# What is the rationale for opposition to same-sex marriage? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 8, 2009, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382 "2009-04-08T11:47:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 25
**Author:** ![Redwing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/dfb087/32.png) [@Redwing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Redwing)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/481 "2009-04-10T23:18:22Z")
Missed the edit window. > [@begbert2](#): > > I think we’re getting to the point that the majority of those on the anti-gay side either are that way due to a perceived religious imperative, or _are_ maliciously bigoted. (Or, uh, both.) Neither of these groups is particularly susceptible to rational persuasion, regardless of whether you understand their motives. I don’t think we’re near that yet. There’s still plenty of people out there who haven’t sat down and thought about it, and just going off the norms they grew up with. Much like any other rights issue, we need people to loud and visible to keep the issue in the publics eye, as well as people to quietly talk to those they know, and help them to see that the new path isn’t as dark as the old one. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/482 "2009-04-10T23:24:07Z")
> [@Redwing](#): > > There’ve been a couple. Depends on what givens you’re willing to work with. > > If you’re not willing to allow people the honesty of their faith, then we get to an impass pretty quickly. Well, let’s say a standard that can be demonstrated while respecting separation of church and state. Crime statistics might be a start, if any part of the anti-SSM argument is that it increases crime in some way. > [@](#): > > That doesn’t mean that they came to their conclusion dishonestly, just that they did so badly. I’ve no objection to someone disliking SSM, or homosexuals, or blacks or Jews or anything else, however these dislikes came to be. It’s the stubborn effort at rationalization that insults my intelligence. _Why_ would someone go to the expense and effort to ban gay marriage? What good do such efforts accomplish? It escapes me. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/483 "2009-04-10T23:38:55Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I’ve no objection to someone disliking SSM, or homosexuals, or blacks or Jews or anything else, however these dislikes came to be. It’s the stubborn effort at rationalization that insults my intelligence. _Why_ would someone go to the expense and effort to ban gay marriage? What good do such efforts accomplish? It escapes me. Er, “My god wants me to do it” can be a spectacularly powerful motivator for people. I don’t see what’s hard to understand about that. The tricky part is getting them to stop it. Benignly motivated bigotry is still bigotry and certainly still has the associated negative effects. (It is very off-pissing to hear otherwise nice and loving people state that gay marriage needs to be banned, just because their preacher says that their god says so.) ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/484 "2009-04-10T23:43:58Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > I think we’re getting to the point that the majority of those on the anti-gay side either are that way due to a perceived religious imperative, or _are_ maliciously bigoted. (Or, uh, both.) Neither of these groups is particularly susceptible to rational persuasion, regardless of whether you understand their motives. There is still a problem with your logic. You are creating a dichotomy between ignorance and malice. It is possible to oppose gay marriage and neither be ignorant, nor malicious. The problem here is a diverging set of ethics. To claim it as ignorance is to assume that your set of ethics is de facto the ‘correct’ one, as though ethics have a scientific objective basis that you can verify through experimentation. It’s not, mores are based on mainstream opinion and the institutions therein. The problem here is the language is that of moral absolutism, but there is not a practical guide as to how we determine what is the moral absolute. Genetics here is not a good guide, because there are plenty of things that people are genetically predisposed toward that are not conducive to their well-being or the well-being of those around them. I can tell when people making these kinds of arguments do not understand the counter-argument due to the language they use. They use this progressive language that presumes that any disagreement is a matter of backward confusion and not of conscious choice. They ignore the intellectual institutions that spawned these kinds of thoughts and never question why these institutions may have come to the conclusions that they did. In earlier times passing on one’s genetic legacy was a great deal more important to the entire ordering of those societies than it is today. Gay marriage may very well be perfectly able to normalize happily with modern society, but the, ‘our ancestors were backward primitives’ argument presumes that society could always absorb these new ideas if not for the ignorant or the malicious, completely ignoring practical issues like lines of succession in noble families for instance. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/485 "2009-04-10T23:47:59Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > How rigid are your standards of reason? “My god says it’s bad, and my god is always right, so it’s bad” is a reasoned thought process. Somewhat lacking on the ‘backing up premises’ side, but that’s a separate problem. Well there are the sociological implications, as I said before. “God says so.”, was generally the answer given to peasants but debate at the higher echelons of society was a bit more open than the common stereotype would allow. IE within the church. The debate usually took the form of ‘Did God really say so?’ Very often when people rail against religion, they know not what it is that they hate. They just pick and choose a few characteristics they find distasteful and run with it, they don’t try to look at it as a holistic system of morality. Some people think it’s a simple solution, just abandon it all, but it’s not, so much of our morality is rooted in ancient tradition, and I could uncontroversially bring up several mores that everyone on both sides of this debate share. IE, it’s not good to rape people or murder them, private property should be respected, don’t Fuck children, etc… ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/486 "2009-04-10T23:50:25Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > I think we’re getting to the point that the majority of those on the anti-gay side either are that way due to a perceived religious imperative, or _are_ maliciously bigoted. (Or, uh, both.) Neither of these groups is particularly susceptible to rational persuasion, regardless of whether you understand their motives. Nate Silver at [fivethirtyeight.com](http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/04/will-iowans-uphold-gay-marriage.html)found that there seems to be a trend of increasing acceptance of gay marriage in the amount of about 2% per year. The same article showed that at that rate many states may allow gay marriage within the next few years. So clearly some people are changing their minds. Ed ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/487 "2009-04-10T23:55:28Z")
> [@Bosstone](#): > > Your analogy is wrong. No. It’s actually a very good way to explain what I’ve been trying to describe. You just don’t like that it works with your own views. You’d do better coming up with another analogy rather than bastardize the existing one and claiming, “Look, it doesn’t work.” ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/488 "2009-04-10T23:55:51Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > There is still a problem with your logic. You are creating a dichotomy between ignorance and malice. It is possible to oppose gay marriage and neither be ignorant, nor malicious. The problem here is a diverging set of ethics. To claim it as ignorance is to assume that your set of ethics is de facto the ‘correct’ one, as though ethics have a scientific objective basis that you can verify through experimentation. It’s not, mores are based on mainstream opinion and the institutions therein. The problem here is the language is that of moral absolutism, but there is not a practical guide as to how we determine what is the moral absolute. Genetics here is not a good guide, because there are plenty of things that people are genetically predisposed toward that are not conducive to their well-being or the well-being of those around them. > > I can tell when people making these kinds of arguments do not understand the counter-argument due to the language they use. They use this progressive language that presumes that any disagreement is a matter of backward confusion and not of conscious choice. They ignore the intellectual institutions that spawned these kinds of thoughts and never question why these institutions may have come to the conclusions that they did. In earlier times passing on one’s genetic legacy was a great deal more important to the entire ordering of those societies than it is today. Gay marriage may very well be perfectly able to normalize happily with modern society, but the, ‘our ancestors were backward primitives’ argument presumes that society could always absorb these new ideas if not for the ignorant or the malicious, completely ignoring practical issues like lines of succession in noble families for instance. I certainly did _not_ create a dichotomy between ignorance and malice. Do you even _read_ what you reply to? I suggested that the majority of anti-SSMer either have a **perceived religious imperative** , or were malicious. (Or both - which _really_ kills the idea that I am “creating a dichotomy”.) Now, maybe _you_ automatically think “ignorant” when you hear that somebody has religious motivations, but that’s not what _I_ said. The fact is that I am arguing _exactly_ the perspective you have been stating that we should have. We should recognize that these religious guys are doing things for religious reasons. And what do you do? You respond with some bullshit spewage that has _literally nothing_ to do with what I posted. Have you slipped a gear or something? > [@suranyi](#): > > Nate Silver at [fivethirtyeight.com](http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/04/will-iowans-uphold-gay-marriage.html)found that there seems to be a trend of increasing acceptance of gay marriage in the amount of about 2% per year. > > The same article showed that at that rate many states may allow gay marriage within the next few years. > > So clearly some people are changing their minds. Or dying. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/489 "2009-04-10T23:59:45Z")
> [@DMC](#): > > One of those seats is a law that recognizes a couple as being married, if they so desire. Can they sit there? Not quite, but this is a helpful point, and a mistake that is being made repeatedly. The seats represent the laws both groups enjoy. You’re using it here as one of the criteria through which a person or couple qualify to be in one of the two groups. Think of each seat being the a specific legal right or privilege. The ticket to get on the bus is qualifying to be one of the two groups allowed on. But once any of them are on, all the seats (laws) are available to all of them. ---
