To the gay DU'ers...and others who might want to comment.

[terrya]

There's been some very thoughtful posts about gay marriage here as of late. Informative, interesting.

A naive question, maybe.

Honestly, what is it about the idea of gay people marrying that sets so many people off? Here we are on the brink of potentially amending the Constitution of the United States to permanently codifying discrimination (and that's really what the Federal Marriage Amendment is all about). Maybe it's my paranoid side showing, but I see this amendment as saying to gay people, "You are second class citizens and you always will be. You don't deserve the same rights as others"

My God. What is it about us that is so threatening to these people? More than likely, they'll never see a gay or lesbian marriage ceremony. How is gay or lesbian people getting married going to affect them personally?

I guess one thing I'm after is what are the rationales behind homophobia. But maybe that's too much of a question to ask here.


Thank you for your responses in advance, if any.

[arwalden]

1. Two Possible Reasons...

1) Self-loathing and denial. As many have done before them (myself included) the act of persecuting Queers helps to convince others (and themselves) that they aren't gay, or that they don't have doubts about their own sexuality.

2) They always need a demon... a villain... a bogeyman. Sometimes it's "abortionists"... sometimes it's atheists... sometimes its communists. This election season it's Queers.

-- Allen

[Don_G]

2. I've Never Understood That

I'm straight, secure in my values and don't see the gay community as any threat to me whatsoever. I suppose I need to read Mein Kampf again to see the same threat the Fundies do now.

[La_Serpiente]

3. A lot of it

is good ole' fashion fear and ignorance.

I think because our Democratic leaders just roll over on this issue is because there is a stigma towards gay marriage. I think there is hatred towards GLBT people out there, but I think a lot of the people who are against gay marriage don't hate gays. I think they are only against gay marriage because they have not heard a compelling argument for it and most national candidates or figureheads do not articulate a message for it.

As far as for the people who hate gays, I don't think we can change them. Some people just don't change.

[meegbear]

4. As the text of a previuos post stated ...

They maintain that the purpose of marriage is 1. procreation, 2. that children were better off in male-female unions, and 3. that gay unions would pose a burden to the state.

1. Nowhere in the marriage "contract" does it state a couple must procreate. By using this logic, infertile persons can not get married.

2. This is based on the "need" for a "traditional" family for a child to grow up "healthy". When I grew up I saw a lot traditional families treat their kids like crap. A child needs the love and nuturing of an adult to help them grow - sexual prefernence has no bearing here.

At the bar where I work door, the lesbian bartender has raised her son basically on her own and he is one of the smartest and polite kids I ever met. I remember reading on the ACLU website about a judge who took a child away from the father, who was living with his partner, and gave sole custody to the mother, an alcoholic and drug abuser, saying it was the "lesser of two evils". Lord knows what happening with that kid now.

3. This makes no sense. In what way? That the state will have to give state employees medical benefits, etc? Considering that they'll tell you only 2-3% of the population is gay, I don't see how that would be that great of a burdon.

It's just fear; there's safety in numbers when you learn to divide.

[ott]

5. I don't understand the problem

I'm a heterosexual atheist with a vasectomy. I'm within my rights to marry. But, I fall on the other side of the only arguments I've heard against gay marriage. The church is not a factor, and I can't reproduce.

It's bigotry, plain and simple. Consenting adults should be able to marry whoever they want, regardless of race, religion, or gender.

[mdmc]

6. Being gay is a sin

marrying gays justifys sin. Hiding being gay is the way to go.
Basic arguement.

[LeahMira]

24. Marrying gays "justifies" their humanity.

Being gay is a sin.... marrying gays justifys sin. Hiding being gay is the way to go. Basic arguement.


I think you're pretty much right on with this, mdmc. I also think that while most of these people who are having fits about the possibility of equal rights for people who are homosexual are not aware of ever seeing or meeting anyone who is homosexual. They have seen photos or clips of gay pride parades or various protests, and they imagine that two "boy George types" are going to be living next door and smooching out by the backyard barbeque where their kids can see what's happening. What we don't know and understand, we fear.

