I'm not asking why a judge in the most populous state in the U.S. ruled that a 2000 law rendering same-sex marriages illegal is unconstitutional did what he did. What I'm wondering, seriously, is why people get so pissed off when things like this happen.
I'm going to follow a schematic process of reasoning here. I'm sure to leave things out of the chain, so please jump into the comment section and help me out.
I'm starting with this question: Why would anyone -- in particular someone in a heterosexual marriage -- care what the practice of marriage in general includes or permits?
There are a limited number of sensible and even insensible answers to this, all of them predicated on the assumption that people only have a good reason to complain when their own liberty, prosperity, or property is threatened. Here are a few:
1. The number of marriages permitted in the U.S. is finite. Allowing homos to marry implies fewer marriages available to straights.
I'm pretty sure this is not the case. Next:
2. Same-sex marriages devalue the institution of marriage, because gays are more apt to cheat on their partners, get divorced, and otherwise trash a hallowed partnership than are straights. They also make poor providers.
Done laughing at that one yet? Good. Someone else can cough up the stats, and we can move on.
3. The next thing you know, people will be wanting to marry their cats, ficus trees, and motorcycles.
Not likely. Homosexual relationships have a very long history in America and in the world at large. Even most fans of poor slippery-slope arguments don't resort to this one.
4. It's not the will of the people.
Which people? The same majority that 1) believes in an imaginary celestial magistrate-engineer who created the world a few thousand years ago in a week's time, 2) wonders over Big Macs and Slurpees why it's overweight, 3) can't find Michigan (either peninsula) on a map of the United States, 4) thinks that "theory" means "wild-ass guess," 5) thinks that if something is on TV and conforms to attractive ideas, it must be accurate, 6) can't stop watching shows like American Idol until its collective jaw is so slack it's resting on their shoetops...okay, you get the point. But protecting certain people from the throaty mob is one of the core ideas underlying the constitution. I don't doubt that legal racial segregation would still be thriving in various parts of America were it not for certain laws.
Other than that, I really can't conceive of why someone in a ballast state such as Alabama can really work himself into a righteous snit over something happening thousands of miles from his home that has no bearing at all on his life.
Here's an analogy. I complain about religious intrusion into the public sphere, as anyone with a few active neurons should. Efforts on the part of creationists to insinuate worthless, ancient superstition into the areas where they belong least -- science classes -- need to be confronted head-on and with every available tool, from reasoned argument to noisy derision. Yet as dumb as the idea of believing your "eternal soul" can be "saved" by "accepting" into your heart some guy whose very life is historically unverified and was "resurrected" after being dead for three days is -- and few widespread ideas are as Level 5-A moronic as this 'un -- I know of no god-free people who care one bit about the religious beliefs of other people as long as those beliefs do not impose a burden on them.
In other words, it is supposed to be okay that Christians run around this country like MDMA-powered termites yapping about Values and The Family and decreeing on the basis of a miserably fucked-up fairy tale what is and isn't okay for everyone, all the while pretending to be all about love and brotherhood; but it is not okay for people to do something far less public, noisy, and corrupt in order to further their own lives and happiness at others' expense.
Why do we put up with this in the 21st century? Why are people like this?
Religion is not just a font of hypocrisy, it relies on the very worst examples of it in order to survive. But I really don't care how ignorant you insist on being as long as you stay out of my face, and if you don't I'll happily try to reason-taser you with about a baptillion volts of freethought. It won't work, but at least you'll run away screaming, which is what uch of the country would like to do when listening to some animated, talking tumor for Jesus like Tony Perkins yabber about the shame of it all.
Politics
Comments
I asked a guy I knew who went to Bob Jones why they were so against homosexual marriage. He said it was because the government would force churches to marry people they didn't approve of. He seemed very surprised when I told him that wasn't true.