**Author:** ![Redwing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/dfb087/32.png) [@Redwing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Redwing)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2009, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/490 "2009-04-10T23:59:52Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > _Why_ would someone go to the expense and effort to ban gay marriage? What good do such efforts accomplish? It escapes me. I know the feeling, it’s why I joined the thread. I just don’t think there’s any way to find out while demonizing the people who hold those beliefs. > [@begbert2](#): > > The tricky part is getting them to stop it. Benignly motivated bigotry is still bigotry and certainly still has the associated negative effects. (It is very off-pissing to hear otherwise nice and loving people state that gay marriage needs to be banned, just because their preacher says that their god says so.) Or their own examination of their faith? You’re still not allowing them to honestly believe what they say. There’s no bigotry in the honest statement that being gay is fine, but having gay sex is sinfull. If you’re going to claim that there’s bigotry there, you’re also claiming that the statement isn’t honest. That’s the problem I have here, because once you’ve declared the other side dishonest, there’s no longer any room for conversation. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2009, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/491 "2009-04-11T00:01:35Z")
> [@DMC](#): > > Oh, and this? Actually, people did agree, they just didn’t agree with you. In fact, it came fairly close to a consensus on what the term “homophobe” represented. About the only people who disagreed with the consensus were those who fit the definition reached by the vast majority of posters in that thread. Nope. I can go find definitions right now that we can disagree over. Even among those on your side, there was disagreement as to a clear definition. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2009, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/492 "2009-04-11T00:02:35Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > I certainly did _not_ create a dichotomy between ignorance and malice. Do you even _read_ what you reply to? :rolleyes: Ok, your argument only recognizes ignorance or malice as possible motivators. Is that better? > [@](#): > > I suggested that the majority of anti-SSMer either have a **perceived religious imperative** , or were malicious. (Or both - which _really_ kills the idea that I am “creating a dichotomy”.) Now, maybe _you_ automatically think “ignorant” when you hear that somebody has religious motivations, but that’s not what _I_ said. Right a perceived religious imperative, and you called those who respond to that perceived religious imperative, sheep. Well you specifically used the words sheep and malicious in your reply to Der Trihs and then you began talking about perceived religious imperatives and maliciousness. So I thought that to you a perceived religious imperative was a blind sheep motivation. No need to be hostile because you don’t like the term, ‘created’. > [@](#): > > The fact is that I am arguing _exactly_ the perspective you have been stating that we should have. We should recognize that these religious guys are doing things for religious reasons. And what do you do? You respond with some bullshit spewage that has _literally nothing_ to do with what I posted. Have you slipped a gear or something? No, if I read you wrong I apologize. I hope that I made it more clear as to why I perceived it the way I did. I certainly recognize that your position is more open than some others in this thread, and if it is more open than I recognized I am certainly ‘open’ 😛 to correction. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2009, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/493 "2009-04-11T00:11:39Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I honestly don’t think it’s us who don’t understand you’re position. I think it’s you. And I don’t mean that as snark - you really don’t seem to understand what you’re arguing for. I assure you I do. I think the problem, and no snark intended here also, is that you refuse—either wilfully, subconsciously, or both—to suspend you prejudices long enough to fully comprehend my position. > [@Miller](#): > > Yeah, but see - there isn’t just “one law” for marriage. There are hundreds of laws for marriage. If you create a separate institution for marriage, you can write a law that says, “All the laws pertaining to marriages pertain to civil unions,” and that’s fine. But there’s nothing there that prevents someone from coming along and adding, “except laws A, B, and C” to the end of that law. And then you no longer have equal institutions. And that means that you don’t have “one” law, you have two laws that happen (at first) to be identical. The way to avoid this is to simply alter the definition of marriage itself, so that marriage means, “the union of two people of any gender.” Then you really do have just one law. It’s not foolproof. Someone can, and will, try to figure out someway to pass a law that still discriminates against gays, but it’ll be significantly harder to craft something that would pass judicial review. Now where getting somewhere. You admit that no law is immune from change. You omitted here the part of my law that spells out that any change must be suffered or enjoyed by BOTH groups. I will admit, that, like your scenario, some extraordinary efforts could come to bear to change the law. I, for the sake of argument (and me not being a lawyer, might be willing to grant that changing the law in your scenario might be harder. Let’s call that a check mark “For” your idea. I don’t think the marginal degree to which the law can be more easily changed in my scenario renders the reasons I advocate for my position moot. (I listed a few of them earlier in this thread, not to mention, God knows, in other threads.) > [@Miller](#): > > And please, before you come back, and type “one law!” in bigger and redder fonts, try to address the issue of destructively ammending civil unions laws, and how your proposal avoids that. Not following exactly what you’re looking for here. Can you rephrase? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2009, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/494 "2009-04-11T00:24:29Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > You omitted here the part of my law that spells out that any change must be suffered or enjoyed by BOTH groups. Then why bother having two groups if they’re effectively identical? ---