But also your remark includes another issue and that is sort of philosophical. The issue: Is it possible for a moral individual to live a moral life in an immoral society? Given that some people think gayness is immoral and abortion is immoral and even the National Endowment for the Arts is immoral, these people feel that it is incumbent upon them to create a moral society in which they may live a moral life. Or else. But, given that others think prejudice of any sort is immoral, and that denial of rights is immoral, these people feel that it is incumbent upon them to create a society in which they can lead a moral life.

The problem comes when the right wing denies the rest of us the freedom to choose which moral principles we affirm. IOW, I don't see that any of us would try to prevent a closet gay from seeking out therapy or spiritual counseling that would attempt to change his or her orientation, and certainly none of us would force abortion or euthanasia on anyone who does not want that for themselves.

I happen to think it is possible for a moral individual to live a moral life in an immoral society. It wouldn't be easy, but it is possible. Throughout history, people have lived through horrible times and have refused to lose their humanity or to become worse than animals. They may, however, need to die for their moral principles.

I would like to think that I would be willing to die for my beliefs. I can't imagine living happily while surrendering them on a daily basis. The way I see it, though, is that I am not forcing anyone to conform to my morality, while the right wing would force me to conform to theirs.

So, is it possible for a right winger to live a moral life in what s/he considers an immoral society if that allegedly immoral society allows the right winger "space" to operate on the basis of his/her own morality in his or her own personal life?

And, can anyone really choose to lead a good life if there are no other choices available?

Or maybe that's not the issue at all? Do I know? :shrug:

[Melsky]

7. I'll never understand those people

I personally find fundamentalist Christians very offensive, but I don't want to stop them from getting married.

[mdmc]

9. marry, not reproduce

:kick:

[Rowdyboy]

8. Societal evolution

When I came of age in the late '60's-early '70's, the entire topic of homosexuality was off the table. My mom's first cousin was gay and through she adored him, that subject was simply taboo. "Everything You Aways Wanted to Know About Sex but Were Afraid to Ask" was THE sex book of the time. It taught that homosexuality was little more than an illness. Gay oriented magazines/fiction was available in my small southern town, but no one I knew had the guts to take it to the cashier and buy it. (I stole porn because I was too embarrassed to pay for it). In 1969, gays in Greenwich Village grew tired of being harrassed and rioted (Stonewall), starting a VERY SLOW process of societal evolution that led to gay pride, civil unions, and an Episcopal bishop..

35 years later, I feel no lingering trace of embarrassment when I say that I'm gay. What was anathema then, is :yawn: boring now. Sure, the day will eventually come when people like me have the same rights as everyone else-just not in my lifetime. Still, I consider myself blessed to have experienced life in this time period, as opposed to earlier parts of American history when even more open bigotry and oppression were far more common than today.

[Lexingtonian]

10. Not too much of a question at all

Ancient peoples spent a lot of time and effort figuring out the rules of Nature. It took a lot of composing deities and intricate stories to come up with a coherent and encompassing understanding, such as it was, to account for all of what they observed and had to deal with.

In the absence of verifiable and concrete information (which ultimately physical science has supplied) it was necessary to create doctrines that made consistent schemes of belief possible.

There had to be some separation of psychological realms and the physical world in these doctrines, but it was very hard to formulate it. Most peoples simplified one into the other. Northern peoples in didfficult climates tended to simplify the psychological realm and subordinate most of it to physical causes, to Nature. Peoples in environments that needed much less intricate explanations to function in well, e.g. the Semitic world, tended to ignore Nature per se and melded it into their relatively psychological worldview scheme. Some, e.g. the central and western Mediterranean peoples took a third route and just broke down the distinction and made anthropocentrism central.

