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)]

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.