Man, I've been wanting to write this post forever. I just hadn't because there's so much to address, and it's all so intertwined. But I finally thought of three items into which to break it down:
1. Gay people are not a problem
2. Gay marriage doesn't hurt anybody
3. In fact, it's a good thing
Gay people are not a problem
There are religious reasons to consider homosexual intercourse a sin. I personally don't find them super compelling, but I'm not going to argue that they aren't there. (I'm only going to address the Christian [specifically Protestant] ones, because I know much, much less about everybody else.)
I got help from this site, but there are three big areas of the Bible that spring to my mind. There are a few mentions in Leviticus and frankly, I am completely willing to dismiss this out of hand, since virtually all Christians pick and choose what they want from this section. I also don't keep kosher, do wear cotton/poly blends, and choose not to refrain from walking over rivers while menstruating. Most famously, there's the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. The sinners of Sodom are out for all-male intercourse, but they're also out for rape. Not good no matter which way you slice it. Then there are a few passages in the New Testament that condemn sodomites.
Again, I'm not saying the Bible is pro-gay by any means, but it's not a major theme. I personally think it's trumped by "Love thy neighbor as thyself." And, of course, "God is love" trumps and makes a sick joke out of "God hates fags."
In any case, how I translate my religious convictions into social practice is its own issue. Am I going to shun and despise divorcees? People who have pre-marital sex? No.
On a practical level, what would I want gays and lesbians to do differently? By all first-hand accounts, they don't get to choose their sexuality. I mean, I didn't. There was no moment in my life where I decided to like boys. I just did. Would I want gays and lesbians to deny who they know they are, and just marry a person of the opposite sex. Definitely not! What a disservice to the unknowing partner, to be married to someone who is only pretending to love them.
From what I understand, the leading answer in anti-homosexuality circles is to advocate for gay celibacy. I could never espouse that. When I was growing up, all (not all, but the most important thing) I ever wanted was to fall in love and get married. And then I did, and it's even better than I thought it would be. I will not tell anybody that because they feel "wrong," they have to live a life that, if I had it, I would think of as desolate and empty and lonely.
I believe that gay rights is the civil rights issue of this generation. In college, I had a professor tell me that I shouldn't compare anti-gay prejudice to racial prejudice because nobody can decide or change what race they are. I concede that people get to choose whether or not to partake in homosexual romantic/sexual relationships. However, people can also choose or change their religion, but that doesn't make religious prejudice acceptable.
Right now, gay people are widely accepted in entertainment--the gay best friend in a movie, the gay fashion mentor on a reality show, the gay performer who knocks his songs out of the park. But unless those entertainers are genuinely accepted by their audiences on a real-life level, those are all just 21st-Century minstrel shows.
Gay marriage doesn't hurt anybody
Some people claim that they're not against gay people, just gay marriage. I don't see how that could be true. Take the internet sensation "National Organization for Marriage" commercial. The commercial is not anti-gay marriage, it's anti-gay. There are three major statements made that allege that the legalization of gay marriage leads to loss of religious liberties, and they explain them on this page. (I got my rebuttals from this page.) First, there's "a California doctor who must choose between [her] faith and [her] job," because she refused to perform an in vitro procedure for a lesbian woman. There's nothing about gay marriage there. Also, I'd be curious to know if she would have performed the procedure for an unmarried straight woman.
Next, there's "I’m part of a New Jersey church group punished by the government because we can’t support same-sex marriage." First of all, the government of New Jersey has not legalized gay marriage, just civil unions. And the group (not a church, a "church group") was punished by having their tax-exempt status revoked. Their tax-exempt status was based on their pavilion being used as public land. If not everybody can use it, it isn't public.
Finally, there's the "Massachusetts parent helplessly watching public schools teach [his] son that gay marriage is OK." It's been established that "the constitutional right of parents to raise their children does not include the right to restrict what a public school may teach their children and that teachings which contradict a parent's religious beliefs do not violate their First Amendment right to exercise their religion. [from the judge's verdict in the Massachusetts case]" A public school gets to teach that discrimination is wrong. He's constitutionally allowed to put his children in a religious school or to home school them if wants them sheltered from that point of view.