Anyway, the idea that came from a doctrine termed Nature is that there are things that are Natural and things that are contrary to it, the Unnatural. Some things appear Unnatural- infants with birth defects, cancerous growths, animals and people in psychotic fits. Others become Unnatural, via behavior, and the doctrine of Demonic Possession was created to account for it- partly based on the psychotic and traumatic behavior of people who contracted diseases like rabies or took certain kinds of poisons (rye ergot is a psychogen, and affliction with it must have been common).

What we know from ancient sources is that all kinds of Rules and beliefs were concocted from the many observations of insanity and misbehavior and psychopathologies, and since they were based on small sample sizes and a lot of magical thinking and failure to account for a lot of evidence properly they led to bad generalizations that soon became Custom. Custom is an ironfisted oppression in small societies.

Homosexuality was Unnatural, as were twins and people with certain kinds of physical defects, and particularly people with all the psychiatric disorders we know about now. They violated the demands of Nature, and Nature needed a lot of helping out in ancient times in its keeping human society functional. Some societies made standard sociopolitical offenses, e.g. murder and adultery and lese majeste, part of a continuum of things Natural and Unnatural and sanctioned or forbidden by the Deities enforcing the Laws of Nature. But the bottom line was that offenders/deviants were killed as violaters of the Order of Nature or demonically possessed.

To some extent that will, as a whole, have had some basis in necessity for the collective- those infected with rabies or murderous psychotics or literally howling lunatics couldn't be tolerated or kept alive for long even with greatest hope and sympathy without sacrificing the welfare of the collective. They were probably ritually killed at first, then situationally, and finally dogmatically, and then the list of death penalty offenses and conditions got extended to horse thieves, adulterers, sodomites, heretics, etcetera as time went on. The priests will have tried to be consistent, but when the criteria are loose and without a firm line when not to there's just no slowing of the rate of execution.

So the Big Deal about gay marriage is that it predicately violates ancient tradition/doctrine that the world of Nature has an Order than needs to be obeyed and enforced. Where people have very minimal sense of having the legitimacy to dispute or amend tradition, as the traditionalistic immigrants to the Americas do and passed on to their tradition-clinging children, and they have in fact very little in the way of a coherent understanding of their ethnic/religious tradition, they don't dare tamper with it. The dogma of obedience to the Order of Nature is often the one thing that is very clear to them, the basic tenet of what gives them identity (yet is not actually American).

People who feel able to negotiate/amend their ethnic/religious tradition, or don't have a concrete one, can live with a thing like gay marriage. The others cling to fragments or fossilized doctrines.

[Terran]

19. Do you have any sources that would corroborate

any of this? Because I don't agree with a lot of what you're saying. I don't see how you can possibly make these broad generalizations about all of humanity. What specific society or societies are you talking about, anyway? If what you're saying were true, then history would be one big parade of homosexuals being burned at the stake, and that simply never happened.

I don't believe that any ancient society would have viewed homosexuality the way you're describing, because it didn't exist in it's current form in ancient cultures. There was no 'gay culture' as we have known it in the West these past few centuries. That, IMO, is a product of the rise of technology, large cities and the middle classes. Before that era, for men, homosexual sex was something you simply did in the absence of any available females. And because women were often in living situations that separated them from men much of the time, no doubt lesbian sex often went on when the men weren't around.

This is still true to a great extent in conservative Arab cultures, where many women and men tend to still carry on separate lives. Homosexual behavior is simply an unacknowledged undercurrent of life in those societies. There is no need to acknowledge it because it lacks the status as a separate culture, as it has here in the West. Normally people who engage in homosexual behavior in those countries are not subject to penalties for it, but with the rise of Islamic Fundamentalism, that is changing.

[Bridget Burke]

23. What about the "Berdache"?

That's the European word describing men "displaying feminine characteristics" in some Native American cultures. They were recognized as special, lived as women & "married" other men.



Not all cultures are identical!

www.breakaway.org/openstudio/sylviawhite/bertrad.htm

[ecstatic]

11. People argue that its a slippery slope

That if gays are allowed to marry, then whats to stop people from marrying objects or animals. Frankly, the slippery slope argument is ridiculous and defies common sense.

