Yes, I certainly and freely grant that this thought is probably not at all original, and yes, I realize much of the opposition is religiously-based, but I wanted to muse over something I thought of when reading Otto’s Pit thread about the clerk “not caring” about a front-page story about gay marriage.
It’s always seemed to me that one of the key reasons (other than, as I said, religion) why there seems to be so much opposition to gay marriage is that those opposed don’t think that gay people really love each other. I don’t think they believe that there’s any emotion involved in gay relationships - that it’s all about sex and nothing else. They see the promiscuity and public sexuality as not only significantly more (in quantity) than the heterosexual norm, but as the foundation of all gay relationships.
I think this explains much of what I read from the opposition out there, like the idea that letting gays in “cheapens” marriage. Trouble is, I’m not sure how one can really counter that notion. I mean, there’s always “leading by example,” but how can we ask any couple, or group of couples, to stand in for their entire demographic? That seems like unfair pressure.
Just that it’s possible to be indifferent or even slightly sick of an issue, as Otto’s clerk, and not be a bad person.
As for fighting the opposition, time itself will do that as more kids come of age and for whom gayness inspires a shrug rather than hatred.
The idea that they don’t love each other stems from the religious notion that homosexuality is an abomination in the eyes of God, that by definition homosexual relations are purely carnal and lacking in the grace that a consummated holy religious union can confer. Homosexuals are merely pan sticking his rod into any fleshy bit that will receive it. The seed is held to be sacred, and the spilling of seed into the orifice meant to expel filth from the body shows a profound hatred of all that is holy. A contempt for the love and the life that God has bestowed upon you, the man who you are copulating with as well as the woman you are not.
Separating sex from the procreative process is considered to be a culture of death, a contempt for the sanctity of the family.
So even still, the notion that gay people don’t love each other is deeply rooted in religion.
I’ve seen, on this very board, posts expressing the idea that our relationships are in some ways inferior to male/female relationships . . . that regardless of the longevity or depth of our relationships, we are nothing more than fuck buddies.
The truth is, I cannot conceive of a love deeper and more profound than what my partner and I feel toward each other.
I think the only thing that’s going to kill gay marriage opposition is time and the death of old(er) people who still believe homosexuality is evil, and the new generations take over who (hopefully) have more open, logical minds. Sadly, significant change only seems to happen when generations die out and give life to modern-thinking children.
Not really. I think it stems from 1) Religious teachings, 2) general upbringing, 3) lack of gay friends or relatives or exposure through environments that are more tolerant like universities or cities, and 4) the fear that accepting gay people will empathetically make their own sexuality questionable, or “the thought of myself doing it is icky, therefore it’s wrong for others”
Not really. I think it stems from 1) Religious teachings, 2) general upbringing, 3) lack of gay friends or relatives or exposure through environments that are more tolerant like universities or cities, and 4) the fear that accepting gay people will empathetically make their own sexuality questionable, or “the thought of myself doing it is icky, therefore it’s wrong for others”
As to solutions:
As time marches on and the younger generation replaces the older, attitudes will change naturally.
The more gay people that are out, but seem otherwise ordinary, the less they will seem like a scary mysterious beastie. Not that gay people should feel obligated to assimilate, but pragmatically it will help.
Gay marriages just don’t fit within the heteronormative paradigm that most of us have grown up with. Wow! I’ve always wanted to use heteronormative in a sentence before and being able to place it next to paradigm is just icing on the cake. I am a firm believer in homosexual marriage for a variety of reasons but when I think of marriage I think I will always picture in my mind a heterosexual couple because that’s what I am most accustomed to. That might change for future generations though.
Do you have any evidence for this? If so, I’d be very interested in seeing it. I’m not convinced that this is the root cause, or even one of the key reasons, but your idea des make a certain amount of sense to me.
After all, it’s a not-uncommon stereotype that “men are only interested in one thing” or that “women use sex to get love; men use love to get sex.” From there, it’s not that big of a leap to believe that, if two men are in a relationship with one another, they’re only in it for the sex. (I’m not sure how that would apply to lesbians, though.)
No, no evidence. It just always seemed to me to be something more than just “God told me so” or “icky,” especially when it comes to the specific issue of marriage. And as I said, it just seemed to explain a lot of comments I’ve seen on the other side, even, as you said, the seeming wider acceptance of lesbians (other than, of course, the obvious factors).
I suppose I may’ve been overstating my case, but I still think it’s valid.
I’m not sure I see it. There are plenty of hetero marriages that have nothing to do with love, and I don’t see these people getting up in arms about those.
