from your home in Topeka?
The only same-sex “marriage” (in quotes, b/c they’re not actually married, of course) that bothers me is the one in my family… and only b/c they are crazy. But that’s just a personal thing. Hetrosexual marriages can bug me just as much…
It pisses me off to no end that the national government thinks they have any right to judge and interfere with personal relationships.
An interesting side note… in Missouri homosexuality is illegal, but beastiality is not. Glad I don’t live there.
Ahh. Now we’re getting to the meat of it. Up until the late 1960s or early 70s your point was valid. The best guesses that he had from scientific minds concluded that homosexuality was a mental illness. This was not built from a sense of prejudice or dislike, it was simply the best scientific theory for our level of understanding.
But you are under a misapprehension if you believe that this is current state of scientific thought. You are under a sever missaprehension if you believe that the disease hypothesis is defensible at all scientifically.
The conclusions has changed. It hasn’t changed because of wishy-washy politically correct scientists wishing to pursue a social agenda. It has changed because of rigorous science and the advancement of knowledge.
Scientifically, gay as a disease is about as false as the earth being flat.
Homosexuality has existed in a roughly equivalent proportion to what we have today for as long as we can study. It exists in a variety of other animals and appears to do so for several useful purposes from an evolutionary standpoint.
A degree of homosexuality in a population is not a disease, it is an adaptation that increases the effectiveness of a given population.
The homosexuality as a disease hypothesis has been discarded because it has been proven false.
Quint Essence, in 30 years people like Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Ohio governor Bob Taft, who are avidly against their states recognizing gay marriage, will be the moral equivalent of Bull Connor, Orval Faubus, and George Wallace. Right now, you, Quint Essence, and your fellow homophobes who are fighting so hard to keep a significant segment of the population from achieving equality under the law, are the moral equivalents of that mob of white citizens who surrounded Little Rock Central High School, who actually thought themselves justified in attempting to storm the school and drag out those nine black students that day, and hang them from the streetlights as object lessons in “gettin’ uppity”.
There will come a day when everyone on your side of this battle is going to be considered as disgusting and horrible as we consider those people today. And I hope that both of us live to see it, so that those of us on this side, fighting for our lives and our loves, will be able to see the desperate look in your eyes as you realize that you have about as much relevance to “normal” society as a food taster.
Hah! That’s what you think – he’s really got a hot date with Adam! 
In all seriousness, marriage is a really important thing to me and my wife. But we see absolutely no reason why the feelings that two men or two women have for each other differ in any major way from the ones that we share for each other.
We married because we loved each other – and because we live in a time and place in history where it’s possible for two people to marry for love. So we see no reason why two other adult people who love each other should not have the same privilege as we did.
With regard to “changing the definition,” we live in North Carolina. About 27 years ago the definition here changed – it used to have this clause about “of the same race” in it. That’s after we married (we’re of the same race, and lived in New York when we married, so it didn’t affect us personally). One of Heinlein’s novels has a scene set in the early 1900s between a married couple where they’re discussing the new law permitting married women to own property. “Changing the rules” is not something that legalizing gay marriages will be the first occurrence of – I’d venture to guess that there hasn’t been a generation in history when the definition didn’t change at least a bit.
I think there is some merit in this, and I’m sure there are men who’s homphobia is rooted in this. I don’t think it’s an absolute though.
In all honesty, I used to be this way when I was an adolescent. I was very conscious of my manhood, and the idea of men treating other men in any way that might be interpreted as feminine was repugnant.
It seemed to me that if I did not denounce it, than it was a signal that I would not object either. Thus being effeminate in this regard would suggest that I would not be capable of being manly with women.
Then I got a little older, a little wiser, and more importantly I got a girlfriend. This last showed me that women were not particularly interested in the rigid roles young boys set for themselves in what they imagine is manhood. More importantly, I learned the delights of being on the recieving end of an enthusiastic and aggressive woman, and realized that my preconcieved roles were limiting my experience.
