I was feeling pretty good after reading Michael Fox’s well written post “Iowa’s Gay Marriage Decision: What is Ways and What it Means”. Then I read Mishima666 extensive commentary (same post – you’ll see it). My feathers are quite ruffled, and I’m hunting in daylight – never a good sign, if you ask an Owl.
Before I proceed, please understand this: everything I read in his comment, I’ve heard before from my parents, the Church, Fred Phelps, and the American Family Association. At the minimum, these institutions believe I’m going to hell – at the worst, they would like to send me there, along with my family. By contrast, I don’t believe that Mishima666 is necessarily anti-gay; but the argument he makes will most certainly be picked up by those very groups (as if they haven’t already), who are well-funded and zealous in their cause. If there is any loophole in the law, rest assured these are the folks who are fixin' to drive a bulldozer through it.
And this is why I can’t stop myself: Mishima, if you’re reading this, please understand –it’s not you personally that’s setting me off:
IT’S YEARS OF BEING TOLD, IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER, THAT VALIDATING MY FAMILY IS THE ROAD TO HELL.
Yeah, I’m a little sick of it.
I apologize in advance for the crappy formatting, and for the length.
________________________________________________
PUBLIC NOTICE: The use of “you” in the following diatribe is directed at the general shit of which I’ve had about enough, NOT the author of the comment upon which I am sharpening my steely bayonet. (Again, in that analogy, it is the content of the comment which serves as the diamond-sufaced whetstone.)
________________________________________________
If you'd like to skip to the bottom for the summary, feel free. The rebuttal runs a little long, but damn, it just felt good to finally say it!
________________________________________________
I. “From what I have read on gay web sites, written by gays themselves, around 75 percent of long-term gay relationships are not monogamous. . .” I have several questions:
A.Was the data used for that statistic gathered anecdotally? Was it estimated? Was it written by a relatively “fringe group” or individual?
B.From what age range was that statistic gleaned? (I suspect that if you were to poll 19 year old heteros you might find similar results, at least among some groups. If you polled them again at 40, you might get a different result. Maybe not. That generation hasn’t hit 40 yet.)
C.What is the comparative statistic for hetero couples, and what is the margin of error? (It’s conceivable that gays are more likely to be truthful about non-monogamous relationships since we have already admitted to non-conformance to the hetero norm)
________________________________________________
II. “To argue against gay marriage is not necessarily to be anti-gay.” This smacks of “love the sinner, hate the sin,” but I’ll be gracious – I’ll give you that one. Especially since your supporting statement is:
“ There are even gays who do not support gay marriage.” Okay. I buy that. Gays against gay marriage is certainly plausible. God knows our hetero examples of marriage have often been veritable fonts of dysfunction for centuries – why continue falling in the same hole?
There are even heteros who do not support marriage as an institution, as you point out later: “I'm always struck by the number of people who have no use whatsoever for marriage, and would just as soon see it abolished or redefined out of existence.”
You know what’s coming, don’t you? If you don’t support marriage (gay, straight, whatever) DON’T GET MARRIED. Seriously. It’s a choice, not a requirement, unless you are part of very particular religious/cultural sects. And I promise, if given the right to choose to marry my Wife, I won’t make you marry anyone. Even if I spitefully want to do so.
________________________________________________
III. In the following passage, you have a gay writer (a supporter of traditional marriage) quoting another gay friend (who believes in monogamy and is a supporter of gay marriage). First let me compliment the double gay citation – it does add some wallop to the punch, right? Makes us think it must be true? Nice technique.)
A gay friend of mine, Los Angeles blogger Daniel Blatt, who believes in monogamy and sees the advantages to same-sex marriage, was taken aback when he searched “marriage equality” Web sites and found very few positive mentions of monogamy. When I helped Blatt with his research, I stumbled upon a Web site hostile to monogamy that is promoted as a marriage resource by several major gay Web sites.
A. I direct your attention to the first sentence (I have underlined the salient part) with the following questions:
1. How many mentions of monogamy were there, positive or negative?
2. If you’re looking for content on marriage equality, why would monogamy be part of the answer? Marriage. Equality. That’s a legal thing, not a monogamy thing.
B. Second sentence. Stumbled upon a Web site (singular) . . . that is promoted . . . okay. Were they actually promoting it? Was it paid advertisement? Wow, and, several major gay Web sites? Sounds huge.