I don't buy if a government legalizes gay marriage, it will then force churches to perform gay marriages. Nobody who's against religious discrimination had forced the Catholic Church to marry non-Catholics, and nobody who's against gender discrimination has forced the Baptist Church to hire female pastors. There's no precedent for it.
I also dismiss the argument that gay marriage de-values or changes heterosexual marriage in any way. In fact, I find it hard to call it an "argument," because I have never heard it explained, only stated. A good contrast is polygamy: if same-sex marriage were legal, Neal and I would still be married and still have the same legal relationship to each other. If I wanted to marry a woman, I'd have to divorce him first--it would differ in no way from if I wanted to marry a different man. If polygamy were legal, Neal could go out and marry another woman while still being married to me. Even if he didn't, our legal relationship would be changed just because he could. If two guys down the street get married to each other, it doesn't change anything--not anything--about my marriage.
Basically, two unmarried adults of sound mind who want a formal, committed relationship with each other is not that broad a definition of marriage. Two guys who are in love and want to be together forever, maybe buy a house with a white picket fence, is only a little different than the same situation where the couple's chromosomes are different. Which brings me to my final point.
In fact, it's a good thing
You know what I buy from the anti-gay marriage people? That marriage is awesome and a building-block of our society. And if that is true, we should want more people to do it, not fewer.
Oh, and it does need to be "marriage," not "civil unions." The only thing a "civil union" means is: "yes, you can have the monetary and legal rights, but remember! You're not as good as straight people." And that's important because, well . . . point #1 again.
Metapost: Pre-prandial comments of the week
14 hours ago
9 comments:
Hi Rachel, hope you don't mind my two cents even though I borrow it from Mr. Murchison. And I might add that most folks seem to want gay marriage for their gays friends because it makes THEM feel better; then you just wouldn't have to deal with the problem of this sin (using God's standard as a plumb line) anymore and everybody's happy.
William Murchison: The fantasy of gay 'marriage'
Manchester Union Leader ^ | April 19, 2009 | William Murchison
You really can't have "gay marriage," you know, irrespective of what a court or a legislature may say.
You can have something some people call gay marriage, because to them the idea sounds worthy and necessary, but to say a thing is other than it is, is to stand reality on its head, hoping to shake out its pockets.
Such is the supposed effect of the Iowa Supreme Court's declaration this month that gays and heterosexuals enjoy equal rights to marital bliss. Nope. They don't and won't, even if liberal Vermont follows Iowa's lead.
The human race -- sorry ladies, sorry gents -- understands marriage as a compact reinforcing social survival and protection. It has always been so. It will always be so, even if every state Supreme Court pretended to declare that what isn't suddenly is. Life does not work in this manner.
The supposed redefinition of the Great Institution is an outgrowth of modern hubris and disjointed individualism. "What I say goes!" has become our national philosophy since the 1960s. One appreciates the First Amendment right to make such a claim. Nonetheless, no such boast actually binds unless it corresponds with the way things are at the deepest level, human as well as divine. Surface things can change. Not the deep things, among them human existences.
A marriage -- a real one -- brings together man and woman for mutual society and comfort, but also, more deeply, for the long generational journey to the future. Marriage, as historically defined, across all religious and non-religious demarcations, is about children -- which is why a marriage in which the couple deliberately repudiates childbearing is so odd a thing, to put the matter as generously as possible.
A gay "marriage" (never mind whether the couple tries to adopt) is definitionally sterile -- barren for the purpose of extending the generations for purposes vaster than any two people, (including people of opposite sexes), can envision.
Current legal prohibitions pertaining to something called "gay marriage" don't address the condition called homosexuality or lesbianism. A lesbian or homosexual couple is free to do pretty much as they like, so long as it doesn't 'like' too much the notion of remaking other, older ideas about institutions made, conspicuously, for others. Marriage, for instance.
