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

[linenoise.livejournal.com]

I'm seeing a whole lot of discussion about Prop 8, and "why we lost", and trying to understand why people who voted Yes on 8 did what they did.

I think that it's important work, and it's good that it's being done.

What I *really* want to know, and I'm stealing from other smart people who have already asked this, is why we're only seeing all of this discussion *now*, and we didn't see any of it a couple of months ago, when it might've made a difference.

It's been pointed out that liberals in generally, and the No on 8 people specifically, have a tendency to talk *at* people, when they're supporting something. They talk a lot about how their way is right, and we should all vote for their way because it's right. But they don't talk *to* people as much.

I had a good friend of mine try to tell me, in casual discussion last night about the election returns, that he doesn't think that conservatism or libertarianism is even a reasonable position to hold. Which is dangerously close to the sort of closed-minded One True Way thinking that I've been railing against on the far right.

I'm wandering off topic, and getting wordy. Which probably means that I should stop now, and possibly repost a more coherent version of this on my own journal sometime when I'm not supposed to be working.

[brooksmoses]

Yeah, that.

Maybe Obama can teach a little about how to listen and talk *to* people? He seems good at it.