________________________________________________
IV. “From what I've read, the arguments of the Iowa Supreme Court will work equally well to legalize polygamy or other poly- relationships . . . Eventually the institution of marriage as we have known it may no longer exist in any recognizable form . . . the people of the state have absolutely no right to define the structure of one of the most important of their institutions, short of having the state legislature pass a constitutional amendment.”
This is your big finale? Your knockout punch? Who cares? Seriously. If the people down the road are swingers, or have a great big lovefest/orgy, how does that un-define your marriage? How does that impact your family, unless they break in one night and steal you and your spouse from your beds and drag you into it? (That would be called kidnapping, by the way – they could get into some trouble for that.)
You haven’t brought the kids into it yet – the poor maladjusted children of anyone who doesn’t have a state-sanctioned marriage. Come on, man – you’re missing the next obvious plea! Just in case you’re inhaling to start that line of reasoning, there are already laws against child abuse, and if a child is being harmed, then there should be hell to pay. My point is this – the state defining marriage has not prevented child abuse/neglect by any standard that I can discern.
You define your marriage – the state can’t do anything about it, unless you're hurting someone.
________________________________________________
V. “You have to keep this issue away from the Supreme Court, and also make sure that "we the people" can't vote on it.”
Again –a no brainer. Do you think that if “we the people” of the 1860’s had voted on the Emancipation Proclamation, it would have passed? Yeah, that’s called a human rights issue, but it’s also a civil right. Do you think that if “we the people” had voted on integrating the military or Southern schools, it would have happened? Do you think that if “we the people” had voted on . . . oh, fuck it.
________________________________________________
To summarize, I offer the following points:
1. If you are going to offer the opinions of a few to express the views of an entire community, give me something more than “a gay said that 75% of gay long-term relationships aren’t monogamous”.
2. If marriage equaled monogamy, the term “bastard” wouldn’t exist. They just aren’t the same thing. And if that’s the definition you’re supporting, then why not go all the way and make infidelity punishable by law as a violation of the contract? Seriously, it could be fun- can’t you just see the mugshots in the paper?
3. I’m not asking to get married in your church. Exclude whomever you choose – you have that right as part of your practice of religion. I even support that right. You probably wouldn’t have wanted me there anyway, except as a test case for your doctrine and a poor lost soul.
4. Poly-amory legalized? Please explain who it’s hurting, when practiced safely. And by safely, I mean responsibly. And by responsibly, I mean that no one is getting hurt – at least not any worse than folks who are part of a state-defined marriage/family. Feel free to define your own marriage – we’ve already defined ours, and you might be surprised at how similar it is to yours.
5. Know why I want to marry my Wife? For the same reasons (I suppose) that heteros want to marry their spouses. I love her.
Because I love her, I'd like for my employer or state-provided insurance to cover her - in case she gets sick or something, just like my hetero friends. And because, if she gets sick and goes to the hospital, I'd like to not fight with the gatekeepers of the ER about who I am to her (it's super creepy to call her my sister - try it sometime in a moment of crisis - you'll love it).
And because I'd like to adopt my son without running afoul of the same laws that want to bar my marriage, just because he was born of my wife's womb. I'm sorry his father isn't man enough to be a dad - I have sacrificed more than that man knows to give him a chance at it, and have not put the man down within hearing range of the Giant - but by Jove, the Giant is my son. Same gig as above regarding insurance and ER/intensive care visits.
6. Look – sometimes waiting around for “we the people” doesn’t cut it, especially when it’s a civil right at stake. Change is hard, just ask the KKK.
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
Brazen Princess
Land Poor
Punchnel's
Murder Of Crows
Marjorie Walker
Ramonas Voices
Salon.com
Comments
Thank you for stopping by. I will return to lighter fare soon, as a means of keeping my blood pressure in the range that I prefer.
It is inevitable...
Great piece!!
Luis - I hope you're right, but only time will tell.
mamoore - thanks for teaching your kids well. Most days, I don't really think about the injustice, because there are things happening in the world far worse than anything I've experienced. Resistanceisfruitful wrote a great piece (March 28) regarding the death penalty for homosexuality in several other countries - at the moment, in the US, that's not on the table. By comparison, these issues are less than small potatoes - mere potato eyes, if you will.
I'm surprised that my two comments elsewhere spawned an entire post, but so be it.
First, let me be clear that I support civil unions for same-sex couples, complete with all of the rights that married couples have, in addition to all the other legal protections afforded to gays and lesbians. So I suspect that you and I are in agreement on well over 90 percent of the substantive issues.
