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

[brooksmoses]

In my experience, conservatives are more conscious of the pain caused by change, whereas liberals are more conscious of the pain caused by the status quo.

Might as well expand at least the first half of that to "by definition" rather than just in your experience. :) At least in the original definitions, conservative meant that one was opposed to change. So, yeah, I'd agree with that statement.

How do you feel about a discussion in which I acknowledge that the other people are not feeling safe, and I regret and respect that, but I believe that their feeling of non-safety is not sufficient to change my opinion because I believe their feeling is in direct opposition to the feelings-of-safety of others? It seems disingenuous in that sort of case to say that "I want them to feel safe" -- I would like for them to change their beliefs so they feel safe, and I'm willing to make what I feel to be reasonable concessions, but in some cases the honest truth is that I'm willing to threaten their feeling of safety and I'm okay with that.

(See, for instance, discussion upthread about how antidiscrimination laws may require -- as in one legal case mentioned in the NPR article amberdine linked to -- a wedding photographer to not have a "no same-sex couples" policy. I recognize that that's painful for them, and the existence of that requirement makes them feel unsafe. And, while I want them to feel safer, I'm not willing to back down on the antidiscrimination laws to give them that safety.)

But maybe that's being too strident. In some cases, it may well be -- and maybe the willingness to talk about and make "what I feel to be reasonable concessions" needs to be played up. I dunno. Thoughts?

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

I think I'm with you (I'm deliberately not replying to people who are opposed to same-sex marriage because I don't trust myself to be reasonable). I see this as parallel to civil rights - yes, I'm sure many white people were afraid of black people, and desegregation had a major impact on their sense of safety (Obama has an interesting bit in dreams of my father about his own grandmother crossing the street when a black man approached) - but in the long run, this is not a good argument for maintaining segregation.