I think there are a lot of people who simply think that everybody should live exactly how they do and exactly according to their preferences, even if somebody elses behavior has no effect on them.
I’ve long come to a similar conclusion as the OP. Overall anti-gay sentiment doesn’t go far enough to account for such discriminatory interference in people’s private lives that are nobody’s business.
Gay-marriage opponents will say, “I don’t care what they do with each other in private, just don’t go changing the definition of ‘marriage’”. They insist that marriage can only be between a man and a woman while ignoring the broader context of romantic relationships being based love, and sex and commitment. They just won’t go there and instead euphemize gay relationships as “what they do with each other”, because to acknowledge that they share in these universals is to strengthen their legitimacy.
And it’s the legitimacy of gay relationships–and the official stamp thereof that government sanctioning of SSMs would imply–that the religious right abhors, because it would amount to an official stamp of repudiation of their belief system.
Squeaky Wheels on GAYS
I would be interested in seeing how acceptance of gay marriage changes between married hetero couple planning/with kids, and married hetero couples not planning/without kids.
Is there a correlation between people who see marriage and kids are related, vs those who don’t?
As a member of a long-term relationship (15years) without kids, I’ve wanted to ask the “marriage is for families” people if I should even bother getting married, or is it only necessary/desired if you are heterosexual AND plan on reproducing.
Is the state trying to recognize marriage simply as the love between two people, or are they recognizing a biologically viable union of two adults, presumably leading to procreation?
While I do agree that the perception that homosexuals are less capable of love than heterosexuals, I don’t think that’s the underlying cause and simply a symptom of the reasoning. Putting religious reasons aside for a moment, as I understand, the primary purpose of a secular marriage is for procreation. In times past, a man ensuring his progeny was important for matters of inheritance and all that other stuff; thus, the purpose of marriage was for a man to be able to have a certain base level of certainty that a particular child was indeed his. Similarly, the benefit to the woman was that she would have the care of her husband for herself and her children. IOW, lest I misunderstand, even the secular reasoning for marriage goes back to procreation.
Further, marrying for love seems to be a relatively new thing. In the grand scheme of things it hasn’t been that long since the arranged marriage has gone from the norm to frowned upon in Western culture. So, sure, most people are marrying for love these days, but I imagine the idea that marriage is intended for procreation is still a very significant portion of of the social model of marriage includes procreation and, thus, necessarily excludes homosexuals.
However, I do believe this model is changing as fewer people are getting married and more children are being born out of wedlock. Similarly, I suppose with the advent of paternity testing, the original purpose of marriage is basically moot, and we’re left with a relatively new invention (marriage for love) that is stuck with the tradition and social inertia of an old one (marriage for procreation).
I think this is much of why a lot of people, even non-religious ones, see homosexual marriage as “cheapening” it, because they still hold a lot of those older values. What’s the point if you’re not going to have children? Once you reinsert the religious implications, you end up with something that is virtually insurmountable, at least at this time.
What can we do to change this? I honestly believe the simplest way is something that a lot of people look at as cosmetic but really could go a long way to help battle the inertia; come up with a different name. This way you can seperate the social inertia of marriage from the much more modern concept of marriage for love. As someone else mentioned, a lot of people, even religious ones, don’t oppose homosexuality per se, just homosexual marriage. Really, marriage today is different from how it was even a generation or two ago. Let those of us who have the more traditional values not be necessarily equated with those of us who have more modern values.
It’s not that they’re deemed less capable, it’s that folks don’t want to acknowledge it; they don’t want the concept to enter their minds.
No it isn’t, it’s the secondary purpose. We don’t bat an eye when people marry who have no intention of having children. If love and companionship and sex can be lumped together as one thing, then that’s the primary purpose of marriage. It goes without saying that a married couple is in love, but it’s considered rude these days to ask a couple when they’re going to have children–especially if they’re older or have kids from previous marriages.
Wouldn’t want to “redefine” marriage, would we? And don’t forget that males are hard-wired to want multiple partners, yet we’ve redefined marriage away from polygamy in favor of the idea that it’s an equal partnership.
Virtually everyone marries for love; not everyone marries for procreation. However “relatively” recent, love has become an overwhelmingly powerful theme in our culture. The idea that marriage is just about rote reproduction is what cheapens marriage. And of course stopping gays from marrying isn’t going to result in more procreation.
The thing is that when a couple marries, everyone else in the community is required–however tacitly–to acknowledge and accept that status. But some people don’t want to accept that; they want their beliefs about right and wrong reaffirmed, not overthrown. Gat marriage threatens their beliefs, therefore it threatens them.