**Author:** ![JR\_Brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d6d6ee/32.png) [@JR\_Brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JR_Brown)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2009, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/495 "2009-04-11T00:41:27Z")
> [@Redwing](#): > > There’s no bigotry in the honest statement that being gay is fine, but having gay sex is sinfull. If you’re going to claim that there’s bigotry there, you’re also claiming that the statement isn’t honest. I don’t buy this. Merriam-Webster: bigot: “a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices” 1. If performing action X (gay sex, murder, wearing white shoes after Labor Day) is “wrong”, then the urge to perform action X cannot be “right”. At best it’s a regrettable weakness that one should strive to overcome. Saying that “being gay is fine, but having gay sex is sinful” implies strongly that it would be better not to want to have gay sex; i.e., not to be gay. Therefore straight \> gay, which in the absence of an actual argument for this position is bigoted. 2. Pointing to Biblical proscriptions against homosexuality to justify discrimination against gays is, in my POV, an example of bigotry, since there are a quite large number of things that are equally strongly condemned ([samples](http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Actions_which_demand_the_death_penalty_in_the_Old_Testament)) which we as a culture and most practicing Christians in particular do not demand as grounds for legal or social discrimination. Unless someone can give me a real, defensible reason why homosexuality should still be a big deal while [blasphemy](http://bible.cc/leviticus/24-16.htm) and [breaking the Sabbath](http://bible.cc/exodus/31-14.htm) get a free pass, I’m gonna say “bigotry”. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2009, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/496 "2009-04-11T01:01:11Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > :rolleyes: Ok, your argument only recognizes ignorance or malice as possible motivators. Is that better? No, dammit. Here is the argument (well, statement) in question, in full: > [@begbert2](#): > > I think we’re getting to the point that the majority of those on the anti-gay side either are that way due to a perceived religious imperative, or _are_ maliciously bigoted. (Or, uh, both.) Neither of these groups is particularly susceptible to rational persuasion, regardless of whether you understand their motives. The word “ignorance” is **nowhere in there**. This is not rocket surgery; all you have to do is read the words and **not make other ones up and then _criticize me for using them_**. If you want to respond to me saying that the religious are ignorant, find a post where I _say_ that and respond to _it_. If you don’t find my other posts incendiary enough to merit your response without utterly misrepresenting their content, then **just don’t respond to them.** > [@mswas](#): > > Right a perceived religious imperative, and you called those who respond to that perceived religious imperative, sheep. Well you specifically used the words sheep and malicious in your reply to Der Trihs and then you began talking about perceived religious imperatives and maliciousness. So I thought that to you a perceived religious imperative was a blind sheep motivation. No need to be hostile because you don’t like the term, ‘created’. So… you cherry-picked one _single_ word out of a post defending the religious and took it out of context and altered its meaning and then subsequently mentally inserted that into all my other, completely benign posts, thereby inserting prejudices that were not present? Do you do that _all_ the time, or just in threads where your entire position rests on the claim that your opposition refuses to suspend their prejudices long enough to fully comprehend your position? By the way, for future reference, in critical atheist parlance “sheep” means “uncritically accepting and obedient follower”. It doesn’t mean “ignorant”. We have other words for that - among them, “ignorant”. > [@mswas](#): > > No, if I read you wrong I apologize. I hope that I made it more clear as to why I perceived it the way I did. I certainly recognize that your position is more open than some others in this thread, and if it is more open than I recognized I am certainly ‘open’ 😛 to correction. You read that wrong. Spectacularly so. You could not have misinterpreted it more if you were arguing against an imagined strawman of me instead of what I actually posted. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2009, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/497 "2009-04-11T01:37:57Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Now where getting somewhere. You admit that no law is immune from change. You omitted here the part of my law that spells out that any change must be suffered or enjoyed by BOTH groups. But that only works until the next law gets passed that says, “except this part here.” There’s absolutely no barrier in your idea against that. If you have a law that says, “Group X and group Y both get the same rights,” and you have a later law that says, “Group Y doesn’t get this right” the later law cancels out the earlier law. It doesn’t take an extraordinary effort - in fact, it take no more effort than was necessary to pass the original law. If everyone is put into Group X, they can’t do that. If they want to target a specific subset of Group X, they first have to pass a law that separates that subset into Group Y. Under your plan, that step is already taken care of for them, and they can go directly to the part where they start stripping away rights. ---