Posted by: Adria | May 18, 2008 4:08 PM
Well, youngster, let me tell you. Interracial marriage used to be illegal, and there was a huge backlash when it was first legalized. There were campaigns to amend the US Constitution and something like a dozen state constitutions to outlaw 'miscegenation'.
After a few years, the haters lost their heat and gave it up as a lost cause, moving on to other things. Indecency, for one. (But not genocide, war profiteering, slavery, child rape, and so on.)
Incidentally, whoever coined 'miscegenation' was an utter dolt with no comprehension of Latin. He tried to make a word out of two verbs -- miscere, to blend, and genere, to be born. This is the only case I know of where anybody tried to make a word from Latin and was as the same time a steaming pile.
Posted by: Snarly Old Fart | May 18, 2008 4:16 PM
Personally i think the two main reasons come down to these two categories:
People who object to others being happy unless, sometimes even if, they do it the exact same way as they do. These are people who are either very afraid of differences or are very unhappy themselves and resent anyone else being happy.
People who are attracted to and desirous of, possibly worried that they are, gay. To them homosexuality has to be maintained as a perpetually ugly and punished state to make it as undesirable as possible. In the hopes that this will counter their attraction to it.
IMO the whole 'God said' and 'sin' thing is simply a religious based excuse system and smokescreen for their own prejudices and fears. Certainly anyone who has read the Bible understands that according to it all sin is an 'abomination' to God. So by their own holy book the self-righteous preacher who cheats on his taxes and steals services from the society is every bit as an abomination as the gays he shakes his fist at.
Which is why I think my estimation of the main reasons holds some water.
Posted by: Art | May 18, 2008 4:31 PM
Because the main reason straight people get married is to feel superior to gay people. Duh.
Posted by: Boo | May 18, 2008 4:54 PM
Nothing new to see here. Humans, on average, have a very strong innate tendency to divide people into "us" groups and (perceived hostile) "them" groups. It's just one of the things we do, along with singing and drawing and running from snakes and lions and such. [Insert vague speculation as to how this came about when we were little hunter-gatherer bands on the African savannah.] And, of course, like most drives, this one will be stronger in a certain percentage of the population. Sex being one of the most powerful, and often weirdest and most troubling, aspects of your average human's psyche, manifestations of this tendency will tend to cluster around matters of sexuality in the minds of quite a lot of these people.
Then add religion and politics into the mix, and those people will be able to get quite a few other people, who left to their own devices might not care much, to march along with them, more or less.
Voila! I'll take my Nobel now, please.
Posted by: MPW | May 18, 2008 5:07 PM
Marriage is an economic institution. Formal marriage dates from the era when women were chattel. But the myth of marriage depends on the delusion that it has something to do with love.
Making marriage available to loving homosexuals exposes the true nature of marriage. Basically, by exposing the economic nature of marriage based on the status of women as chattel, gay marriage gives women the same economic status as men.
Opposition to gay marriage is based on the unequal status of women. If anyone can get married, women are no longer property.
That's what the fundies are afraid of, although I doubt any of them could actually articulate it.
Posted by: HP | May 18, 2008 7:51 PM
"In other words, it is supposed to be okay that Christians run around this country like MDMA-powered termites yapping about Values and The Family and decreeing"
I think you have your drug wrong, maybe you mean steroids. MDMA is Ecstasy, usually a different response. (from wiki:The drug is considered unusual for its tendency to produce feelings of euphoria, a sense of intimacy with others, and diminished feelings of fear and anxiety.)
People compain about these things because they feel threatened. It is not logical, it does not make sense, don't look for any. It is the world coming to an end syndrome. In Vermont when they passed civil unions, there was huge and powerful opposition, big take back vermont signs posted everywhere. Four years later, when the sky had failed to fall in it was not even an issue in the election.
