Cooper argued that barring same-sex marriage is justified because the basic purpose of marriage is “to promote naturally procreative sexual activity in a stable and enduring relationship” that will nurture children.
Why Ban Gay Marriage?
Recently in court, Charles Cooper, attorney for the Proposition 8 campaign committee Protect Marriage told Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker why same-sex marriage could and should be barred.
According to a San Francisco Chronicle report, Cooper said that “extending marriage to same-sex couples would undermine its status as a ‘pro-child institution’ and redefine it as a private relationship between two adults who love each other.”
An Idea Is Born
At first I thought, “What's wrong with that?” But the more I thought about it, the more I thought, “You know, he's right! That would be just really awful. Children, kids, the lifeblood of our society might become a thing of the past, a mere memory, something that old people talked about. And all that love—what on earth would we do with that?”
It was so clear and simple now that I marveled that I had ever missed seeing it. It had been such a Communist idea, I saw now, that marriage was about Love.
The world view I had come to know and believe was suddenly crumbling around me like a chrysalis that had served its purpose and was peeling back to reveal the beautiful pro-Marriage butterfly I had been destined to become. I flapped my small yet powerful Right wing in disbelief at the simplicity of it all.
Armed with this new insight—thanks very much, Mr. Cooper!—I could finally see clearly what we needed to do next.
Let's void the marriages of anyone married two years with no baby to show for it.
Let's track down the infertile among us and void their marriages now.
Let's find our veterans who have been maimed in ways that don't allow them to have kids and void their marriages.
Let's tell women who have miscarriages to hurry up and have a kid or else expect their marriage to be voided.
Let's audit the credit card records of married people to see if they're buying birth control and void their marriages if they are.
Let's remind the pretenders who have only adopted children instead of having them “for real” that such cheap stunts don't count as reproduction and that their marriages are null and void.
I realize now, thanks to this trial, that gays are just a distraction to the real need to fix marriage. If it's all about kids, we've been letting all kinds of people marry we really shouldn't have even before we got to worrying about gays.
To really fix marriage, we must first clean our own house, leaving gays strictly out of it—they're just going to complicate matters. I call on Congress to immediately pass legislation that just leaves the whole matter of gay marriage unmentioned and merely asserts the part we can all agree on—that if you're not a breeder, you have no business getting or staying married. I urge the Democratic majority to pass this common sense law immediately. I'm sure the Republicans will have no choice but to join. This is what they want, right? Let's call it the Defense of Procreation Act.
Okay, I admit, it will likely be challenged. But I'm sure the Supreme Court would like nothing more than to establish a clear ruling that all of these people I've named must not marry. In fact, I'm sure the Supreme Court will uphold my Defense of Procreation Act even if that elite group includes some whose marriages would be casualties of the law they upheld. Justice simply demands that marriage's true purpose be upheld! They wouldn't wimp out on us now—would they?
I ask because if they didn't, if they instead overturned the Defense of Procreation Act that I worked so hard to craft, they would have established a precedent that said for all time, “No, in point of fact, marriage really is not just about procreation.” And if they did that, well, then we wouldn't have to give the time of day to arguments like Mr. Cooper is raising right now.
It would be weird and ironic, wouldn't it, if the quickest path to acceptance of gay marriage wasn't to raise consciousness in people who don't care to have their consciousness raised, but was instead to merely take seriously the outlandish claims they are making about what marriage really is?
Well, it was just a thought.
If you got value from this thought exercise, please "rate" it.
For more of my writing on marriage, see my articles:
One Husband and One Wife
A Real Act in Defense of Marriage
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Comments
But instead of working toward a wholesale reform of this outmoded institution, they want to simply adopt it. It's like demanding to be admitted to prison.
I suppose that adopting the cultural attributes of your oppressor is normal enough if not almost inevitable. But having gone to the trouble of unmasking the oppressive social control that is at the heart of the institution, one could have hoped that they would have had a more utopian agenda.
Anyway, I thought this was great. Personally, I think marriage as a concept is pointless except for legal purposes.
Lord knows I am not the poster child for successful marriage, what with two failed ones under my belt. But now I see the error of my ways. The problem is that I failed to BREED in either of them!
Although I should point out that while I'm not against gay marriage at all, I do think my proposed Act would have a positive effect on the debate. It would be worth it to watch the Republicans find a reason to vote against it... and if they didn't, and the law really passed (which would affect me, too, by the way—I'm in the affected groups), it would backfire on them. So it wins either way.
