On why I imagine people who are against gay marriage are against it:

[xiphias]

Underneath the following cut tag are concepts which many people on my friends list may find offensive.

But who I'd REALLY like to hear from are people who ARE against gay marriage.

I'd like to put together an argument which, I suspect, may be a reason why people are against gay marriage. This is not an argument which I believe; rather, it is an argument which I can imagine which leads to the same conclusions that I perceive among people who are against gay marriage.

What I'd really love is if people who are against gay marriage would let me know if this argument is close to how you feel.

Anonymous commenting is on, and IP tracking is off. And I'm going to do something which I NEVER do on my LJ: if anyone gets nasty against people, I'm going to delete comments. I'm inviting people to say things which actually, in a real sense, are personal attacks against other people on my friends list.

In other words, if this works the way I hope it will, griffen, you, among other people, are not going to want to read it.

In Leviticus, gay sex is one of the ONLY forms of sex referred to as "an abomination". In Hebrew, it's a much stronger form of condemnation than any of the other things.

It is understood that people will, in their own private lives, make choices that you don't agree with. But to place legal government sanction on this act is to state that you agree with it.

Taking laws against sodomy off the books -- that's fine. By doing that, you are "agreeing to disagree". If it's an abomination, well, it's THEIR abomination, and you can live and let live. If they want to be public, and even have ceremonies -- that's, again, something where you can agree to disagree.

But by placing actual government sanction on such relationships -- that crosses the line between "not opposing" and "supporting". Allowing "abominations" to have the same status as REAL marriages, well, that gives marriages the same status as abominations. And THAT'S why it destroys marriage.

Even "civil unions" can be seen as a live-and-let-live compromise. But this -- putting a real marriage and an abomination in the same category? That calls into question the legitimacy of ALL marriages.

So -- people who are against gay marriage? Is this somewhat similar to how you think about it?

Comments

[amberdine.livejournal.com]

Your summary sounds right to me, though in my experience as a Catholic, I don't even hear it explicated so clearly. It's just "Protection of the Family" to which I always wind up going "Huh?" and have to go do research to figure out what the heck the actual rationale is. Because I'm innately libertarian and it's hard for me to comprehend this kind of thing. :-/

Another argument I see is that without regard to religion or culture, throughout history, all societies have been built upon male/female reproductive family units. Human children need a stable family for proper upbringing, so it is beneficial to all of society to support such units as much as possible. Since same-sex couplings can never naturally produce children, and do not have the normally-expected combination of male and female influences, they are not an acceptable analogue.

And, the final argument I see (which is really the only one that persuades me) is like jadasc said, that if same-sex unions are legally declared to be equivalent to marriage, that churches with contrary beliefs will be forced to perform them. I have no idea what protestant churches would do if that came to pass, but I know the Catholic Church in the USA would have to shut down its parishes and go underground.

I know a group of seminarians in this country who honestly expect to live out at least part of their career as priests in prison. I think that's expecting an awful lot of change to happen very fast, but, such things have happened historically, elsewhere. Already in this country Catholic hospitals and charities have had to shut down due to legislation which would force them to do something contrary to Catholic teaching, if they had continued to operate.

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

And, the final argument I see (which is really the only one that persuades me) is like jadasc said, that if same-sex unions are legally declared to be equivalent to marriage, that churches with contrary beliefs will be forced to perform them.

This is not actually true. Nor are Orthodox Jewish synagogues required to perform interfaith marriages, even though such marriages are legally recognized. If your church is only willing to perform marriages for fertile heterosexual white people with naturally red hair, the state will not interfere.

This is different from hospitals, because the need for a wedding is never an emergency. People have died because they were refused medical treatment for "moral reasons," so the state takes an interest.

What is dicey, by First Amendment standards, is legally defining marriage according to the standards of some religions while ignoring others. Why is the law set up to recognize all Catholic marriages, but not all Unitarian or Neopagan marriages?

[florafloraflora.livejournal.com]

What is dicey, by First Amendment standards, is legally defining marriage according to the standards of some religions while ignoring others. Why is the law set up to recognize all Catholic marriages, but not all Unitarian or Neopagan marriages?

I'd like to see the clergy get out of the (civil) marriage business entirely. I'm (not a very staunch) Catholic, and until recent decades when the Protestant right wing has started trying to co-opt us we've had a long tradition of supporting separation of church and state. AFAIC, civil and religious marriage are two different animals and should be performed and regulated separately.

[amberdine.livejournal.com]

This is not actually true. Nor are Orthodox Jewish synagogues required to perform interfaith marriages, even though such marriages are legally recognized. If your church is only willing to perform marriages for fertile heterosexual white people with naturally red hair, the state will not interfere.

Of course I know that. The concern is that this would change.

This is different from hospitals, because the need for a wedding is never an emergency. People have died because they were refused medical treatment for "moral reasons," so the state takes an interest.

The actual issues legislated were adoption and elective abortion. I suppose it's possible people have been refused life saving treatment in hospitals for morally-stated reasons, but that is not what the legislation was about. (In case you were unaware, Catholic hospitals have no problem with performing pregnancy-terminating procedures to save a mother's life.)

What is dicey, by First Amendment standards, is legally defining marriage according to the standards of some religions while ignoring others. Why is the law set up to recognize all Catholic marriages, but not all Unitarian or Neopagan marriages?

I agree, actually. Which is probably why the sources I see don't much use Xiphias's theorized argument, and instead focus on social effects and freedom-of-religion issues.

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

Of course I know that. The concern is that this would change.

The best argument against this is that it hasn't changed in any of the states that recognize same-sex marriage.

