(no subject)

[collacentaur]

daeron requested a rant on gay marriage, optionally including separate by equal. I've been holding off on this one, partially because I wanted to refer to one of my college textbooks.[1] However, it looks like it'll be at least another couple of weeks before I get up to my parents' to reclaim the books, and I feel like ranting today.

The short version of my opinion is that I support gay marriage, for both political and social reasons.

I talk, sometimes, about how my parents have no friends and no social life. This isn't strictly true, because my mom's in the church choir and has friends there, but my father really doesn't have any friends in the area. However, that wasn't always the case. When I was younger, they used to double-date with a couple they knew in town, one of whom was a co-worker of Dad's. They still tell a story about a memorable trip to a Chinese restaurant. The other couple helped out with our yard work, brought toys and books to me and my brother, and invited us all to dinner. When they moved out of town, my parents stopped going out in the evenings.

Now, obviously, they were a gay couple, or the story wouldn't be relevant. Wilbur and Bob have been together longer than my parents have been married. Last I heard, they and their dog were living in Provincetown, and Bob had become an interior decorator. How stereotypical can you get?

It's thinking about Wilbur and Bob that really pisses me off when I hear people saying that gay marriage is a threat to the sanctity of marriage, or calling the various bits of legislation that have come up Defense of Marriage. Leaving aside whether it is right or wrong, legally or morally, how exactly does this stable, faithful couple (or the others like them) threaten marriage and an institution? My parents' marriage was certainly never threatened by them. I don't think we would see a sudden rush of people leaving hetero marriages for gay marriages - most gays in hetero marriages end up leaving anyway, sooner or later. I can see the argument that no-fault divorce, or divorce at all, threatens marriage. Certainly a culture tolerant of infidelity threatens marriage. There are a lot of cultural factors that can threaten marriage, in fact. But I don't think that people who want to be married and make it work are among them.

As for the sanctity of it - well, let's go back and separate some elements here, shall we? A hetero couple that wants to marry has two basic options, the "church wedding" [2] or the civil ceremony. In essence, either they recognize the state government as the authority, or they recognize a higher power, which I shall refer to as God without intent to exclude other perceptions thereof. [3]

Gay marriage in the context of a church wedding really becomes a matter of the belief structure of that faith, except for where it is linked to the civil system. Some churches will never permit it, no matter what the state may say. Others have long had commitment ceremonies, blessings of unions, or honest-to-goodness weddings for gay couples, regardless of whether they are recognized by the state. I could be wrong, but it seems likely to me that the former are unlikely to have as many gay members as the latter anyway. In the long run, the religious validity is in the eyes of God. If we could know for certain what the right answers are, there wouldn't be multiple religions anyway. So, perhaps God doesn't approve, and gay marriage does violate the sanctity of marriage as an institution. If that were the case, A) it's been happening a long time, and B) the laws that get passed aren't going to change the positions of the churches or the position of God. And look, we're back to the First Amendment question from the last rant: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." Guess why this has been on a state level, folks. My own personal belief on the subject: if God had a problem with homosexuality, he wouldn't have created it. If God had a problem with gay marriage, there wouldn't be homosexuality in species that mate for life. It exists in nature, in animals who don't consider the possible morality of their acts. Perhaps I'm silly to extrapolate from animals to humans, but that's just how I see it.

Oh, yes, and then there's "tradition". They wish to claim that marriage, and always has been, between one man and one woman. Well, Islamic tradition is that a man may have as many as four wives, as long as he can support them all and treats them all equally. The Mormons have a history of polygamy, although they have repudiated it. Lots of traditions exist outside of the Judeo-Christian. Admittedly, the U.S. was founded as and continues to be a Christian nation. However, if we are claiming to be tolerant, and to have no state religion, then perhaps we should recognize that not all moral and ethical systems have the same premises. Also admittedly, the only examples I can produce without research are of one man, multiple wives. I don't have examples of the reverse, nor of the subject at hand. However, I'm willing to bet they exist.

So, if we take the religion out of the question, we're left with a secular, political question. If we do not fall back on religion and tradition, then to me, it appears that this is a simple case of gender discrimination. If you do not permit a man to marry another man, when they would be free to marry if one of them was a woman, you are discriminating on the basis of sex. If you extend health benefits to a long-term boyfriend of your secretary, but not to the girlfriend of the woman sitting next to her, you are discriminating on the basis of sex.[4]

Some relatively progressive areas, in the hopes of warding off the whole issue, have established domestic partnerships as an alternative to marriage that is permitted to gay couples. On the one hand, I hate to denigrate it, because it is better than nothing everywhere, and in some places, it approaches what it should be. However, you would think that the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s would have proven that "separate but equal" isn't. If it were truly equal, why would it have to be separate? [5] In the case of the domestic partnerships, from what I've read, they aren't truly equal, because they don't convey all the same benefits as a civil marriage. Until there is no reason for a hetero couple not to choose a domestic partnership instead of a non-church marriage, then the domestic partnerships aren't equal. And if it's really that important to make the word marriage only apply to a hetero couple, then make marriage the church ceremony, call the existing civil marriage a civil union and let everyone have access to it, and get rid of the partial solution altogether.