The logical conclusion dawned on me that a man who was not threatened by other men’s sexuality and who was not hung up on it would be attractive to women as an indication that I would not be threatened by their sexuality.
Therefore it is logical to conclude that homophobia in a heterosexual man is an indicator of an inability to relate well to women.
While I disagree with the idea that homophobia indicates latent homosexuality (though I concede the ironic insult value of the sentiment,) I think it’s clear that it represents a limited ability to relate well sexually to woman.
Can I have a cite for that? I’m not trying to be mean; I’d just love to use this fact in an argument and have a source to back it up.
Not according to everybody.
– stonewall.org.uk So, if you want to argue with the experts, contact one of those groups and see if you can get them to reinstate your opinion as the default position. I won’t be looking for it in the next DSM.
What makes you think ALL of those things are “mental illness” anyway? Pedophilia, okay, I think that fits. Bestiality, too. BDSM? I don’t think so, but I could be wrong. What others? And what does it matter? It’s highly unlikely that anybody will ever support a law allowing marriage of an adult to a minor below the age of consent, and below the age of parental permission, or marriage of a human and an animal, from which consent is unlikely to come. BDSM is a fetish, which may or may not be classified as a mental illness, but isn’t by itself a barrier to marriage. (It isn’t uniquely homosexual by any means, I hope you realize).
Here’s where I come from in this debate. I know a couple, 2 men who have been together for over a decade, in a monogamous relationship. They’re both fully functional members of society, as well as good guys. Why should their relationship be considered to have less value than any other? How would their being officially “married” weaken the bonds between men and women? Would every married man in America suddenly think “damn, if I’d waited I could have married another man instead of this woman I had to marry?” That’s really the only way gay marriage would make straight marriage less valid and that ain’t gonna happen.
You Quint keep citing history (inaccurately) to suggest that marriage must be heterosexual in nature, basically because “that’s the way it’s always been.” Well, that’s not good enough. If it were, we’d still live in a theocracy and slavery would be the norm. Once upon a time those were “the way it’s always been.”
Fuck the status quo.
Same sex marriage doesn’t bother me… In fact, my husband and I were married last Saturday in a church in Toronto, Canada…
Whether some bigot agrees or not, we are married… In the same church where my mother and father got married… in a mainstream religion… with mostly straight people in attendance…
It was fabulous! (Of course…)
Survivor
Congratulations Survivor and best wishes for the future. Just remember, if you come to the states your marriage ceases to exist at the border. I’m not sure how that happens, if one of you does a wicked witch dissolve or a border guard requires you to travel with a couple of women in the car, but either way, be careful. We’re not as civilized here yet. (Not all of us anyway) 
And what about people who are born with no legs? Or people who have to have them amputated? Or people who lose them in accidents? Are you going to prevent their use of wheelchairs, too, in order to refrain from “validating” their “abnormality”?
Actually, it isn’t. It was once considered to be a mental illness, but that conclusion has since been reassessed.
Please define what you mean by “normal”. Homosexuality is as normal as being left-handed: Most people aren’t, but a significant minority are, and it doesn’t affect their ability to be productive members of society. So please, qualify what you mean by “normal”. How do you decide if a behavior is “normal” or not?
I’ll grant you pedophilia and bestiality, but BDSM? C’mon! Next you’ll be saying that people who role-play during sex are mentally ill. Where will it end? Calling everything but the missionary position abnormal?
You don’t have to pretend that they are normal behaviors, because they are normal . . . to the same relative degree that being left-handed or born without legs is normal. It’s not as common as the alternative, but that doesn’t make it somehow wrong.
I would guess that your basis for dismissing homosexuality as abnormal is based on the “ick” factor and/or religious attitudes. These seem to be the most common motivations of those opposed to homosexuality, and neither provides a solid basis for denying homosexuals the same rights as heterosexuals.