[amberdine.livejournal.com]

That would be Massachusetts for the last 5 years, Connecticut for the past month, and California, off-and-on for the last six months?

Considering the longest term of those is Massachusetts, and that the decision has been under heavy dispute itself, almost the entire time, I don't think there has been any time to make any further changes to law, such as requiring equal recognition by churches.

(Which is not to say that I think that is likely to happen, or a significant goal of proponents of same-sex marriage. Though it would be easier to believe if I didn't run across, "The state should confiscate all their [Catholic and Mormon] buildings!" rants.)

I hope I am not coming across as confrontational. I apologize if I seem so; I had no intention to debate when I posted. Just trying to clearly answer Xiphias's question, and your points are good ones.

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

That's fair. I probably shouldn't be trying to debate right now anyway--I took the Prop 8 passage pretty personally, and it's been casting a pall on the otherwise delightful election results. You said it sounded like a persuasive argument, and I jumped the gun. After this post, I will go back to lurking until I calm down.

I can tell you that I know some of the major people in the pro-marriage movement, and none of them want to force opposing clergy to bless marriages that they disapprove of. Many of them are clergy themselves, and well aware of what a slippery slope that would be. But I'm sure it's hard for many right-wingers to conceive of thinking something is good, and yet not wanting to make it mandatory.

And as you said, the twits exist on all sides. For some people, it's hard not to fight someone who wants to take away your rights, day after day, without being at least a little tempted to wish the same for them.

[brooksmoses]

Has there been any case, for anything like interfaith marriages, marriages between divorced people, or -- perhaps the closest judicial situation -- interracial marriages, where a church has been sued over not performing a marriage? Not even successfully sued -- sued at all, even if it failed.

I'm curious -- I would have thought that someone would have tried it over interracial marriages, but I don't know of any cases.

[amberdine.livejournal.com]

I have no idea about the interracial marriages (it was never a Catholic issue, and that's the only topic I can even pretend to be knowledgeable on), and I don't have ready access to a legal archive at the moment. Wouldn't surprise me if it had happened.

However, a quick web search has revealed that churches in Massachusetts are, apparently, already being sued for refusing to perform same-sex ceremonies.

(...sigh...)

[brooksmoses]

If true, sigh indeed. Separation of church and state is important.

However, do you have a link to the results of that web search? The only case I can find references to appears to be the one discussed here, about halfway down the page, where a Methodist organization in New Jersey was successfully sued to require them to allow a pavilion they owned to be used for a same-sex marriage. The decision centered on the fact that the pavilion in question is part of a public grounds (also owned by the church) which was considered a "place of public accomodation" because it was normally rented out to anyone in the public who wanted to use it, for all sorts of non-church-related things. This judicial logic would not apply to churches, which are used only for church events and thus not "places of public accomodation". And it definitely wouldn't apply to requiring the church's pastor to take part in such an event. (Also, the fact that this was a state-recognized civil union, rather than an extralegal commitment ceremony, was not a factor in the decision -- it was simply about giving people access to the space. So prohibiting state recognition of such marriages wouldn't affect things.)

I did find a YouTube video from "Yes on 8" saying something about Methodists in Massachusetts getting sued; it had no details, and thus my inclination is to assume that it's referring to the same case after it's been through a few abridged retellings.

[amberdine.livejournal.com]

Yeah, actually I'd read the Google summaries too fast (and was trying to post while someone was talking to me). Sorry about that.

The case I saw was the one in NJ, with commentary that the same was or would soon be happening in Massachusetts, but looking further at that blog was upsetting. If there was more detail I didn't get to it.

This: NPR article has pretty good coverage of the Methodist NJ case, and related ones.

[brooksmoses]

That was a rather thought-provoking article, yes. Thank you for finding and linking to it. (And no worries about the too-fast reading the first time; I do that too, and I can certainly appreciate not wanting to read upsetting blogs!)

I do think it's a fair argument that same-sex marriage is inextricably linked to legal enforcement of recognition of same-sex couples and prohibition of discrimination against them, and that this will have a lot of consequences that some people will find unpleasant and against their beliefs.

I would personally argue that that is going to happen regardless of whether it's "marriage" or "civil unions" (consider, for instance, that the NJ case wasn't marriage) or just same-sex couples with no legal recognition but wanting to adopt children, or anti-discrimination laws and same-sex couples merely existing -- and that allowing legal same-sex marriage at most hastens it along a little bit. But I do recognize that this is an argument and speculation rather than fact, and that it is reasonable to hold a differing opinion on the matter.

[brooksmoses]

(Edit: The first time I wrote this, it came out argumentative, and I've decided I don't want to be argumentative here. So I edit.)

Another argument I see is that without regard to religion or culture, throughout history, all societies have been built upon male/female reproductive family units.

That seems a bit overstated to me; I feel like it's based on an assumption that the nuclear family -- or, at least, the extended nuclear family -- has always been what families have looked like. And a bit of modern-Western-culture-centrism, too; somewhat like the arguments that assume marriage is fundamentally a religious thing, when in many cultures (including amongst the Puritans, and how much more American do you get?) the religious organizations have nothing to do with it.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Another argument I see is that without regard to religion or culture, throughout history, all societies have been built upon male/female reproductive family units.

I think it would be more accurate to say that all societies have been built upon mother-child family units, plus whatever other adults were seen as necessary to support those. I seem to recall some where the child's maternal uncle was considered a closer relative than the child's father, for instance (because you *know* the mother's siblings are blood relatives of the child). in other societies, the most important units seem to be women-and-children groups and men-and-older-boys groups. And then there are all the ones where the important historic groups include but are not limited to husband, wife, and children. I see some of that continuing in Asia today.