Posted by: sailor | May 18, 2008 7:58 PM
I did mean X, oh nautical one, but should have explained my basis for this choice. The way I figure it, the loud and especially ignorant strain of Christian (formally, Dei nuxalae) actually perceives itself to be spreading a message of hope and good will and moral good, all the while being unable to perceive how addled and toxic its own thinking is. Someone using X can have a similar experience -- borderline or genuine hallucinations of positivity and benevolence brought on by the introduction of a neurotropic poison, leading, in some cases, to frank breakdown and extreme psychiatric and functional compromise.
Posted by: Kevin Beck | May 18, 2008 8:12 PM
I'm all for gay marriage. Actually, I favor the government go for civil unions for everyone, and leave churches to call it marriage or whatever they want.
But I reject this notion: ... people only have a good reason to complain when their own liberty, prosperity, or property is threatened.
I am a firm believer in universal moral absolutes. Not the god given variety, just garden variety human ones. Like slavery is evil and should be fought anywhere and everywhere it exists. Same with child sexual exploitation. And women's rights, the right to self determination, etc. It does not and should not matter that many of these do not threaten me personally, or exist thousands of miles away.
-Kevin
Posted by: kevin | May 18, 2008 8:13 PM
Well KB, I take your point but if I every see anyone stoked up on mdma who even barely resembles a bible punching homophobic preaching arsehole, I will support all efforts to have mdma banned - Oh wait a minute....
Posted by: sailor | May 18, 2008 8:38 PM
Pretty much any argument against gay marriage falls into of of four categories:
1. The Bible says so
2. Ignorance about homosexuality
3. Bigotry
4. Fear of change
Posted by: Brandon | May 18, 2008 9:17 PM
You forgot:
5. They think it's icky. (Unless it's two girls and they're hawt.)
Posted by: chancelikely | May 18, 2008 9:28 PM
I suspect that HP is on the right track. Since the nature of this issue means that it really does not effect people who aren't involved (i.e., one of the gay people actually getting married) in any direct way, there must be an economic component. I doubt that most of the people who froth at the mouth against it are even aware of this, but I'm guessing that there are people in the churches (and other conservative segments of society) who really don't want the economic benefits of marriage opened up to this whole new group of people. Which is part of the reason the whole thing makes me so angry - I don't like the fact that I am given rights and benefits to which some of my friends are not entitled, just because of their sexual preference.
Then again, the most recent argument I've heard against gay marriage was the typical "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!" - that "it is known that the only appropriate family situation for a child is when there are two parents, one of each gender." *rolls eyes* In spite of the fact that humans have been successfully raising children in a wide variety of family structures other than this very limited idea of "nuclear family" throughout history (not to mention pre-history).
Mostly, I think it comes down to people being afraid of anything which doesn't validate their own way of life. It must be terrifying to be so small-minded that someone else's marriage feels like such a threat. Sad, really, and I guess I feel sorry for people who are so intolerant. Well no, I don't feel sorry for them, really. Maybe if they would STFU and leave all the rest of us alone I'd have more sympathy.
Posted by: Wendy | May 18, 2008 9:32 PM
Kevin:
"I reject this notion: '... people only have a good reason to complain when their own liberty, prosperity, or property is threatened.'"
I agree with what you're saying and I don't think I was covering all of the bases I intended to with the phrase you quoted.
I would argue that things like slavery, child abuse, and especially the suppression of women's rights (most of us men were born with mothers, after all, and some of us even have wives and sisters) do impact all members of society in some way, or at least have the potential to do so in demonstrably harmful ways. If a friend or family member or co-worker is directly impacted by such solecisms, I can get off easier than they can but do not escape unscathed.
I guess this is the critical difference: Slavery, child abuse, etc. are all destructive, holding back the lives of those directly affected and possibly serving as a negative influence in others' lives as well. Gay marriage by definition enhances the lives of those directly affected and, leaving aside cynical parents of gays and whatnot, cannot harm anyone not directly affected.
Wendy:
"Then again, the most recent argument I've heard against gay marriage was the typical 'THINK OF THE CHILDREN!' - that 'it is known that the only appropriate family situation for a child is when there are two parents, one of each gender.'"