Rick, I consider it part of freedom of religion (and of non-religion): Some can think it's worth something and others not, according to their own personal faith.
Myriad, I deleted the spam comments you responded to so now your comment looks out of place. But thanks for visiting. :)
Verbal, you don't watch enough soap operas. Having kids fixes things every time.
Gwool, that would certainly have the advantage of doing away with Abstinence Only campaigns...
or we could just let each couple build the marriage that fits them
Obviously not, or there wouldn't be same gender marriages, or even civil unions in any state...so it seems to me that these folks are just jumping on the bandwagon a little too little too late, as they see their precious "tradition" changing.
I also find it interesting, Ken, that you use the term "world view", when in fact, those who generally oppose same gender marriage want nothing whatsoever to do with a world view, and want nothing more than a ChristoCentric Pro-American view
Just sayin'.
Placebo, great observation about “world view.” I'd not noticed.
Pilgrim, not up to a bit of poker? I claim that high-stakes poker at others' expense is all the Republicans seem ever to be playing on this one. Alas. I just think a bit of good old-fashioned bluff calling is sometimes the thing.
You left several out. Robin is correct. Anyone who has children cannot be divorced.
And a man who has sex outside of his marriage and fathers other children should have his "progenitor device" removed permanently!! Plus, those children and that woman, whoever she is, should move into his household. Right?
Of course, it does mean lesbians get to have children, technically.
Of course, no one thought to point out to this pea brain that marriage generally used to be about LAND or in cases of royalty POTENTIAL TREATIES, ETC., the woman being considered goods as well. The peons often didn't get married, preferring to simply 'bundle'/live together. We could go back to that.
Really though, I have often thought lets follow some of the arguments to their illogical conclusions, really the only place that they can go, and discuss that!
In your argument, however, I felt left out. My kids are grown. Therefore, there should be no reason to remain married, right? (I think the Mrs will want to have a word with you)
If you get the chance, please read my post today about Gay Adoption:
http://open.salon.com/blog/donna_carbone/2010/01/11/gay_adoption-martin_gill_let_them_call_me_dad
Also Bonnie Russell and Frank Apisa also have related posts today.
R
geezer, the government has an interest in things which help society, not individuals. children is one bit of it, but not everything. The government has an interest in the idea that two people who care about each other can take care of one another so that the government doesn't have to offer welfare in that situation. That's as much true of gays as straights, which is why the government should care about allowing them to make firm commitments to do that. Children—raising them, not birthing them—is also something that can be done as easily by gays as straights, so why not?
eva, sad but true. But someone said that about another of my pieces recently and a quick look around said most places I might otherwise publish only take pieces not published elsewhere. So maybe I should stop doing first-publication here. I've thought of exploring that.
Tim, I'm glad I got you to laugh. I had fun writing that sentence. Glad you caught it. And yeah, this was an exercise in John Stewart style humor—just repeat what the person actually said and let that be the humor. Hardly a need to embellish.
Saturn, no, not illegal. Of course they'd be allowed. Just renamed. We'd call them “do-it-yourself divorces.”
Red, doesn't sound very symmetric. I'm sorry about that. The law is often bad that way.
Stellaa, hi—thanks for visiting. I wasn't sure since I'd invoked the moniker of breeder that you'd want to be around me. :) And thanks for raising polygamy. It's hard to imagine that the people who oppose gay marriage on these grounds wouldn't be promoting polygamy as absolutely about having kids and a serious positive. Somehow, though, I bet it doesn't play out that way.
This is a brilliant piece. Satire used with a surgeon's skill. Thank you for continuing to shout this grievance. We really should not rest until all citizens are granted equal rights.
Rated and appreciated.
:-)
Dennis, I'm glad you enjoyed it. I enjoyed your essay on homophobia, too.
Bonnie, no, I hadn't heard. I guess I'll have to look that one up. It's not immediately obvious why the two issues should be related, and yet...
aspasia, I plead laziness. You're right that's a gaping hole and it's not that I didn't think of it, but I just wasn't sure how to handle the problem. It was an opportunity to institutionalize state-sponsored shotgun marriages and I just passed it right by ... Shame on me. Thanks for calling me on it, though.
Spotted, thanks for dropping by for a spot check. :)
Abrawang, yep. It'd be nothing but sin after a while. One would basically outgrow respectability. As has been noted above (see Roy's comment and my reply), I wasn't as clear as I should have been on that. But yes, that was my intent.
I also strongly urge you to consider a rider disallowing the wearing of trousers or being employed outside the home by women.