[Gman]

12. A profoundly absurd argument

the slippery slope.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

13. A lot of the objectors are those who wish to control others lives.

[SheilaT]

14. It's my opinion

that a lot of those who are most against homosexuality in general and gay marriage in particular are apt to have a very vivid image in their head of what those couples are actually doing in private. And are disgusted by it and therefore feel justified in their opposition to such things.

Personally, I prefer not to imagine what other people do when alone with each other.

The whole "marriage is solely for the purpose of reproduction" argument has always struck me as especially dumb. So people who don't intend to have kids shouldn't be allowed to marry? People (women mostly) who are past the age of reproduction shouldn't be allowed to marry? How absurd!

[Stuckinthebush]

15. We straight white guys are really insecure folk...

;)

I saw a bumper sticker the other day on a Mercedes driven by a middle age white guy. It said, "I love my wife!" Now I ask you, why do you need to put that on your car? The other side of the bumper had a Promise Keepers sticker. These fundamental heterosexual middle age white guys are so unsure of their feelings, beliefs, and general position in society that they go to great lengths to affirm the status quo. The promise keeper types seem to be pushing down feelings of discomfort in their lives that they have to scream at the top of their lungs, "I LOVE MY WIFE!!" Well, I love my wife too, but am secure in that as is she. Why the need to scream about it? Because of insecurity.

We are fragile sort, really. We have been given the world on a platter, and when we run into ideas that challenge that gift, we fight. Homosexuality has scared the bejeesus out of us for centuries. More specifically, gay men have scared the bejeesus out of us...we actually fantasize about lesbians. If we allow gay marriage to become "normal", then we have to acknowledge that gay people are not "abnormal". Well, gay men are attracted to other men. We can't have that because it makes us nervous. If it makes us nervous we have to fight it. If we have to fight it, by god, we have to win. To win, we will do anything - even dehumanize our opponent. So, gay people must be less than human and therefore shouldn't have the same rights as we that are more human. It's a sick, twisted argument, but that is what we straight white guys do. Look, we straight white guys own this world, and if we don't like something, it ain't gonna happen.

Go to any college campus...who populates the college Republicans? Straight white guys. What do they look like? Traditional dress. How do they interact with their counterparts? Like traditional males - much bravado and machismo. Why? Because this is what they are supposed to do and if they think too much about societal influences or critical theory then cognitive dissonance becomes too great and their foundation crumbles. Homosexuality threatens that foundation.

I'm rambling here, but the point is that we straight white guys are the problem. You know what we need? We need to become friends with gay guys. We need to feel a bond and friendship with gay guys. Once that happens, it is very, very hard to condemn them. I have known a military guy who (admittedly) was very anti-gay, and then after becoming very good friends with a gay couple, became less so. Today, he is an advocate for gay rights. Go figure. What did it take? Familiarity.

Here is a solution to the straight white guy problem: Every gay man on DU should go out and adopt two straight guys. Take them under your wing. Become their friends. Help them understand societal forces that keep their minds from expanding. They will understand eventually, and then they will challenge their straight white friends to rethink positions.

It might work.

[Rowdyboy]

17. Great post,

great ideas. I love "adopt-a-straight". I did my educating in college and in the first decade after I graduated. You're right, once they become friends, straight guys are usually capablle of growing and getting past this bullshit. I've never lost a friend over the issue.

[ScreamingMeemie]

16. I really think it comes down to the ridiculous fears that homosexuals

are after our children. Honestly, I have heard so much of it lately from other parents at school and conservative neighbors. "If we do this then it's like telling our children 'it's okay to be gay'". I never thought it wasn't okay. These people who spew this hatred try and justify it by, "thinking of the children". It's sickening.

[beyurslf]

18. Church

I think Church and religion are the main things. People don't equate marriage with the rights and responsibilties it gives from the government. They equate it with church.
They sit on Sunday morning and think of seeing two men kiss at the alter in front of them. They imagine the state telling them they have to let two women use their building to marry.

