Again, no. People need to read what I am actually writing.
The strongest argument in favour of opposing gay marriage is, in my opinion, that the love that exists between a man and a woman is beautiful, wonderful and special enough that it’s worthy of its own celebration.
See? Nothing in there about gay love being inferior, nothing in there about not allowing gays to celebrate their love for each other… you can keep looking as hard as you like, but you just won’t find any such mention.
Ahh, but see, I didn’t mention church. Nor did I say that allowing gay marriage means that marriage is no longer special.
I am saying that allowing gay marriage robs the love that exists between a man and a woman of its own unique celebration.
What’s different about it? Describe any aspect of same sex love that is different than opposite sex love.
Off limits is the “same sex” vs. “opposite sex” aspect of it. It’s like claiming that yellow american cheese tastes different than white american cheese, by pointing out the color. “They taste different because that one is yellow.” If the color is the only identifiable difference between the cheeses, the taste is the same. If the sexuality of the lovers is the only difference, then the love is the same.
Knock yourself out, I’m very curious what differences you’ll come up with.
You speak as though all heterosexual marriages were the same kind of thing as each other, when that’s patently untrue. Look around. Things that sustain some marriages would destroy others. The only unifying feature of heterosexual marriages is that, yes, they include a man and a woman, and the legal construct we have attached to the word. You can’t name any other characteristic that’s true for all marriages. There’s no definition of the thing that isn’t entirely self-referential. Various subsets of our society have much more developed ideas about what marriages “are” or “should be”–but not one of those notions is agreed upon, even among the heterosexual married population.
The notion that there is anything unique and special about heterosexual marriage, as a coherent category distinct from every other personal relationship, is just bullshit.
If I may inject personal experience?
I live in Connecticut. One of my daughter’s friends has two moms. When we visit each other, my wife and one of the moms go working in the kitchen, the other one sits in the living room with me, out of the way, watching TV and talking about Star Trek.
I see no difference in behaviour between this couple and my wife and I. (Excepting, of course, what they might do in the bedroom. Since it is none of their concern what my wife and I do in private, I will extend them the same consideration and recognize that it is none of my damn business.)
I must, from all observational evidence, conclude that their marriage is as “real” and unique as mine.
And if you’d actually read what I posted, you’d have understood that what I said was that no matter how the marriage is made special to you, someone else’s marriage can be made special to them, and in the process neither marriage is devalued.
Three couples: heterosexual partnership, a same-sex partnership, and an atheist partnership.
The heteros get a marriage license. At this point, they are “married”. They choose to have the marriage recognized by their church. They are still married.
The same-sex partners get a marriage license. At this point, they are “married”. They go to a church recognizes their union, and have ceremony performed. They are still married.
The atheists get a marriage license. At this point, they are “married”. They have their friends over and everyone gets drunk and on Sunday morning, they sleep in and then go get a nice brunch before the church crowd hits the place. They are still married.
In every example, one couple’s marriage does NOT affect anyone else’s marriage. If you don’t want your particular brand of “marriage” to not be sullied by the fact that people you disapprove of are also married, then have the ceremony performed by the church which affirms your worldview. Otherwise, you are telling other people how they should live their lives. I bet you’d *hate *that if it were to happen to you, wouldn’t you?
So the more “unique” a marriage is, the more “special” it is? When people of different faiths weren’t allowed to marry, was it more special? When people of different races weren’t allowed to marry, was it more special?
You’re going out of your way not to say “gay love is inferior,” but it’s easy to read between your lines.
Sure, the “COLOREDS” water fountain was just as good as the “WHITES ONLY” water fountain. So what was the problem there? Nobody was being treated as “inferior.” Right? Separate but equal. That worked out well.
And at least the segregated water fountains ostensibly served the same function and expelled the same water. Nobody ever explains how these civil unions are ever going to achieve and maintain equality to “marriage,” especially in the face of bigot-backed politicians who will gut them at the first opportunity.
