quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: If you would have no problem if I were to classify those who oppose legal protection for unborn children as bigots against the unborn, I can accept your usage.
Your call.
Are you saying that you think it's okay for people to be defined as other than human beings because they're gay?
There can be legitimate debate on when life starts, but if you define any adult human being as other than human, that's certainly bigotry.
posted
Unless you think people are against gay marriage for the sole reason that they don't think gay people are human, your statement is a non-sequitur.
There can be legitimate debate on what "marriage" is. And there can be legitimate debate on who should be allowed to marry whom. First-cousin marriages are viewed favorably by a huge portion of the world's population, but are banned here. Are our laws in this regard bigoted? Or are people with legitimate concerns about consanguinity going to be given the benefit of the doubt by you?
Go ahead and continue to call people bigots. The more you do, the fewer minds you will change, the more people you will solidify against you, and the longer it will take for policies to be changed.
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Unless you think people are against gay marriage for the sole reason that they don't think gay people are human, your statement is a non-sequitur.
How so? You drew the comparison between denying rights to adult human beings who are gay and denying rights to the unborn.
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: There can be legitimate debate on what "marriage" is.
In a religious context, there certainly can be. But we live in a society where the government, which is supposed to be a government of all citizens equally, extends perqs to people it considers "married".
To deny those rights to a couple because they are gay is bigotry.
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: And there can be legitimate debate on who should be allowed to marry whom. First-cousin marriages are viewed favorably by a huge portion of the world's population, but are banned here. Are our laws in this regard bigoted? Or are people with legitimate concerns about consanguinity going to be given the benefit of the doubt by you?
If incestous unions are a health issue, that's one thing. And in truth, I don't like the idea of government being in a position to determine who is and isn't married. At all. But if they are, saying that a guy can marry me, but my partner can't... that's bigotry. Denying us the right to inherit from one another the way we could if we were a married couple is bigotry. Punitive bigotry, to boot.
We own a house, which we bought together. What possible justification is there for the fact that we can't have the title be as safe as a married couple?
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Go ahead and continue to call people bigots. The more you do, the fewer minds you will change, the more people you will solidify against you, and the longer it will take for policies to be changed.
Oh, I hardly think so. As I said, I rarely use the term, and I'm only doing so now because of the whole argument about who is implying that who is a bigot.
But change certainly won't come by just sitting tight and waiting for people to get over their desire to impose their beliefs on others.
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quote:quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Dagonee: Unless you think people are against gay marriage for the sole reason that they don't think gay people are human, your statement is a non-sequitur. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How so? You drew the comparison between denying rights to adult human beings who are gay and denying rights to the unborn.
This only makes sense to you because you don't consider the unborn to be human.
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quote:quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Dagonee: Unless you think people are against gay marriage for the sole reason that they don't think gay people are human, your statement is a non-sequitur. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How so? You drew the comparison between denying rights to adult human beings who are gay and denying rights to the unborn.
This only makes sense to you because you don't consider the unborn to be human.
Who says I don't? I'm an Orthodox Jew, and I consider abortion to be something that should never, ever, be done unless the health of the mother is at risk.
Don't make assumptions.
I repeat, there can be a legitimate debate on when life begins. All you have to base your absolutist view on is religion, and that has no place in US law. I'm not saying that life doesn't begin at conception. I'm merely saying that it can be debated honestly.
My daughter has 10 frozen siblings (so to speak) in a freezer in Israel. No one knows if they are viable, and no one will know until and unless they are implanted. Are blastulae people? Maybe. Does it matter whether they came into being inside of a womb or outside? I'm not sure. But I know that those are reasonable questions that can be asked. But if a blastula were to walk up to me and say, "I'm a person", I wouldn't consider it a question any more.
quote:I repeat, there can be a legitimate debate on when life begins.
And I repeat: There is a legitimate debate about what marriage is and what it is for. The question can be debated honestly.
The similarity is that the difference in views rests upon definitions, not that they rest upon definitions of the same thing.
quote:I'm a person.
Again, unless you are assuming that people who oppose gay marriage are motivated solely by their belief that you aren't a person, this is a non-sequitur.
Abortion is a controversy that hinges on different people's definition of person. Same sex marriage is a controversy that hinges on different people's definitions of marriage.
quote:I repeat, there can be a legitimate debate on when life begins.
And I repeat: There is a legitimate debate about what marriage is and what it is for. The question can be debated honestly.