Concerning the statistics and sources I cited. I'm not a professional researcher, nor do I have the time and resources to become one. What I have tried to do is to educate myself on the issue by reading what gays have to say about their own lives. I have not spent a single minute reading right-wing religious or political web sites. I wanted to get the word straight from the "horse's mouth."
What happened is that I simply took seriously what gays had to say for themselves, without filtering or reinterpreting it. In doing that a certain consensus position emerged, which I also took seriously. While the consensus position is necessarily a generalization it seems to me to be a reasonable generalization.
In a sense I'm getting "in trouble" for simply reporting what gays say about themselves. If gays don't want to be seen as supporting sex outside of marriage, then I suppose they shouldn't support sex outside of marriage. If they don't want to appear to "diss" monogamy, then maybe they shouldn't diss monogamy.
Owl: "First let me compliment the double gay citation – it does add some wallop to the punch, right? Makes us think it must be true? Nice technique.)"
Look, if I were quoting James Dobson I'd catch flak for that. So do I have to catch flak for quoting gay sources? If I don't quote Dobson, and I can't quote gays, who can I quote?
Owl: " . . . why not go all the way and make infidelity punishable by law as a violation of the contract?"
In a small sense we used to do that, but no-fault marriages eliminated that. Now, you can commit adultery all you want and still walk off with half the marital assets. I guess it's a good gig if someone is into that.
Owl: "I’m not asking to get married in your church."
That's good, because I don't have one.
Owl: "Poly-amory legalized? Please explain who it’s hurting, when practiced safely. And by safely, I mean responsibly."
You see, you make my case for me. As I have noted many times, so many people in favor of gay marriage have no interest at all in preserving the ideal of traditional marriage. So the issue gets pushed back another level -- rather than debating gay marriage we end up debating whether the ideal of traditional marriage is worth preserving.
Owl: " Know why I want to marry my Wife? For the same reasons (I suppose) that heteros want to marry their spouses. I love her."
What if you could have a civil union that had all the rights of marriage?
Owl: "Look – sometimes waiting around for “we the people” doesn’t cut it, especially when it’s a civil right at stake."
Yes, democracy is very messy and often disappointing. I myself am frequently upset with how citizens vote and how our elected leaders vote. There's a lot of that going around these days. But to assert that gay marriage is a right is to beg the question; it's the issue under consideration. In most states there is no such right, and most of the court decisions dealing with that issue have held that there is no such right.
Best wishes, and watch that blood pressure!
Props for a respectful tone kept--so hard to do when one's feathers are ruffled. Hope the discussion stays that way!
Rated.
Mama Lou - Blessings upon you and your house.
Mishima - I appreciate you giving your thoughts on it over here. As I explained in the first part of this, I recognized from my own reaction that I was not actually set off by you, but by my specific experience with the ways in which I have heard similar ideas expressed. And I don't think the words Civil Unions were in the comment to which I was reacting - I was writing while the rest of the discussion went on. It also feels pretty wierd to be told what the gay community/sexuality is about from someone outside of it.
I'm not a serious researcher at this point in my life either, and can appreciate that we can only go on the information that we have at hand - and how we put that information together may vary from person to person. I'm leery of statistics and a lot of so-called research because I'm well aware of how they can be skewed and distributed to make a point, and to feed a particular propaganda or public opinion campaign.
I'm sure I could pick through what you've written here if I wanted to find more to take issue with, but I'm good for now. One of the limitations of writing is that I can think I expressed myself brilliantly, only to find that it's not read as I intended it to be understood.
It's possible that I am not an accurate reader of your opinion because my own experience colors how I interpret it. It's conceivable that if we were having a few beers and discussing it, we'd have a much more efficient communication, and find that we agree on much; I'm also a sometime fan of agreeing to disagree.
I've said what I needed to say - not because I need to persuade anyone to my point of view, but because I needed to say it. As for the peace . . . I'm getting there, and best wishes to you as well.
I just wanted to offer some support and let you know I rated this.
Because OS does not offer us tools to moderate excessively long or argumentative comments before they are published, I think it's quite appropriate to exercise the "delete" option at some point.
is that the dumbest argument ever?
personally, i believe gay marriage is a red-herring issue that the righters use to keep their followers all fired up and falling in line.
that's not to denigrate the concept. it will happen. it may be a struggle and it may take time but it's inevitable, just like other civil rights.
i mean, really, why would any rational person oppose it? it doesn't change what they have or effect them in any way, which just proves my point about the red herring.
if you as a straight, married person believe gay marriage will change anything at all in your life, your marriage, your family, you're just not thinking clearly. stop letting the right lead you around by the nose.