And of course I do agree with your point. Funny how comfortable people become with “separate but equal” in this context.
I’m still interested to know in what way gay relationships are different from straight ones that is sufficient to deny them access to the institution of marriage, and how that isn’t an admission that this “difference” is just “inferiority.”
For a lot of American families there is a marraige penalty and any one person can claim a child as a dependent. Marraige is especially onerous (tax wise) to gay couples because they are so frequently doulbe income.
I used to be kind of on the fence about gay marraige…
But the debate on DADT has made it clear to me that there are not principled differences here, there is simply bigotry.
I would support eradication of the legal insitution of marraige altogether and replacing it entirely with civil unions. call yourself married for all i care.
Given that the word “marriage” already is used for many other situations, i’m not sure it has a unique celebration currently. After all, “marriage” also refers to a period of time for divorced or seperated couples; for people currently in unhappy marriages; to refer to those stuck in domestic abuse on one side or the other.
I find it hard to believe that it is gay marriage above all else that threatens that unique celebration; that, at the party of marriage, we are willing to cheer and applaud couples throwing invective at each other or sporting black eyes and bruises, but two guys or two girls? Why, that would spoil the occasion.
I used to feel that way about “civil unions,” but given the amount of law that deals specifically with marriage I now want to keep the term to define legally recognized long-term partnerships.
We can come up with a retronym to differentiate marriages (the legal type) from church-recognized unions (ones where the signing and witnessing of the contract were done in conjunction with a religious ceremony).
Since my wife and I decided NOT to have kids, I guess our 20 years of marriage have been completely wasted. I might as well have been gay, apparently.
Well, this strongest argument is identical to your earlier stonger argument, and it has the same inherent flaw: why should your opinion (indeed anyone’s opinion) deny someone access to an advantageous legal status already enjoyed by millions of other citizens? How do you measure “specialness”? Is “specialness” diminished if the hetero marriage breaks up in less than a year? If one or both partners have affairs? If the marriage was the spontaneous result of a drunken weekend in Vegas to be annulled as soon as the hangovers faded?
I’m reading what you’re writing - what you’re writing make no sense, especially in light of:
So gays can celebrate their love for each other, while “the love that exists between a man and a woman is beautiful, wonderful and special enough that it’s worthy of its own celebration.” Please explain why one celebration should get legal recognition while the other should not.
I’m not clear why “civil union” couldn’t serve as that retronym, allowing “marriage” to return to its original position of being defined by the individuals involved and their particular religious and subcultural tradition.
The retronym would apply to the “traditional” marriages, with “marriage” defaulting to the domestic partnerships recognized as legal contracts by the state. Sorry if I was unclear.
What’s “behind” that argument is the same as what’s behind the “civil unions” dodge: a distaste for recognizing gays, and their love, as normal.
We should also address for a second the reality of the “everyone should have civil unions” idea, which is that the right wing would use it ("SEE! Gays do want to destroy marriage!!!) to mobilize voters to both destroy any chance of that happening, and to retaliate.
The fact is that there isn’t anything more different about gay relationships that isn’t already true of the myriad types of straight relationships. No single marriage has its importance diluted by the actions of anyone outside that couple, and that applies regardless of the sex and gender of those involved.
The idea that some totally undefined “difference” is sufficient to deny gay couples the term “marriage” and the benefits that term carries opens up all sorts of interesting possibilities. If man/woman marriage is so very special that it deserves its own term, why stop there? Why shouldn’t the wealthy get their own kind of marriage, that carries with it benefits that wealthy couples want? I’m not saying that wealthy couples are better, you understand; just different. Why should their union be diluted by being forced to share a privilege with the impoverished?
Civil unions would seem to have a role for couples not ready to make a full legal commitment. In the old days this halfway state was prevented by societal disapproval. Now there are plenty of examples, and a medium state is useful for things like hospital visitation.
The sexes of the couple should have nothing at all to do with it, though.