My friends and I used to play wedding after church on Sundays, just as people play house or school. We would go out to the church gardens, and have a procession. Jess was always the bride, and Melissa the groom, and I was the priest. Looking back on it, I wonder if it was a trifle prophetic. Melissa is unlikely to ever marry a man, but there's a decent chance she may marry a woman someday. I have often felt a strong inclination toward the priesthood [7], and while I don't have a true calling at present, I still believe that the answer I've been given is not "No" but "Not yet." Perhaps what I'm waiting for is a change in the laws, or in the accepted custom, that would make more of my beliefs commonly acceptable. I've often thought wistfully that I would like to marry my friends (as in perform the ceremony), although as time goes by, my friends marry around me, and I have not found a true vocation, that seems less and less likely. Maybe what I'm waiting for is the chance to perform the ceremony for my gay friends, and all the controversy going on at present is why I've been kept away from it.

Maybe it's nothing more than a strange set of ideas from a strange woman.

_______________________________

[1] One of my religion classes was a Ritual Studies class, focused on the ritual of marriage. It included traditions, symbolism, sacred texts, and romantic literature, from several world religions. I don't really remember how much information we actually got, but I wanted to take a look.

[2] I use "church wedding" in the most inclusive sense possible - a pagan ceremony in the garden or on the beach under the stars, just as much as the wedding in The Sound of Music

[3] Not only do I qualify everything, these days I do it in pseudo-legalese. *sigh* But seriously, I know my terminology doesn't apply to everyone, but I'm trying to get at root concepts - the similarities, rather than the differences. I think everyone knows where I'm coming from, but I also know that the one time I don't specify will be the one time that somebody takes offense.

[4] I don't think all orientation discrimination is a subset of gender discrimination, but a significant subset is - and it's the first and easiest foothold in the battle against it. The other major subset has to do with reactions, harassment, and a lot of other subjective elements, and is harder to isolate and to fight, except by general change of attitudes over time.

[5] The only persisting separate-but-equal institution that the overwhelming majority will support wholeheartedly? Public restrooms. Even then, most of the time they aren't equal. Women's rooms sometimes have larger capacity, and are sometimes a little nicer. They are more likely to have baby-changing tables. Men's rooms have urinals. [6] The restrooms that are equal are generally the ones that are equally unpleasant or inconvenient for everyone.

[6] Urinals for women do exist. I've seen them. Women won't use them, though. And they don't actually take up less space, nor is it faster to use them, so that's not strange.

[7] I'm Episcopalian, so yes, I mean priest, not minister or pastor.

Comments

[daeron.livejournal.com]

Nicely ranted, dear!

[silversetsun.livejournal.com]

In general, well put, although I have one major problem with a possible solution of yours to 'civil marriage.'

It all fell apart when you said "call the existing civil marriage a civil union and let everyone have access to it, and get rid of the partial solution altogether." This sets a bad precedent, because it simply says, "We hate fags so much that we rather destroy marriage then include them in it." Imagine if a backlash to the civil rights movement was so fierce instead of integrating the white-only schools in the 1950s, they [the whites] decided that nobody should have school lest their children be exposed to the filth that is niggers and burnt them all down?

But to be honest, your "compromise" was my original solution to the debate until I started volunteering at Canadians for Equal Marriage (http://equal-marriage.ca/). Alex Munter, the spokesman for CEM, in a phone call which I overheard (I was one cubical over) explained it quite eloquently with the comparison I just gave to you.

In the end, destroying civil marriage to prevent same-sex couples from 'marrying' is not only selfish, but contrary to the gay-rights movement. Homosexuals wanted to be treated equal, and no special changes are really needed (except a few gender specific words here and there in laws) to achieve such equality.

[daeron.livejournal.com]

Quite frankly, though, most homosexuals don't care if their marriage (or whatever) is called "marriage" or "civil union" or "unity" or "ralph". We just want to be able to have it. So fine. Take what we currently call "marriage" and call it "ralph". And then make sure that everyone is allowed to get "ralphed".

That'd be fine with me. I don't care what they call it, as long as I'm allowed to spend my life with the partner of my choice, and not suffer at the hands of the government because of it.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, personally, I care about this because I'd rather be included in something unchanged from it's current form save for a restrictive definition, other than completely destroying/changing the intent/meaning of the law. Though you are not the first homosexual fairly older than I to express those sentiments, I am starting to think of it as a generational rift.

A similar generation rift exists when it comes to heterosexuals accepting same-sex marriage, where younger (or more educated) people are more accepting.

(PS. This is silversetsun, but I'm too lazy to figure out what my password is.)