Gays are just gods creations as much as any one else is. To disparage them is a sin in the eyes of god.
Is gay marriage any less desirable than a hetero marriage if they decide not to have children.?
And “the state” itself cares nothing about love or biology - it’s all about conjoinment of possessions and legal liability and getting a whole different batch of laws to apply to you. The decision over who gets to have this legal label applied to them is subject to the whims of the libertarian/traditionalist/bigot mix that populates it, however.
God made evil people too - that’s not gonna stop him from punishing them, though, I hear.
Minor semantics. Whether they actually perceive it that way, or just want to percieve it that way, it is a perception. I think you’re unjustifiably assigning malice where it does not exist. As I said, which you failed to address, I think the perception that they’re less capable of love is a symptom of the social inertia of the definition of marriage and not the cause. That is, the logic seems, to me, to confuse correlation with equivalence.
Perhaps I was unclear with the particular statement you quoted, but I think my point was pretty clear in the context of that which you removed. I was speaking specifically of the purpose of marriage in a traditional sense. That is, what was the secular reason for marriage in times past? Surely the driving reason wasn’t love precisely because it was in common practice that marriage partners were selected by the parents rather than by the person themselves.
As I understand, the purpose of that was the guarantee progeny, inheritance, and all that other stuff to the man and assure that the woman and her children would be cared for.
I don’t disagree that the primary purpose of marriage is different now. In fact, I specifically stated that I think it IS different than that now, and that is the crux of the issue.
What are you talking about? I think you’re assigning motivations to what I said that simply aren’t there. Do you think I’m anti-gay marriage or something? I’m not. Personally, I don’t have an issue with it at all and I don’t care what it’s called. I am capable of seperating traditional values from modern values.
My point is that I don’t think everyone is capable of that, that marriage is changing and evolving, that someone else’s marriage has no reflection on their own, and whatever else.
TODAY, virtually everyone marries for love, but that hasn’t always been the case, and that’s my point. I think the primary problem here isn’t necessarily that one side hates the other or wants to repress them; I think it’s more of an issue of each side talking past eachother.
For instance, IME, very few opponents of gay marriage that I’ve talked to are against concepts like allowing a homosexual to make his partner next of kin or eligible for his partner’s family health insurance, or whatever else. In an overwhelming number of cases, they feel like by allowing that, it effects the sanctity of their own marriage. Similarly, in my discussions with the homosexuals with whom I’ve brought it up, they’re most interested in the rights and privileges that go along with marriage, but couldn’t care less what it was called.
The real problem is that marriage is such a loaded word that has so much meaning to so many people that any changes, real or imagined, to that are going to be met with a lot of resistance by a lot of people. Even without the enormous amount of religious implication that goes with marriage, there’s still a lot of social inertia regarding what marriage has meant for all but the last generation or two.
If opponents of gay marriage could just let go of the word and allow two people who want to make a commitment to eachother and have some basic, commonsense rights and privileges that go along with that, great problem solved. I just think that’s infinitesimally less likely to occur than convincing them that any two consenting adults should be able to enter into a legally binding contract, that carries all the rights and privileges of a marriage, without the social baggage that accompanies it for so many people.
Some of my snarks veered from from disagreeing with your actual points, so sorry. We’re respectfully debating what motivates those who strongly oppose gay marraige.
I agree with the talking past each other bit. And I understand how traditional reasoning continues to influence modern values. But I think the issues you raise are part of the rationalization, rather than the motivation.
To reiterate, I think that the real underlying motivation is that people won’t accept the idea that homosexual relationships can be legitimate. I haven’t heard anyone declare gay less capable of loving. Instead, I hear them euphemize everything, but what they’re euphemizing is who-sticks-what-where. Don’t think of an elephant and don’t think of 2 guys having sex, because what we really don’t want you not to think about is 2 guys in love–because that would legitimize what they do.
Let me put it this way: We’re all familiar with how parents are–at best–uncomfortable with the idea of their kids having premarital sex. But the wedding casts a sort of spell that makes it all ok. The Angels have blown their trumpets and sprinkled their warm fuzzies to sanctify whatever your daughter is getting up to in her bedroom. But I’ll be damned if the powers vested in me are going to sanctify what sodomites get up to in their bedrooms. And so to recognize gay marriage is to sanctify sin, and that is an unacceptable affront.
My take on that is for conservatives, it doesn’t affect the “magic” issues directly–i.e. they don’t have to admit anyone is in love; it’s just “domestic”. While for gays themselves, these issues are where the rubber hits the road in terms of actual discrimination. They know they’re married, but this is the legal, official manifestation of second-class citizenship.