I think of the children every time I see an 18-year-old science and math whiz who is a natural leader, cares about people, and can write up a storm, and thanks to her parents thinks that she needs to believe a bunch of toxic bullshit or else suffer in eternal anguish. It would be preferable to have America's preschoolers subjected to gay scat/snuff films right before nap hour every day than be poisoned with the Jesus byrus.
As usual, there is not a single consequence-based argument against gay marriage out there. People have tried with their mental dicks at a quarter mast to make such arguments, and they have repeatedly failed with flying colors. It all comes down to the Bible and the programmed uber-Christian impulse to meddle, corrupt, beshit, and destroy. It's a shame that people can point to the violent nature of contemporary Islam as a means of pretending we don't have millions of our own pestilential assholes shambling around these United States with all the comprehension and sympathy of gypsy moths.
Posted by: Kevin Beck | May 18, 2008 10:20 PM
"I am a firm believer in universal moral absolutes."
Interesting stance, especially since you deny any particular metaphysical source for these absolutes, yet call on a metaphysical (how else can you define "garden variety" morals as a general standard, unless you call on a meta-authority; "garden variety" morals must vary from, at least, culture to culture, and probably from person to person - so your enumeration of what constitutes a moral 'absolute' is only your conception of the moral standards which should be forced on others - pretty much what you accuse the anti-gay marriage crowd of doing).
As an example, you clam that slavery is a moral no-no, yet also claim that self-determination is an absolute right. so what happens if a person wants exercise their right to self-determination by selling, or even just giving, themselves into slavery? Is that person's self-determinatory right to be abrogated because you find slavery to be abhorrent?
Your claim appears to be that people of any gender can marry, because you don't find that abhorrent, but a person can't sell themseles into slavery because you do find that to be wrong. Without some sort of valid meta-authority (the emphasis here is on 'valid' in the scientifically-proveable sense, otherwise you are right back at religion as a validating authority) to show that your conception of the 'correct' moral absolutes is right, those conventions are merely opinion - same as the anti-gay marriage crowd.
The long and short of it is that "moral absolutes" generally aren't, and those that claim to know moral absolutes are merely parroting the social mores of their community.
Posted by: hopper3011 | May 19, 2008 3:34 AM
Talking about moral viewpoints, religious people tend to assume a more deontological, Kant-like, standpoint. Interestingly, a deonotlogical standpoint does not require you to empathize with the subject under judgment at all. Which means, it is perfect for institutions, but not for single individuals. How does this work, then?
Strong emotional reactions help accept a deontological statement such as "same-sex marriage is always bad, no matter what the consequences are". If you have a strong feeling of repulsion directed against homosexuality, you will more easily endorse this deontological (and religious) point of view.
As that point of view is a moral absolute, you will be pissed about homosexuality even if it happens on the other side of the globe.
I hope this explanation makes sense to you...
Posted by: steppen wolf | May 19, 2008 4:24 AM
Which neatly ignores the reality that there are already several hundred thousand children being raised by gay couples, without the legal protections marriage would provide. 'Think of the children' is an argument for gay marriage, not against. But it's not as if bigots tend to care much who gets hurt, so long as they get their way.
Posted by: MartinM | May 19, 2008 5:24 AM
I think the main reason why the people who are against gay marriage (and homosexuality in general) are so adamant about it is FEAR. I encounter many people who are vehemently against the idea. I once had a pretty heated converstaion with my manager and co-workers on the subject of homosexuality. What I walked away from it with was the notion that these people are afraid of anyone who is different from themselves. It is ignorance and a lack of exposure to other cultures and lifestyles which makes them fearful. That, and the fact that they are not secure enough in their own beliefs and ways of life to let other people comfortably live theirs. In other words, they are afraid that somehow they will be changed and influenced by this; society, and the world as they know it, will fall apart. It is basically an issue of close-mindedness.
I am appalled by these attitudes, but also really want to understand why certain people feel this way.