The word doesn't mean a lot to me. Call it blikspizzle if it suits you. If the government gives goodies to a man and a woman who have committed their lives to each other and to their family, but won't give the same goodies to two women who do the very same thing, that's wrong. That's discrimination, and that's bigotry.
You want to have your own definition of marriage? Cool. Then get it out of my government.
See, the whole point to having a nation that explicitly bars religion from being part of the government is that your religion may say one thing, and mine may say another. The government isn't supposed to take sides and support one religion over another.
Take one of the previous posters, for example. She apparently believes that an embryo is a human being. Not a potential human being, but a human being.
Now, in my religion, that's not possible. Why? Because God says these three things:
If someone causes a woman to miscarry, the penalty is to pay a fine.
If someone commits murder, the penalty is death.
Money may never be accepted in place of capital punishment.
So my religion says that an embryo cannot possibly be a human being, but that it's nevertheless prohibited to destroy one unless it is threatening the life of its mother.
(Interestingly enough, I suspect that her religion claims to accept the books in which God says those things, and somehow manages to overlook them.)
Why should her religious view trump mine? Why should mine trump hers? We started this country to get away from fights like that.
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: The similarity is that the difference in views rests upon definitions, not that they rest upon definitions of the same thing.
quote:I'm a person.
Again, unless you are assuming that people who oppose gay marriage are motivated solely by their belief that you aren't a person, this is a non-sequitur.
Abortion is a controversy that hinges on different people's definition of person. Same sex marriage is a controversy that hinges on different people's definitions of marriage.
Dagonee
Same sex marriage is a controversy that hinges upon whether equal rights are to be extended to people who are gay. I don't care if people have a set definition of marriage in their religion. My religion will never recognize a union between members of the same sex as being in its category of kiddushin or nisuin (the constituent parts of marriage), and I support that fully. But I pay taxes the same as a straight person, and it is unacceptable that my government should play favorites on the basis of a religious definition.
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quote:Same sex marriage is a controversy that hinges upon whether equal rights are to be extended to people who are gay.
This controversy is about whether we, as a society, will broaden the definition of one of our institutions in a very specific way, to support a very specific practice. And different people think it is or is not a good idea for a lot of different reasons.
If this were about equal rights for all Americans, we'd simply abolish all definitions of marriage, because ANY definition would restrict SOME kind of marriage that SOMEONE might want. As far as I know, marrying three of your underage sisters will still be illegal after gay marriage becomes commonplace.
There are many pairs of people — not only homosexual couples, as I demonstrated above — who, despite the fact that they are definitely human, and are perfectly capable of loving one another, cannot get married because we as a society have defined marriage in such a way that it is not available to them. It doesn't mean that we consider them inferior or want them to go away. It just means that the institution of "marriage" was not created with their specific pairings in mind. Much the way that "custody laws" were not designed to keep employees bound to their employers. Not every relationship must necessarily be included by every institution.
This debate is over a legitimate question that we need to address, but don't think that you can arbitrarily make it about someone's "humanity" just because it sounds better in an argument.
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starLisa, you've made some very compelling arguments in favor extending equal civil marriage rights to same sex couples. In many ways they track with my own reasons for thinking we ought to do so.
But the point is that these are arguments. They can be countered with other arguments, ones that emphasize different factors. Just as people can disagree over how free speech and establishment clause issues should be balanced, they can disagree over how equal protection and reserved powers should be balanced, or how fairness and family policy should be balanced.
There are thousands of values that are embodied in our system of government. Minor changes in relative priority of two or three can lead to thousands of different policy outcomes.
For you to tarnish the many different particular prioritizations of such values that lead to a policy outcome of "no same sex marriage" with the label "bigotry" is not argument. It's refusal to engage the issues. Which means the prioritizations go unchallenged. Which means the status quo doesn't change.
Even holding the attitude that it must be bigotry will prevent you from honestly engaging those who desire a different outcome.
quote:Same sex marriage is a controversy that hinges upon whether equal rights are to be extended to people who are gay.
This controversy is about whether we, as a society, will broaden the definition of one of our institutions in a very specific way, to support a very specific practice.
This controversy is about whether a government that is not the government of a certain religion is entitled to extend rights and protections to two members of the opposite sex while denying them to two members of the same sex.
Like I said, I don't care whether you call it marriage or not, so long as I'm not discriminated against. I don't have any problem whatsoever with "seperate but equal".
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: And different people think it is or is not a good idea for a lot of different reasons.
