Ever had a dream so awesome and vivid…
*ahem* that when you woke up you were clinically depressed for the rest of the day over the fact it wasn’t real?
OK, no more Scarlett-based entries, I swear. *wipes lower lip*
As someone not content to merely hurl rocks from a distance, in my efforts to understand the “negative” side of the gay marriage debate, I posted some comments on Chris’ blog, and he agreed to let me reply to his points here. He’s a Catholic, but seems reasonable enough and above the kooky “GOD HATES FAGS!!1!!11″ stuff. I do this not to be perverse or argumentative, and there is no malice or presumption of bigotry on my part, but because I seriously CANNOT fathom his position, try as I might. I’m hoping he can give me something to chew on.
As to your questions… the crux of my position is that marriage is a union between a man and a woman in which they engage in reproductive-type sexual acts. The final clause indicates and implies that sexual activity has a two-fold purpose: the spiritual and physical union of the spouses, and the bearing and education of children. Sex, then, is for the good of the spouses and for the procreation of children. And marriage is recognized as a public institution b/c it provides a stable environment in which the children can be raised, thus ensuring furture generations of a culture/society (hence the state’s interest).
But if the procreative dimension is reduced or negated — as it is in gay “marriages” — then one of the essential purposes for marriage is negated as well. Not only that, but since the natural means of having children is impossible, one of the essential reasons why the state recognizes marriage (may *the* essential reason) is negated as well.
Rubbish. By that logic the existence of married couples unwilling or unable to have children means that this “negation” of the essential “purposes” of marriage already exist in society. Conversely, many heterosexual couples have children without ever getting married. From an evolutionary perspective, the use of contraceptives is as “unnatural” as homosexual sex.
I’d also be interested in knowing why any secular democratic state which equally recognises all faiths, and lack thereof (or rather, SHOULD), would include the loaded religious term “spiritual” in any definition of marriage. I don’t recognise the “spiritual” side of anything. Should I be limited to “civil unions” as a result?
Furthermore, if marriage is *only* about committed, consensual relationships, then why is polygamy and polyamory looked down upon and illegalized?
What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? Polygamous heterosexual marriages are just as, if not more, geared towards procreation (the “essential reason” for marriage, as you put it), than monogamous heterosexual marriages. We’re talking about gay marriage here, not polygamy. The issues are completely irrelevant to one another.
What do you think?
I think that the main problem people have with gay marriage is not the “erosion of society”, or the “sanctity of marriage”, or the “survival of the species”, or any of that alarmist horseshit, but rather the anachronistic persistence of an general unwillingness to recognise the natural phenomenon of homosexuality, be it based upon religion, culture, ignorance, or otherwise. For some reason, people want to close their eyes and make homosexuality go away because it chafes their idealisms, or because they find it objectionable. While people are welcome to these beliefs, provided they don’t impinge upon the rights of others, they are insufficient as an excuse for the inequality of fundamental civil rights. The idea of having sex with another man is about as appealing to me as the idea of having sex with my grandmother, but I’ll fight for every person’s right to be seen as equal in the eyes of the law regardless of their perfectly healthy, natural, congenital differences. Marriage is the legal and civil recognition, and encouragement, of consensual, monogomous, long-term relationships (Britney Spears notwithstanding (and which are not only a Homo sapien phenomenon either, incidentally)). The potentiality of offspring is a consequence, not a cause. By your arguments, homosexual marriages are no more “unnatural” than childless heterosexual marriages, so what’s the problem? Are you going to protest the marriage of a man to a woman with a hysterectomy? To be even more direct and hypothetical, is the marriage of a paraplegic man to an able-bodied woman a genuine marriage? What about a male eunuch? What about an impotent man? Does it become a Marriage only when he buys some Viagra? What about two devoutly abstinent people? Just because they have the ability for heterosexual intercourse means that it qualifies as a marriage? How far do you want to push the arbitrary measure of what is and what isn’t a Marriage? Should it be decided on a case-by-case basis? Or is it, as I suspect, merely a case of being a Heterosexuals-Only Club?
I’d like to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.
Do you believe that a person’s sexuality has any bearing on their morality, intelligence, ability to form relationships, or otherwise live up to their full potential?
In your opinion, does a homosexual relationship differ in any objective way from a heterosexual relationship, when the gender of the two parties is ignored? (ie, is a homosexual relationship somehow less “serious” than, or in any other way disparate from, a heterosexual one, all things considered?)
Do you believe that it is ethical for there to exist inequalities in society towards an individual based upon any inherent characteristics established irrespective of that individual’s free will?