**Author:** ![whorfin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/6f9a4e/32.png) [@whorfin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whorfin)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2009, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/498 "2009-04-11T02:23:08Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > But that only works until the next law gets passed that says, “except this part here.” There’s absolutely no barrier in your idea against that. If you have a law that says, “Group X and group Y both get the same rights,” and you have a later law that says, “Group Y doesn’t get this right” the later law cancels out the earlier law. It doesn’t take an extraordinary effort - in fact, it take no more effort than was necessary to pass the original law. If everyone is put into Group X, they can’t do that. If they want to target a specific subset of Group X, they first have to pass a law that separates that subset into Group Y. Under your plan, that step is already taken care of for them, and they can go directly to the part where they start stripping away rights. Or, as I note above, if one of the benefits of being in group X is to get rights Z in other countries–then putting everyone in X ensures they all get Z. If you have group X and Y, then there’s no reason other legal systems will also give right Z to members of group Y–even if they would give everyone Z if the same people all were in X. While this isn’t an equal protection argument (different sovereign gives Z), it very clearly refutes the argument that X and Y will be treated exactly the same even if your state’s law does-----which is the only justification Magellan offers to as to why it’s OK to reject same-sex marriage in favor of civil unions. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2009, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/499 "2009-04-11T05:08:30Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > And… We agree on this. Why bring it up? And please note, they didn’t ask to be call “white”, did they? No they demanded they be recognized as superior as in the ones who decide what rights the minority gets to have. The reason I bring it up is that you seemed to present your “ride in the back of the bus” analogy as something that should be perfectly acceptable. If that’s not the case please explain. If that is the case you’re dead wrong and I’ve already explained. > [@](#): > > What are you talking about? What is shameful? That gays can enjoy all the rights they claim they want but simply use a different label. Let me as YOU this. Are you okay with the term “gay” or “homosexual”. If not, why are you so opposed to the use of a term that connotes “gay marriage”. And why aren’t you crying to the high heavens that terms like “gay” never be uttered? Let’s start by recognizing that you’re proposing a compromise that most who oppose SSM would not accept. On top of that suggesting that gays shouldn’t be allowed to call their loving commitment to each other by the same name is catering to bigotry and and just as much an insult as riding in the back of the bus was. It’s not just an observation of the real differences, gay or straight, white or black, it’s the inference that those differences make gays something less, not worthy of the same choices or even the same words. > [@](#): > > In your opinion… And therre are good reasons to keep the distinction (as I’ve discussed upthread) in my opinion… I read them and I didn’t see one good reason. The attempts at justification are no different than the objections to interracial marriage. There are hetero couples who probably shouldn’t be married and aren’t worthy of being parents but nobody seriously suggests their right to marry and have kids be limited. ---
**Author:** ![Regallag\_The\_Axe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/regallag_the_axe/32/445_2.png) [@Regallag\_The\_Axe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Regallag_The_Axe)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2009, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382/500 "2009-04-11T05:32:28Z")
Without reading most of the thread: I am 23 years old. I think that the children of my generation will look back on the same sex marriage debate in much the same way as I look back on the civil rights movement of the 60’s-70’s. As in: I understand, on an intellectual level, why some racist bigots would want to deny rights to blacks… but I don’t really _get_ it, on a visceral level. I have a feeling that (should I have children) I will have to explain the SSM debate to my children in a similar way that my parents described the civil rights movement to me. What I heard went something like, “I didn’t care that there was a white girl dating a black guy, and I didn’t care that there was a black girl dating a white guy. But some people got really mad about it, black people \*and \*white people.” Of course, in my case, there were few (read _zero_) same-sex couples in high school who were trying to get married. The basic idea remains, though. Children of my generation will ask something like, “Why would anyone oppose this?” And I will respond with something like, “Uhhh… some people are bigots, I guess.” I now await the inevitable pitting, because I got some detail wrong. Let my flesh burn bright on the alter of righteous indignation! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382.md?page=24) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-rationale-for-opposition-to-same-sex-marriage/492382.md?page=26)