People aren’t born poly-amorous though, but people are born gay. Nobody needs to be with 3 wives, but if your hetero you need to be with the opposite sex. Same for gay people. The problem is that we live in a very anti-gay society and as a result gays suffer alot of emotional distress. Polygymists are not born polygymists and do not suffer the same constant ridicule and shame attached to gays. Gay marriage is in large part an attempt to make gays feel welcome in their own society. I support gay marriage in large part because gays suffer rates of suicide, depression and substance abuse much higher (I think roughly 5x, some stats vary) that heterosexuals. Alan Keys abandoned his daughter because she is gay. I think state sanctioned gay marriage will help make behavior like his which drives gays to depression and sucide less common. Polygymists, on the other hand, do not suffer from dramatically higher rates of suicide, depression or drug abuse than monogamists. And nobody feels compelled to be a polygymist from what I can tell the way they feel compelled to be gay.
However even that from a social libertarian view is ok, if that is what consenting adults are comfortable with.
Wesley is on to something here. The most important conservative publication in the US is The National Review, founded by William F. Buckley, Jr. fifty years ago. The magazine’s mission, stated in its first issue, is to “Stand athwart history, shouting ‘Stop!’”. It is a fundamental tenet of conservatism to resist change.
Thanks to those who commented on my post above. My change in thinking was prompted by the vote in Ohio in 2004 concerning same-sex marriage. By raising the issue and putting it on the ballot, my fellow Republicans succeeded in beginning the process of changing my mind about the issue, surely an unintended consequence. I hope others went, or may still go, through the same thought process.
I have heard people speaking of liquids or ideas etc. marrying;does that mean they shouldn’t use it because it would make the marrying of people to be of lesser value?
I think many people who consider themselves “Christian” are opposed to SSM because, in their view, that would appear to “approve” of homosexual relationships. There are many people who still believe that gay people can change if they want to. Of course, some of them still believe if you let your son play with dolls he will “catch teh gay”. Ignorance, especially in people who don’t want to learn, is a difficult thing to fight.
As someone posted above (sorry, can’t remember the name and am having feline issues with using the mouse to scroll at the moment) at this point I would be happy if civil unions would be legalized for now. At least let gay couples have the same legal protections as hetero couples. I certainly know gay couples who have been together longer than I’ve been married! Then let the churches fight it out internally to decide if they will “sanctify” such unions.
I’ve always felt that this is an issue the government has no business in, anyway. What I do with another consenting adult in the privacy of my bedroom is not the government’s business, IMO. (Of course I live in Georgia, where the government considers it their business. Scary. Can’t teach the kids to read, but we can by-god worry about the sex lives of adults!)
You know, most posters so far have pointed out that this theory is bunk but I think I’m going to go a different direction with this.
Let’s assume you are one-hundred percent correct and that perhaps half of all homosexuals are really “females in male bodies” and visa versa.
Wouldn’t then it be perfectly valid to allow these people to marry legally? Afterall, since one of the couples is “really female” then it would be a marriage between a man and a women who just happens to have some genetic misfortune.
After that, once you’ve established that some ‘same-plumbing but different sex’ marriages are okay then it’s just a matter of quibbling over which ones.
Looking back on it I think ** kanicbird** has shown us the way. Baby steps. First we legalize SSM as long as one member is butch and the other femme since that doesn’t see to bother the fundementalists so much. We’ll move on from there.
If you truely ascribe to this theory you’ve just set us back 50 years.
In your utopia the wife stays home with the kids, bakes cookies, and reads Good Housekeeping while the husband goes to work, takes care of the lawn, and reads Popular Mechanics.
This mindset is outdated but there are still those who think someday we will get back to the “good ol’ days” if we just try hard enough. They live in a fantasy world where the Cleavers are role models for all humanity.
Our local paper ran a story with photos of several long term lesbian couples raising families. One of my jerk co-workers asked me which one I thought was the “man” in each relationship.
I’m rather confused by this. You see, we already have hetersexual civil unions if you’re talking about a marriage or marriage-equivalent which is recognized by the state but which have no religious connotations whatsoever. They’re marriages performed in courthouses. My best friend was married in one, and there was, as I recall, no mention of God or reference to religion during the ceremony. Her husband is Catholic, but the Catholic church doesn’t recognize their marriage, nor has it ever been blessed by a priest or anyone else acting for God as far as I know. Nevertheless, the government of the United States does recognize them as a married couple, and they’re entitled to all the rights and benefits which come with that.
Friends of mine were married in a pagan ceremony at a hotel last Saturday and other friends will be doing so at the same get together next year. I don’t require that any Christian Church acknowledge their wedding; on the other hand, their marriage is also as valid as any that starts off with a Full Gospel or Full Catholic style wedding.
As for religion and marriage, it may be a cliche, but it’s also a fact that the divorce rate is highest in the Bible Belt and that non-denominational Christians are likely to have a higher divorce rate than Catholic or mainline Protestant. I can provide a cite for that this evening.
Kanicbird, is there a chance you could explain further what you meant by “hetro civil unions”?
I heard someone on the radio yesterday saying that not only did he favour gay marriages, if he had his way they would be compulsory for gays to even things up. He asked why should gays be exempt from the huge amounts of money wasted on weddings, why should they be able to avoid the arguments about every petty element of the ceremony?
Siege, I think what kanicbird was saying is that, if divorce were outlawed, so that married couples had to stay together until one of them croaked, people would create heterosexual civil unions, with all (or most) of the rights of marriage, but which could still be disolved.
Or, for that matter, a heterosexual marriage like mine, in which we don’t have much use for traditional gender roles? Is our marriage somehow invalid because I drive and Mr. Neville doesn’t, or because I take out the trash, or because Mr. Neville sometimes cooks, or because I make more money than he does?
That, or the murder rate would go way up. Yes, I read too many murder mysteries…
Or people would find some sort of loophole by which they could get an “annullment”, a la medieval Catholic royals who couldn’t get divorces but wanted to (or some divorced Catholics today who want to remarry).
Frankly, I don’t think covenant marriages or their equivalent will much to reduce the divorce rate. I think very few people enter into marriage with the idea that it will end, and even fewer admit it. I’ve read the stories on Etiquette Hell and on this message board. I can easily see people going through with a covenant marriage because it’s what’s expected of them and doing anything else would be tantamount to saying they expect to get a divorce. I’ve also seen an ex-boss of mine go to a rather ridiculous amount of trouble to get his first marriage annulled so his second wife could have a full Catholic wedding in church. On the other hand, I also suspect this is a hijack.
Can someone explain to me the difference between a civil union and a marriage? Assuming civil unions have the same legal rights and benefits as marriage, then wouldn’t they be the same thing? Is it all just semantics?
FTR - I’m in favor of Same Sex Marriage. It would benefit a small segment of society while having absolutely no effect on the larger segment of society.
I don’t see a difference. That’s why I’ve long advocated dropping the fight to co-own the word marriage and aim for civil unions. Once that’s in place, people will start using the word “marriage” when speaking of unions.
Or maybe they call us “united”. That almost sounds better than married.
