I can't speak from personal experience, but I have some relatives who are opposed to gay marriage. My impression is that there are a couple of factors besides the typical "gay marriages tarnish my marriage" philosophy. I'll try to explain them, as best as I can, but I want to emphasize that nothing written below is my own opinion.
Traditional societal roles put a lot of pressure on people: get a real job rather than pursuing a career as an actor or musician, settle down and marry at a young age rather than waiting for true love, have a couple of children immediately, etc. The conservative outlook is that these pressures may be unpleasant but are necessary for the good of society. If we were to relax the pressure, we'd end up with a lot of thirty- or forty-something unmarried slackers, who wouldn't be leading productive lives and wouldn't even end up happier with their choices. Anything that threatens traditional gender roles could undermine these pressures and lead to disaster. Many conservatives think we've already gone way too far in this direction, and gay marriage could be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
Another belief, at least among some of my relatives, is that gay marriage is a deliberate provocation. They think nobody seriously cares about it: there aren't very many gay people anyway, most of them have no interest in marriage, and the few who do are getting married as a lark or as an insult to Christians. They are convinced that gay marriage is just a gambit in the culture wars, that the intended purpose is to change society's direction and damage traditional culture. So when someone talks about loving couples and the legal obstacles they face without marriage, some of my relatives basically think they are being lied to, to cover up the true reason.
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Date: 2008-11-06 05:38 am (UTC)Traditional societal roles put a lot of pressure on people: get a real job rather than pursuing a career as an actor or musician, settle down and marry at a young age rather than waiting for true love, have a couple of children immediately, etc. The conservative outlook is that these pressures may be unpleasant but are necessary for the good of society. If we were to relax the pressure, we'd end up with a lot of thirty- or forty-something unmarried slackers, who wouldn't be leading productive lives and wouldn't even end up happier with their choices. Anything that threatens traditional gender roles could undermine these pressures and lead to disaster. Many conservatives think we've already gone way too far in this direction, and gay marriage could be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
Another belief, at least among some of my relatives, is that gay marriage is a deliberate provocation. They think nobody seriously cares about it: there aren't very many gay people anyway, most of them have no interest in marriage, and the few who do are getting married as a lark or as an insult to Christians. They are convinced that gay marriage is just a gambit in the culture wars, that the intended purpose is to change society's direction and damage traditional culture. So when someone talks about loving couples and the legal obstacles they face without marriage, some of my relatives basically think they are being lied to, to cover up the true reason.