True, marriage isn't the only way to get at childbirth and propagation. There's also the ancient practice called illegitimacy -- in which trap, by recent count, 40 percent of American babies are caught. It's a lousy, defective means of propagation, with its widely recognized potential for enhancing child abuse and psychological disorientation.
Far, far better is marriage, with all those imperfections that flow from the participation of imperfect humans. Hence the necessity of shooing away traditional marriage's derogators and outright enemies -- who include, accidentally or otherwise, the seven justices of Iowa's Supreme Court. These learned folk tell us earnestly that the right to "equal protection of the law" necessitates a makeover of marriage. And so, by golly, get with it, you cretins! Be it ordered that.
One can say without too much fear of contradiction that people who set themselves up as the sovereign arbiters of reality are -- would "nutty" be the word?
The Iowa court's decision in the gay marriage case is pure nonsense. Which isn't to say that nonsense fails to command plaudits and excite warnings to others to "keep your distance." We're reminded again -- as with Roe vs. Wade, the worst decision in the history of human jurisprudence -- of the reasons judges should generally step back from making social policy. For one thing, a judicial opinion can mislead viewers into supposing that, well, sophisticated judges wouldn't say things that weren't so. Would they?
Of course they would. They just got through doing it in Iowa, and now the basketball they tossed in the air has to be wrestled for, fought over, contested: not merely in Iowa, but everywhere Americans esteem reality over ideological fantasy and bloviation. A great age, ours. Say this for it anyway: We never nod off.
The US Government is not a religious entity. Again, it's fine if churches don't want to recognize gay marriage. That's their prerogative. But there's no secular reason to deny gays and lesbians the right to marry, and so there should not be secular prohibitions against it.
Also, the argument that gays shouldn't marry because they can't have children is flimsy. What about heterosexual couples in which one partner is sterile? Or elderly couples that remarry after being widowed, and after their window for having children is over? What about straight couples who choose not to have children because they just don't want to? We can disagree with their choices, but we can't say they aren't married.
This is an excellent post Rachel. Well done. =)
My comment grew too big so I posted it.
http://brcbanter.blogspot.com/2009/04/to-rachel-or-post-where-i-just-cant.html
Clickable link.
My 2c.
I still, if rather sadly and quietly, believe that the scriptures seem to preach against homosexuality. I agree, you have to throw out the OT segments (which are pretty much superseeded by NT doctrine), but it still seems, to me, that the best argument says that marriage ought to be heterosexual. I can't call myself the type of Christian I am (thoughtful postevangelical) and just blatantly contradict what I believe to be the truth about even a small point of Scriptures.
Re. the law, however, I feel rather differently. Either the government is appointed by God to police sexual morality, or it isn't. Adultery, for instance, is a far more serious threat to marriage than what two men say about their cohabitation. So are easy divorces. So are a lot of things that are perfectly legal, for the simple fact that we, as Americans, don't like the idea of Uncle Sam saying what we can and cannot do needlessly. In fact, we kinda fought a war over that 200 or so years ago.
In that sense, I find it very easy to see antihomosexual legislation as not about sexual morality, but about legally scapegoating one segment of the population so everyone else can feel morally protected by the government. Otherwise, the idea that we can "protect" the teetering institution of marriage by keeping gays out makes not that much sense.
On the other other hand, some people draw a line between recognizing the reality of a union ("gay unions") and actively validating them ("gay marriage"). I can actually kinda understand that. But I don't, as much as both sides would probably want me to, really care.
Rachel, you are awesome and wise. Loved the post and totally agree!
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Brilliant.
Rachel -
I'm really impressed by this post, it's smartly reasoned, well thought out, and you don't allow emotions to get in the way of your argument. I tend to get very emotional about this issue.. for me it comes down to love. If two consenting adults want to commit their lives to each other in love, how could that possibly be bad for our society as a whole? Frankly, that Murchison article for me was just a lot of empty rhetoric. "The human race understands marriage as a compact reinforcing social survival and protection" Really?? Oh yes, that's exactly why I got married...of course we're one of those "odd - to put it generously" couples who have "deliberately repudiated" childbearing - so I guess our marriage isn't a "real marriage" - it's just a "fantasy."
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