If this were about equal rights for all Americans, we'd simply abolish all definitions of marriage, because ANY definition would restrict SOME kind of marriage that SOMEONE might want. As far as I know, marrying three of your underage sisters will still be illegal after gay marriage becomes commonplace.
Nice red herring, Puppy. The same arguments were made about allowing interracial marriages. After all, that was simply a matter of defining marriage as a union between members of the opposite sex and the same race. The idea of mixing races was quite as repugnant to many people then as the idea of homosexuality is to many people now.
Not surprisingly, the opposition in both cases was and is rooted in the very same communities. How about that?
Keeping the races pure was considered a public policy issue. Nowadays, it's viewed as despicable (except, I'm sure, by some members of the communities I mentioned above).
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: There are many pairs of people — not only homosexual couples, as I demonstrated above — who, despite the fact that they are definitely human, and are perfectly capable of loving one another, cannot get married because we as a society have defined marriage in such a way that it is not available to them.
Puppy, those same arguments were made about interracial marriage. The idea of a free society such as the United States is that society isn't *allowed* to define public institutions in discriminatory ways.
Define private ones as you wish. But not public ones.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: It doesn't mean that we consider them inferior or want them to go away. It just means that the institution of "marriage" was not created with their specific pairings in mind.
The institution of marriage is a religious one. The state started registering marriage for reasons of inheritence. Gradually, a legislation-happy government started giving various rights and recognition to couples who were married.
All of this was at a time when you could be killed for being gay and no one really cared.
But now gay people have chosen to resist being forced into hiding, and have chosen to be proud of their families. My partner and I have been together for 8 years now, and our daughter is 5 years old. And yet the 18 hour marriage of Britney Spears and Jason Alexander had a legal standing that we are denied. The disgusting spectacle of Rick Rockwell and Darva Conger getting married as part of a gameshow counted more than the 20 year long relationship of friends of ours.
At one time, Puppy, it was just taken for granted that marriage was "what it'd always been". Black folk didn't marry white folk. It just wasn't done. It took an actual change in laws to break that horrible restriction. This is really no different.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: Much the way that "custody laws" were not designed to keep employees bound to their employers. Not every relationship must necessarily be included by every institution.
And I get accused of non sequiturs...
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: This debate is over a legitimate question that we need to address, but don't think that you can arbitrarily make it about someone's "humanity" just because it sounds better in an argument.
You mistake me. I brought up the issue of humanity only because someone wanted to compare this to the issue of abortion. I know that it's not because we're not deemed human. It's because we're deemed icky.
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The interracial marriage analogy is kind of flawed. The fact that one reason to prohibit marriage between a given couple has become despicable in our culture, and has been rescinded, does not imply that every other restriction is ALSO despicable, and should therefore ALSO be rescinded.
Off the top of my head, here is a list of reasons why, a hundred years ago, a couple might have been prevented from marrying.
1. They belonged to different races. 2. They belonged to different social classes or castes. 3. They were first-cousins/siblings/parent-and-child. 4. One or more of them was underage. 5. One or more of them was already married to someone else. 6. One of them bought or captured the other as a slave. 7. They shared the same gender.
In the past hundred years, we have rescinded reasons 1 and 2, and now find those attitudes despicable. At various times in various cultures, reasons 3, 4, 5, and 6 were not in force, which we also consider despicable today. Right now, in the United States, reason 7 is coming into question.
You cannot say that just because 1 and 2 have been rescinded in the past, therefore number 7 should also be rescinded. You need more of a reason than that. I'm not saying there IS no reason. But you have to have one that is better than "you used to not let THOSE people marry, and now you do!" There are a LOT of people who could say that, not just you.
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Geoff, Again, can you provide an argument for why gay marriage is a bad idea? People keeping tlaking about the honest debate, but for all there's been reasons provided for why extending marrige to gay people would be a good thing, I've yet to see, after many many pages of asking, an argument for why it would be a bad idea except for ones relying on prejudices (e.g. they're substandard parents) or religion.
The interracial analogy is flawed if that were the only argument, but it it not intended that way. Your framing of it is not consistent with how it came up. It wasn't introduced on it's own, but rather to counter the idea that gay marriage is a bad idea because it would change the definition of marriage, without other reasoning. The interracial marriage thing (or many of the other times marriage has changed in a significant manner) shows that "It will change marriage" is not a good argument when it's on it's own.
Marriage has been changed and we're better for it. Many people believe that this is the case for altering it to allow gay marraige. Can you provide reasons for why we would be worse off?