My mom, who is very supportive of me (I'm gay) was against gay marriage. She said many of the things above. I asked her if she thought 2 men who had been together for 20 years should be able to make medical decisions for each other? Or if they should be able to share health insurance? (This was before many places had domestic parnter benefits.) When she looked at it in this light, she changed her mind.

I think the biggest hang up is in the word "marriage." People equate that with religion. Civil unions wouldn't cause as much of a stir and give the same rights. I personally think all "marriages" should be civil unions by the government and let religion have the word marriage. Everyone should get a "civil union" license whether want to get "married," "partnered," "collared," or whatever other word someone might have for it.

[LeahMira]

26. A mere word?

I think the biggest hang up is in the word "marriage." People equate that with religion. Civil unions wouldn't cause as much of a stir and give the same rights. I personally think all "marriages" should be civil unions by the government and let religion have the word marriage. Everyone should get a "civil union" license whether want to get "married," "partnered," "collared," or whatever other word someone might have for it.

I agree. Still, a lot of folks were married in front of a Justice of the Peace ... for whatever reasons ... yet they bring religious contexts to their union nonetheless.

There is also a body of law in which the term "married" is used. For instance, my state's adoption law permits single persons and married couples to adopt. It says nothing about permitting persons in a civil union to adopt. That's just an example... I'm sure there are other instances where "married couple" is stipulated in the law. Wouldn't it be easier to just "marry" people who are homosexual and be done with it instead of going through all the state codes with a fine toothed comb to insert an additional term... and then have to have each change approved by the state legislature?

Maybe it would be an idea to refer to church marriages as "sacramental marriage" and civil unions as "civil marriage." Then the laws wouldn't need to be rewritten because "marriage" or "married" would cover all the territory. Is that a plan?

[Military Brat]

20. "My God. What is it about us that is so threatening ...?"

You answered your own question, in a roundabout way. They own their God. Their God apparently loathes homosexuals, although he created homosexuals as approximately 10 percent of the population. I guess God makes mistakes after all, eh? Is that their position?

I have no room for bigotry in any form in my mind, because bigotry just tends to squeeze out all the room for facts. When people have a visceral, or socially-trained response to a given set of circumstances, they react in a predictable way, just like Pavlov's dog. Also, by drawing attention to their hating something or someone else, they believe their own actions will not come under scrutiny. The best defense is still a good offense.

Anyone have a prejudice or hatred and spewing their hate at you? Just ask them, "What are you hiding about yourself? What's your perversion?" Then if they say, "I don't have any perversions," you can respond, "Right. And neither do I." But probably they'll say, "Fuck you." And then you can reply, "Fuck me? Is that what your problem is? You secretly want to fuck me?"

Never back down when you are being attacked for who you are. Never, never, never.

[LeahMira]

29. You are life-threatening, Brat.

These folks have committed their lives to a belief. If it weren't for their belief, they might have been or done a lot differently, but they have passed those choices by in order to stick by their beliefs. Not only that, but they sincerely believe that their future depends on remaining faithful to those beliefs... in terms of heaven or hell. In fact, the loss of parents, children, family and friends is balanced against the sincere belief that they will one day be reunited.

Now, along you come informing them that their entire life has been regulated by a belief that is either faulty or false. Just imagine what that would mean. All the "temptations" resisted, all the expectation of eternal reward, all gone. They can't permit that. Not after 50 or so years. Not after passing up so much along the way. That would mean, to them, that an entire life was wasted on a lie. Imagine how you would feel in that place.



I don't think you're really going to get too far by implying that anyone dissing you is really a closet gay either. It pisses them off and shuts off their thinking (what thinking might be possible). I've seen that if people get to know you for all the other things you are, by the time they find out that you are gay they like you too much to let that get in their way. My cousin's son is gay and has a bunch of friends, guys and gals. Most of them don't know he's gay not because he hides it at all (he's actually sort of militant), but because it's not the first thing they know about him.

