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

[tpau]

if gay marriage is acceptable, then thier kids will think it is ok to be gay. this is why my parents are against it.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

That's one I don't entirely get. If gay marriage is acceptible, then it WILL be okay to be gay. What do the kids have to do with it?

[tpau]

well... lets say you are the sort of person who does nto think being gay is ok. causeyou are religious or what not. so you do nto wantyoru kid to be gay. you are then worried thatyour kidmight think it is ok if htey see gay folks gettignmarried

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Oh -- wait -- duh. I just got it.

It's harder to teach a religious point -- that being gay is a sin -- if the culture specifically and publicly accepts it.

[tpau]

exactly.

[ron_newman]

But is it hard to teach that observant Jews don't eat pork, even though the society around us considers pork to be perfectly fine food?

[linenoise.livejournal.com]

Teaching a fact about it is different from teaching *behavior*.

I'd wager good money that it's a lot harder for observant Jewish parents to get their kids to not eat any pork when their friend at school is chowing down on a bacon cheeseburger and everyone else is okay with it.

[brooksmoses]

Yup. I'm reminded of a Catholic acquaintance who was perfectly happy to have premarital sex despite considering it a sin, because that only meant he had to confess it later, which he considered a minor formality. He was quite aware of the fact that it was a sin (just as the Catholic church wanted him to know), but his behavior wasn't at all what they wanted.

[brooksmoses]

These are vastly different things, though.

One of them is, "This is a thing that we do, as Jews, that sets us apart from the rest of the world." And, insofar as I as a non-Jew understand this, the teaching is that there is no need for non-Jews to keep Kosher.

The other one is, "This is morally wrong and an abomination for anybody to do, whether or not they are a Christian."

(This is related why, despite being a Christian, I much prefer the standard Jewish attitude towards non-Jews than the standard Christian attitude towards non-Christians.)

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

That's right. Judaism makes this explicit, with the 7 Noachide laws that apply to *everyone* - stuff like 'thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, etc - Wikipedia has the whole list. And then there are the 613 commandments that apply specifically and only to Jews, which have everything from not harnessing an ox and an ass together to the daily prayers to head covering.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

I don't see that. The Catholic Church is still standing firm on their opposition to remarriage after divorce, marriage between Catholics and non-Christians, and marriages performed on Good Friday. Everybody knows the religious rules are different from the secular rules; it's really problematic to use state and federal laws to enforce rules that are specific to particular religions. As a member of a minority religion, I find the precedent disturbing, beyond the value of marriage itself.

[brooksmoses]

And I suspect that most Catholics consider it a "thing we don't do", rather than a thing that's an abomination before G*d. Especially younger ones.

For homosexuality, most of the people who want to prohibit same-sex marriage would call that a failure to teach what they want to teach.

(And, yes, I find the precedent quite disturbing too, but that's a separate issue.)

[reanimated.livejournal.com]

....it IS okay to be gay. god forbid we not keep the fires of prejudice alive for all eternity.