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

[(Anonymous)]

Let's hope this anonymous comment thing works. I'm sorry it's so long. First I thought I didn't have time to write it all out, then I realized I had the time to write it all out but not to make it shorter. In fact, the comment I wrote at first is bigger than the maximum space allowed, so it'll have to appear in two parts. Here we go:

I'm lukewarm on gay marriage, but not because I think gay sex is an abomination. Far from it, I have gay friends I adore, who are married to each other and have children, and are some of the happiest most exemplary couples I know (not that they should have to model that behavior, but it just so happens they do).

It's not that I oppose gay marriage so much as I'm angry that it is a priority for either side. In my view gay marriage is mostly a stick the right wing has used to beat progressives into submission. Gay marriage is maybe number 3721 on my list of urgent problems facing society. In a perfect world I'd like for gay couples to have inheritance and visitation rights and all, I just see many more urgent problems in line ahead of that.

I admit that there's an element of political calculation here: I don't want to spend a nickel of political capital on gay marriage because I often find that gays couldn't care less about or actively oppose my own progressive priorities (I'm basically an old-fashioned tax-and-spend-and-regulate liberal).

TBC

[(Anonymous)]

Continuation (now with bold for people in a hurry):

I'll try hard to word this next part without offending, because I truly don't mean any disrespect. I'm more socially conservative than most of my friends, more as a matter of emphasis than of opposition to any given freedom. I'm disturbed by the way the language of rights has been co-opted to stand for what to me is just sexual consumerism. I'm disturbed by the anti-feminist backlash I've noticed lately in progressive circles. It's the whole Bill Maher ideology, which sounds to me like, "Hey baby, I fully respect your right to spread for me in whatever freaky style you deem wisest, and you're 100% free to have an abortion if you get knocked up. What's that? Equal pay? Oh, honey, I've got to go. Text me." To me, for the state to ratify gay relationships is like the state ratifying your right to choose the tattoo or designer sunglasses of your choice: nice, and certainly the right thing if I'm pressed to think about it, just trivial compared to burning issues of economic policy, education, and health care. I guess that means I'm OK with heteronormative policies for the time being. Sorry.

This probably makes me a bigot. I'm not sure I can beat that rap. But I swear it's only a matter of emphasis, of how I allocate my political time, not of actively going out of my way to oppress anyone.

All this said, the anti-gay-marriage initiatives in CA, AZ and FL were disgusting. That the right wing wasted everyone's time and energy on those things makes me sick.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Thank you; I really appriciate you posting this. There's a lot in it I disagree with, which means there's a lot in it for me to think about.

[(Anonymous)]

I admit that there's an element of political calculation here: I don't want to spend a nickel of political capital on gay marriage because I often find that gays couldn't care less about or actively oppose my own progressive priorities (I'm basically an old-fashioned tax-and-spend-and-regulate liberal).

I'm for gay marriage and I still strongly agree with this statement. I know many gay men who don't seem to give a damn about any other political issue. Newsflash: if you want me to care about discrimination against you, you might occasionally want to at least act a little less apathetic about discrimination against me.

[(Anonymous)]

This is anonymous #2 (the one whose comment begins "I hesitated before commenting here"). Since I don't want to escalate, I am trying very hard not to be provoked. xiphias is doing what I think is a cool thing here -- trying to have an actual dialogue where people listen to each other. It isn't possible to have dialogue if people won't lay aside their first angry reactions.

There are many, many places where pro- and anti- gay marriage factions can shout at each other and exchange angry words. It's very rare to find a place to discuss it and try to understand the other side's views. I know people feel strongly about this on both sides, but let's try to keep it civil, okay?

Respectfully,
Anonymous #2