[philosophie_en_rose]

21. I don't understand either.

How could marriage between two people of the same sex have any effect upon the marriage betweeen a woman and man?

Churches can recognize whatever they like, I guess. There are still bigoted churches that ban interracial marriage. However, there is no rational reason for the state to be biased.

[Bunny]

22. I don't get it either.

As a straight woman: I do not care what anybody else is doing and with whom, provided all involved are consenting adults. Having said that, here are some problems with gay marriage as I believe people are seeing it: (and these are not original thoughts, they've been stated already by people more eloquent than I):

1. It's Biblical - God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. Well God may have done that, but the Bible also states that slavery is okay, along with many other things that were commonplace and which we now find unacceptable in a civilized world.

2. It's Procreation. Well, again, what about infertile couples or people who simply do not wish to have children?

3. It's "icky". Maybe to some people it is. There are hetero sex acts that I find a little "icky" too. Therefore, I choose not to do them or think about others doing them. I do not lose sleep over these acts.

4. It's a Drain on the Economy. Not really. A committed gay couple are no more a drain on our resources (health care, social security survivor benefits, and etc.) than a committed hetero couple.

5. They Have More "Transient" Relationships. Really? See comment #6 below. Furthermore, don't we all know someone who is on their third marriage (or more)?

6. It Cheapens Marriage. How? Tell me how the heteros have kept marriage sacrosanct? With 56% of first marriages ending in divorce, most with the first three years of marriage, how is that keeping it sacred?

7. It's a Choice, and an Immoral One at That. Sexuality is no more a choice than gender, race, etc. It is inherent in you at birth and we should no more discriminate against gays than we would women, people of color, etc. Remember, a hundred years ago when women demanded the right to vote, men were convinced it was the end of America as we knew it. That was untrue. Fifty years ago, when blacks were fighting for civil rights, many whites were convinced that America would crumble if blacks weren't "kept in their place". America has managed to remain uncrumbled. It will remain uncrumbled if gays are allowed to marry. Seriously. You are in no danger if two guys or two ladies decide to get married.

Those were just some of the most common arguments that I've heard. What bothers me on a more personal level is that nearly everyone has a family member, friend, co-worker, boss, etc. that is homosexual. Assuming you have good relationships with them, how can you think it is okay to deny them happiness that you are free to enjoy? How can that be okay with you? I don't get it. Do you really want your son, daughter, brother, sister, etc. to be forced to live a lie, and have none of the benefits that others are legally entitled to? How do you look yourself in the mirror?

Just my two cents.

[Bunny]

25. kick

:kick:

[cally]

27. I think gay marriage threatens traditional gender

stereotypes. Many traditionalists believe it is a male's role to be in charge and the female subservient. They justify the lack of equality in their marriages by saying it's the natural way or the will of God. Groups like the Promise Keepers preach that men have to take back their ruling role. Gay marriage threatens this. Two men or two women are more equal. Division of labor and decisionmaking are decided by the couple not the church and society defining what role is acceptable.

[HFishbine]

28. I don't know if it's that complicated

Sure, one could probably poke at the truth with cultural and pschological analysis, but I don't know what we do with that. I don't think you really can change a single mind by saying, "I suspect your fear of gay marriage is due to your own sle-loathing combined with religious dogma reinforced with cultural presssures."

For many people, I suspect the deepest their undertanding will go is simply, "All I know is that I don't like it." For them, it's like not likeling broccoli. "I can't tell you why I don't like it, I just don't and if you think you're going to make me eat it, you mistaken."

That's why I think the issue needs to be unhinged from revealing some undertanding about people "revulsions" and offer a more simple solution that taps into some other area of undertanding that already exists, rather than trying to change people's feelings.

[Ediacara]

30. if gays marry

They can no longer be portrayed as mentally deranged sex maniacs that are magnets for disease. Marriage bestows humanity onto gays, and that is unacceptable.