Also, I think that faith is very different from the religious institution. It is possible to be both religious and open-minded; let's not fall into the same trap as the close-minded fearful people by stereotyping all people who are religious. It is when people get too caught up in the rules of any religious institution that faith of any kind starts to lose its meaning.
Posted by: Jade | May 19, 2008 8:46 AM
I think it pretty much all boils down to people being scared to death if everyone isn't like them because of what they think it says about their own position.
They think we're all slime mold and the only way we can avoid it is to glom on to each other. Of course, this makes those individuals who don't conform nothing but slime in their eyes.
Posted by: Ian | May 19, 2008 12:27 PM
Well done, Kevin. Regarding your point number 4. Nothing irks me more than ignorant bigots who don't understand "separation of powers" ranting about how The Will of the People (TM) has been usurped by "elite, activist" judges when these same bigots hypocritically encourage, applaud, and file amicus briefs for (activist?) judges to overturn laws with which they disagree.
We Americans love our democracy, and so nothing gets The People to oppose an idea like telling them that it's being eroded.
Posted by: fannie | May 19, 2008 3:56 PM
On the "activist judges" meme, I remember how many nutasses were hurling that throaty cry around after the Dover ID creationism massacre. They didn't bother to apprise themselves of the fact that Judge Jones was a Bush-appointed Methodist with conservative leanings, But why would they? If religious half-wits ever actually bothered investigating anything before screeching about it, they couldn't be half the destructive (but occasionally hilarious) force they are today.
Posted by: Kevin Beck | May 19, 2008 4:20 PM
As a Bible-believing Christian, I find this issue a frustrating one for a number of reasons. If I had to be pigeonholed into a particular political party, I would probably be labeled a Libertarian. I do not believe in the idea of legislating morality if peace can be maintained (I Timothy 2:1-2). Like Kevin (not Beck), I believe that there are moral absolutes. Yet I also agree with hopper3011 that moral absolutes can only exist if there is a meta-authority providing an objective moral framework. As a Christian, I use the Bible as such an anchoring authority.
The historic concept of marriage is a religious one, with the Christian model being established in the second chapter of Genesis, which most certainly refers to a heterosexual relationship. That text along with the Bible’s explicitly labeling of homosexual conduct as sin provides the moral backdrop from the Christian perspective when it comes to same-sex marriage. However, just because this is the moral stand that I have taken does not mean that I believe that it is right for the government to legislate along the same lines, as there are people who find my beliefs on morality offensive and/or ridiculous. In I Timothy 2:2, Paul encourages his protégé Timothy to pray for those in authority, that the early Christians may “lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.” Other than that, there is little scriptural support for political activism in forcing a certain set of beliefs on an unbelieving group of people.
While I would be disappointed in a same-sex marriage blessed by a church claiming to follow the Bible, I am not opposed to secular marriages (“civic unions” or whatever you want to call them) for same-sex couples. Now for what frustrates me...
Many (perhaps most) Christians appear to be fueled by bigotry when it comes to this particular issue (homosexuality). Instead of taking a loving “judge not, lest you be judged” approach, I would agree that fear and hatred are at the center of the righteous indignation which are on full display from the Christian community. This is disappointing. Now if you find my approach to be patronizing and/or insulting for different reasons, so be it. If there are moral absolutes (and I happen to believe that there are as outlined in the Bible), then homosexuality is either a sin or it’s not. However, I strongly believe that it’s not the government’s job to legislate morality absent concerns to public health and safety.
Posted by: Lofcaudio | May 19, 2008 4:29 PM
"Now if you find my approach to be patronizing and/or insulting for different reasons, so be it."
No, actually, while I obviously don't see things within the same framework, and have a very simple (from my standpoint) solution to what is obviously a significant quandary, I find the bulk of your comments here -- and more importantly their implications for society as a whole -- refreshing.
Posted by: Kevin Beck | May 19, 2008 4:33 PM