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Geoff, Again, can you provide an argument for why gay marriage is a bad idea? People keeping tlaking about the honest debate, but for all there's been reasons provided for why extending marrige to gay people would be a good thing, I've yet to see, after many many pages of asking, an argument for why it would be a bad idea except for ones relying on prejudices (e.g. they're substandard parents) or religion.
The interracial analogy is flawed if that were the only argument, but it it not intended that way. Your framing of it is not consistent with how it came up. It wasn't introduced on it's own, but rather to counter the idea that gay marriage is a bad idea because it would change the definition of marriage, without other reasoning. The interracial marriage thing (or many of the other times marriage has changed in a significant manner) shows that "It will change marriage" is not a good argument when it's on it's own.
Marriage has been changed and we're better for it. Many people believe that this is the case for altering it to allow gay marraige. Can you provide reasons for why we would be worse off?
I believe that the arguments against it come down to exactly one:
Homosexuality is bad, and doing anything that might encourage it is bad by extension.
In some cases, this extends to treating gays and lesbians poorly. In other cases, an opponent might be civil and friendly to people who happen to be gay, but still think that homosexuality is wrong, and that doing anything that might encourage it is wrong by extension.
What I don't get is why it's such a huge issue for some people. I mean, what does it do to you if my partner and I marry? How does it affect anyone else?
I wrote a story once. It wasn't about being gay, but of the five characters in the book, two were lesbians and one was a bisexual woman. <shrug> You write what you know.
As a result, simply because the characters happened to be gay, the story was virtually unsaleable.
Eventually, it was bought for an anthology of mystery stories that's coming out in another 2 months (yay!), but it's a collection of lesbian mysteries, which means that there are people who might actually be offended if I were to give them a copy of the book.
OSC is one of my favorite writers. Had my story been published in a "regular" anthology, I would have wanted to send him a copy of the book. But I'm afraid to do so, because I don't want him to think I'm being "in-your-face" about the gay issue.
That's the kind of defensiveness you get used to when something that's just part of who you are is such a huge issue to people it doesn't even really affect.
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Well, OSC has argued that the dark secret of the pro-gay movement is how many homosexuals are victims of sexual abuse who are trapped in a lifestyle that they hate and that the gay people he knows are not made happy and are generally made miserable by acting on their being gay. He's also seemed to imply (by saying that they were playing dress up and by saying that the marriage that they are so earnestly seeking wouldn't do them any good and would only further the agenda of the people who seek to destroy marriage) that gay people are unable to form adult relationships.
He's also implied that gay people harm others merely by their existance as gay people.
Were any of these true, I'd be skeptical of gay marriage too. It's possible that these are the arguments that people are relying on. If so, I think it would be nice if they could substantiate them. Or possibly someone else could do a better job with the "gay people are substandard parents" hook?
I honestly don't know what these responsible arguments against gay marriage that don't rely solely on religion that people keep suggesting exist are. It's entirely possible that they are out there, but I haven't come across them. I'm hoping that someone could spell them out for me.
---
edit: starL, Obviously, I don't know him very well, but from what I've gotten from OSC's personality, he'd be glad that you got published and happy that you sent him a copy if you included the explanation that you did above. I could see how you might be worried that he'd take it as an attack if you just sent it to him out of the blue, but I don't know that he would even then, if you talked about how you were a big fan and wanted to shared your success with someone who inspired you. Oh and congratulations.
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Well, OSC has argued that the dark secret of the pro-gay movement is how many homosexuals are victims of sexual abuse who are trapped in a lifestyle that they hate and that the gay people he knows are not made happy and are generally made miserable by acting on their being gay.
<sigh> The truth is, I can't even answer that. Because almost all of the claims in that direction refer almost exclusively to gay men.
I know that gay men and lesbians are considered to be subsets of a single group these days. Which is funny, if you think about it, because the truth is, the difference between lesbians and gay men is far, far greater than the differences between men and women in general, and for the same reasons.
You know the saying that men have relationships in order to have sex, and women have sex in order to have relationships? Think of that in terms of just men, or just women.
Sure, they've combined forces politically, but then again, so have the transsexuals, and there's certainly no commonality between sexual orientation and gender identity.
So as far as I know, there might be something to that argument. I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt, though.
As to gay people being miserable when they come out... well, with so many people out there who are so dedicated to making us miserable because we're gay, it's a wonder that any of us can find happiness.
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: He's also seemed to imply (by saying that they were playing dress up and by saying that the marriage that they are so earnestly seeking wouldn't do them any good and would only further the agenda of the people who seek to destroy marriage) that gay people are unable to form adult relationships.
