# Same-sex marriage a threat to humanity? I KNEW IT! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 11, 2012, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/same-sex-marriage-a-threat-to-humanity-i-knew-it/609213 "2012-01-11T21:55:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2012, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/same-sex-marriage-a-threat-to-humanity-i-knew-it/609213/21 "2012-01-14T22:01:10Z")
> [@SnakesCatLady](#): > > Does anyone know a person who “decided” to be gay? I have gay friends who tried to be straight and married opposite sex partners (it didn’t work in any of the cases I personally know). I have gay friends who simply didn’t have any kind of relationship, especially in college. I don’t know a single hetero person who woke up one morning and decided they were now homosexual. I just don’t think it works that way. > > I’m not talking about people who always had homosexual inclinations and hid them, I’m tallking about people who had previously been happily heterosexual. No, it doesn’t work that way. I do think straight people can be turned on somewhat by, say, viewing same-sex porn, or develop same-sex crushes. (They might not admit it, perhaps even to themselves.) I don’t think that’s so unusual or a problem. You can enjoy eating eggs, but that doesn’t mean one day you’ll up and go live in a chicken coop. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2012, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/same-sex-marriage-a-threat-to-humanity-i-knew-it/609213/22 "2012-01-15T04:22:56Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > There was an astounding article on [beliefnet.com](http://beliefnet.com) last year where one David Klinghoffer seriously extrapolated that gay marriage would hurt women for basically this reason. He said there would be a real shortage of men who would want to get married to women because once the gays started getting married, young men would look around at the mind-boggling bounty of choices (relationship choices, that is) and say, why should we get married to women any more - when ANYTHING goes now? Somehow this would be those evil gays fault. I still don’t get it, myself. > And there was also a lot of irrelevant nonsense about ancient Rome. The comments section was some of the most entertaining reading I’ve ever had. Yeah, because all of us women are just DYING to be some dude’s beard! ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2012, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/same-sex-marriage-a-threat-to-humanity-i-knew-it/609213/23 "2012-01-15T04:41:17Z")
> [@campp](#): > > He’s got a lot of nerve, being the head of a worldwide child-molesting organization. If the priests had tried to _marry_ those boys, he would have been all over them like… a priest on a boy. ---
**Author:** ![Polerius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d78d45/32.png) [@Polerius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polerius)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2012, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/same-sex-marriage-a-threat-to-humanity-i-knew-it/609213/24 "2012-01-15T06:55:23Z")
> [@SnakesCatLady](#): > > Does anyone know a person who “decided” to be gay? This is a bit of a strawman. Doesn’t the [Kinsey scale](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_scale) show that people are on a continuum from 100% hetero to 100% gay? One way to phrase the argument that the homophobes are making, is that if people really are on a continuum of sexuality, then if gay couples and gay marriage become totally acceptable in society, a large number of people that are not 100% gay would feel free to have gay sex and/or marry a same-sex partner. To put it another way, in a society where there is a stigma to being gay, only people who are 99-100% gay have the desire to come out as gay and or have a same-sex marriage and suffer the repercussions. In a society where there is no stigma to being gay, perhaps people who are 60-100% gay will be willing to get involved in same-sex relationships or in same-sex marriages. If that happens, there will be fewer hetero marriages, and so one can see why the homophobes consider this a threat to hetero marriage. Of course, one may think that, even if the number of hetero marriages declines after gay marriage becomes legal, that’s totally OK. But whether the decline in hetero marriages is OK or not, the decline itself seems like a not totally unreasonable thing to expect. One data point that supports the above (Kinsey scale, and willingness of less-than-100% gay people to have gay sex) is the fact that, since in the past several years in the US it is considered OK (and even hot) for hetero women to have sex with other women, the number who do so, and feel comfortable admitting it to others has risen sharply. Compare that to the number of hetero men who have sex with other men and feel comfortable admitting it to others. The latter is much less, since there is a huge stigma for hetero men to have sex with other men. Some questions [ul] [li]Is the Kinsey scale still accepted today?[/li][li]What is the distribution of people on that scale? That is, are most people at the two ends of the spectrum, or are most people somewhere in the middle?[/li][li]Given the continuum of sexuality, do you agree that removing stigma on gays and gay marriage will increase the number of people who engage in it? Is there a flaw in the argument?[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2012, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/same-sex-marriage-a-threat-to-humanity-i-knew-it/609213/25 "2012-01-15T07:58:36Z")
The only marriages at threat are ones for cover, unless you think there are bisexuals for whom the legal ability to marry is the deciding factor in their choice of long term partner. ---
**Author:** ![Polerius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d78d45/32.png) [@Polerius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polerius)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2012, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/same-sex-marriage-a-threat-to-humanity-i-knew-it/609213/26 "2012-01-15T08:02:37Z")
> [@grude](#): > > unless you think there are bisexuals for whom the legal ability to marry is the deciding factor in their choice of long term partner. That isn’t too unreasonable a thing to expect from (at least some) bisexuals, is it? ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2012, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/same-sex-marriage-a-threat-to-humanity-i-knew-it/609213/27 "2012-01-15T08:30:14Z")
> [@Polerius](#): > > That isn’t too unreasonable a thing to expect from (at least some) bisexuals, is it? I guess there could be a few, but most people don’t pick their mate based on whats legal. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/same-sex-marriage-a-threat-to-humanity-i-knew-it/609213.md?page=1)