[daeron.livejournal.com]

GENERATIONAL RIFT??? Remind me to be the snot out of you.

Generational rift.

Hrmf

[collacentaur.livejournal.com]

*grin* See? There's worse than what I say...

[daeron.livejournal.com]

And he's younger than you are too. Next time he logs on to LUN, he's SO getting smited!

[collacentaur.livejournal.com]

He'd have to be. I couldn't claim a generation gap. (Thank goodness. I hope we never reach a point at which a decade is sufficient time for a true generation!)

[silversetsun.livejournal.com]

This is just me, saying that this post is actually mine.

[collacentaur.livejournal.com]

Oh, certainly, I'd rather see everyone just accept that people are people. Period. It's the best answer, always has been. But then, as blackfog points out below, the US still hasn't managed to pass the ERA prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex. This is not a country with a good track record for accepting equality for ANYONE! (From what I've read, Canada seems to be so much saner a place in so many ways.)

I accept the validity of your example. Perhaps someone should hold that up to the "sanctity of marriage" crew as a suggestion that they are the ones destroying it. The problem is, they wouldn't listen. The law doesn't require much change to achieve equality, but the people certainly do. One of the reasons I don't work in politics is that I can't stand the bigotry and the irrationality.

In the meantime, I'm more concerned that all of my friends be able to (for example) be able to visit their loved ones in the hospital, not be excluded because they don't have the legal status of next-of-kin. And so on.

[blackfog.livejournal.com]

Actually, while polygynous or polyandrous "marriages" aren't common, they do exist. Polyandry, though odd, does have a few examples--there's a (small) culture in southwestern (?) India that practices polyandry.

The problem is that "marriage" has one real purpose--to legitimize children. It's not about "sactity," it's about knowing who gets your stuff. However, such concepts matter only in patrilineal cultures (for the most part); matrilineal cultures often care not a bit who the father of a child is, and often care less about "marriage" at all. Gets a little weird when you're both matrilineal and patriarchal, but that's a different issue.

But, without the anthropological tirade, the "sanctity of marriage" is a Judeo-Christian concept for the most part (including its offshoots) and by far cannot be attributed to "all history as we know it."

Now, most of these approaches don't talk about homosexuality at all, but the point is that the concept of marriage that's being upheld here has no bearing on many cultures or on history. "Human society" isn't going to fall apart because cultures embrace alternative familial structures.

The point I make is that the entire concept of attempting to define marriage therefore imposes upon the rights of the freedom of religion and the freedom to be culturally who you are (though this one isn't protected, necessarily, though "freedom of expression" covers it).

Thus, the prevention of polygamy among Muslims (albeit: "if you fear you cannot do justice among co-wives, then marry only one wife") or Mormons (though not an accepted practice religiously anymore), or even the practice of the Jewish Levirate, or any other (less known) practice of polygyny or polyandry should be unconstitutional in its own right.

By extension, then, two loving men or two loving women or any combination thereof is purely an extension of this concept.

Personally, I don't care if you wanted to marry a sea turtle, so long as the sea turtle loves you back and wants to spend his or her life with you. But, in the end, a "civil union" is nothing more than marriage by a different name. Ignoring it and labeling it differently isn't going to make it different. If I start calling myself Stella, it's not going to change anything other than to make people look at me strangely (since I don't look like a Stella).

OK. I've forgotten where I was going with this...I just wanted to point out some alternative family structures from an anthropological perspective. Some people need to look more closely around their world for a little while.

[blackfog.livejournal.com]

Actually, the common law concept also destroys the "sactity of marriage" if you want to get down to it. But, nevertheless, this is allowed.

But, yes, it's about gender discrimination--or, more specifically, fear and ignorance. But, then, that's the basis for all types of discrimination and prejudice.

Would love to see the ERA get passed; it'd make this entire issue disappear legally...but I'm not getting my hopes up. Still, it's been ratified by 35/38 required states. Gets closer every year. It's taken since 1923, but... (If we're wondering: The 15 states that have not ratified the ERA are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, and Virginia. Not shocked by that...)

I'll ignore the "conservative" push for a "defense of marriage" amendment entirely.

[daeron.livejournal.com]

I just had to post the link to this rant in my LJ. If nothing else, I knew silversetsun would comment (at least to provide the Canadian POV). I'm hoping one or two others will too (especially kerberos2 and kyrene).

[collacentaur.livejournal.com]

*grin* So now I have people who've done research and know what they're talking about descending on my off-the-cuff BS. Gee, thanks. ;-)

The Canadian POV (as noted above) generally appears to me to be considerably saner on the subject. As with so many other subjects.

[silversetsun.livejournal.com]

Yes, because Canadians are totally better than Yanks.

[silversetsun.livejournal.com]

And you were right. Not only did I provide a Canadian point of view, I provided the younger generation's point of view too!

*giggles* you so asked for that one.