Well, of course we aren't. If you define adult relationships as heterosexual ones.
Did he really say we were "playing dress up"? That saddens me.
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: He's also implied that gay people harm others merely by their existance as gay people.
Would you mind citing that? It doesn't sound like him.
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: starL, Obviously, I don't know him very well, but from what I've gotten from OSC's personality, he'd be glad that you got published and happy that you sent him a copy if you included the explanation that you did above. I could see how you might be worried that he'd take it as an attack if you just sent it to him out of the blue, but I don't know that he would even then, if you talked about how you were a big fan and wanted to shared your success with someone who inspired you.
I know. See, I'm torn. I think it'd be okay, but... you know how when you get slammed for doing something time after time, and you just get nervous about doing it, even if you know you're doing nothing wrong?
I was at a book signing of his once, and he stood up to shake my hand when he realized that I'd written one of the essays on ornery.org. I just don't want him to lose respect for me.
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Oh and congratulations.
<smile> Thanks. Um... if you want to see some reviews of the book (which I haven't even had a chance to see myself!), they're here.
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starL, Here's the thread we had about the article where he said this(reporter speaks first, OSC answers):
quote:"How is that different from changing the law so that blacks and whites can marry?" I have to force the words out.
Incredulously: "Are you asking that question seriously?"
"Yes."
"I find the comparison between civil rights based on race and supposed new rights being granted for what amounts to deviant behavior to be really kind of ridiculous. There is no comparison. A black as a person does not by being black harm anyone.
As to the playing dress-up, he said:
quote: But homosexual "marriage" is an act of intolerance. It is an attempt to eliminate any special preference for marriage in society -- to erase the protected status of marriage in the constant balancing act between civilization and individual reproduction.
So if my friends insist on calling what they do "marriage," they are not turning their relationship into what my wife and I have created, because no court has the power to change what their relationship actually is.
Instead they are attempting to strike a death blow against the well-earned protected status of our, and every other, real marriage.
They steal from me what I treasure most, and gain for themselves nothing at all. They won't be married. They'll just be playing dress-up in their parents' clothes.
in his famous Ornery essay you can read here.
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quote:Did he really say we were "playing dress up"? That saddens me.
I have heard so many people claim that by this he means they are not capable of adult relationships (perhaps because "dress up" is a children's game). But considering the immense respect and tenderness he shows the gay characters in his books, this assumption is ridiculous. It doesn't line up with any of OSC's actual behavior.
I propose (on his behalf, I guess, if that is OK) that he is more referring to the idea that marriage is all about it being a male and female being joined to each other, and that same-sex pairs seeking marriage are trying to be like the the opposite sex pairings, and never can be.
In order to accept this, you have to accept that marriage is all about it being a male/female pairing above all else including love. There are plenty of people who believe this.
You also have to accept the idea that same-sex pairings are trying to immitate opposite-sex pairings, which I think is a wacky assumption. Pairings aren't so much trying to immitate anything as just find a way to be together and live life.
But it does seem that same-sex pairs are annoyed and put off at the idea that opposite-sex pairs should get benefits that they don't. If this is just a matter of getting a few extra bucks in your tax return, then I might write that off as silly.
But if it is a desire to have hospital rights and share insurance, I can totally understand. When two consenting adults have made an intimate life-long commitment to each other, it seems that certain rights involving how much influence they are allowed have in each other's lives should come with that.
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<sigh> Maybe I'm deluded, but that stuff seems so utterly out of character with OSC in general that I have to assume:
He's just not that aware of what most gays and lesbians are like.
He's completely unaware of the extent to which we are penalized for being gay.
He is basing his views on some of the nastier antics of the organized gay and lesbian community (of which I do not consider myself a member).
Or some selection of the above.
I mean, if Donna Minkowitz had been interviewing me, she'd probably have come away thinking of me as a war-monger and a homophobe. When you're that far to the left, any deviation from the leftist paradigm makes you a crypto-fascist. Or worse.
As to his comments about his enjoying "well earned" goodies from the government as part of a married couple, well, he and I disagree on the perogatives of government. I don't think the US government has any right to play favorites, and I definitely don't see how he had earned anything in that area that I haven't also earned. On the contrary: marriage provides a structure that makes a lot of things a lot easier. The fact that my partner and I have been as successful (thank God) in our relationship as we have despite being denied that structure would seem to me a greater achievement.
Not that I'm drawing comparisons, of course.
Everything gets so polarized nowadays. Was it always like that?
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starLisa, I really appreciate you giving OSC the benefit of the doubt in this debate. I think you're one of the only people I've seen who has managed to simultaneously (1) disagree with him, and (2) not demonize him. Hats off to you.
Squick's first quote is from an extremely hostile and biased interview in which OSC was basically ambushed with a topic he had not planned to discuss. I'm pretty sure that (1) the quotes from him are not exact, and (2) had this been a written interview, and not a verbal one over the phone, he might have phrased himself more carefully to begin with.
quote:Everything gets so polarized nowadays. Was it always like that?
It always seems like it's getting worse, but I'm betting that I'm just becoming more aware of the sickness and more frustrated with it the older I get.
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Squick, you can't just dismiss religion and pretend it doesn't exist, especially when you are legislating for this particular nation, a majority of whose citizens are, in fact, religious. You might not value religion yourself, but that doesn't make religion and religious people any less a part of the society you belong to. To marginalize them and pretend that their needs and desires do not matter is no more noble than doing the same thing to homosexuals.
Our government is (quite correctly) designed to prevent any single religion from achieving dominance and state sponsorship. But that does not mean that the government should not take into account the fact that many of its citizens receive benefits through religion that the government itself cannot provide.
You have already heard arguments that marriage has evolved as an institution because it provides stable environments in which to raise offspring. In recent years, our culture has already largely abandoned the idea of marriage as a serious responsibility for adults, and instead treats it as a contract of convenience between a romantic couple that wants to share their assets for a while, and who can decide at any time to back out of their agreement.
And now we have serious problems with unwed parents struggling to raise families with little or no support from a family structure. When someone signs on to raise a family and support a spouse, it should be much harder than it is for them to weasel out of their responsibilities. Yet we have decided that a parent's boredom or lust or unwillingness to compromise trumps a child's need to have a family.
That really sucks, and with marriage weakened as it is, we have very little means of encouraging people to stay together and counteract this plague of broken homes. We resort to law enforcement to track down deatbeat dads, where once we depended on a sense of honor and social disapproval of divorce and illegitimacy to keep those guys in their homes.
When you depend on the police, and not social pressure, to do your social work for you, your society has already failed.
There ARE still subcultures in America that take marriage seriously for the purposes I've described — treating it as an honorable adult responsibility geared towards raising healthy and civilized families. The problem (for you) is the fact that most of these subcultures have managed to hold onto these values because it was a part of their faith. Where members of other subcultures might be more promiscuous, or might break up their marriages with less provocation, these people AREN'T and DON'T, and society benefits because of it.
Wouldn't it be nice to live in a society where people made responsible decisions about sex, did not risk having children without first ensuring that they would be raised in a stable family, and stuck to their responsibilities once they said their vows (barring abusive situations, of course)?
Government cannot make this happen. Education programs cannot make this happen. Nothing can make it happen perfectly, but the societal force that comes the closest is religion. People willingly changing their behavior, not because they are forced to by the police, but because they believe it is right, or (when their personal morals break down) because they will face disapproval from their fellows if they don't adhere to their religion's standards.
THAT force is much more effective than anything you could legislate. And you can't just make it up, either. You can't go and invent a new religion for America that provides all the benefits you want, with none of the esoteria that you'd like to eject. Well, you CAN, but I doubt anyone will listen to you.
So the problem with the gay marriage issue is, it basically repudiates some of the only subcultures left in America that still value marriage and family the way I've described.
I think that civil unions are a fair compromise because that concept allows these religions to maintain their marriage traditions as a separate institution from what is offered by the government, and can keep the benefits they offer their people going strong, while still providing for the needs of newer subcultures for whom those traditions are not helpful.
If, after fifty years, these cultures merge, and the two become synonymous, then you've got your victory, and you can gloat.
In the meantime, though, why do you want to repudiate some of the only modern cultures that are promoting stable marriage in an efficacious way?
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Are we sure that the religious have less divorce than the non-religious? I recall seeing statistics that stated otherwise. Though it may be that agnostics and atheists are more likely to co-habitate, and there is no record of those pairings going their separate ways. How many of those pairings bring children into the world? I just don't have the facts on that.
quote:When someone signs on to raise a family and support a spouse, it should be much harder than it is for them to weasel out of their responsibilities. Yet we have decided that a parent's boredom or lust or unwillingness to compromise trumps a child's need to have a family.
Actually, if one of the spouses completely "poops out" on their vows and shows no desire whatsoever to keep trying to make the marriage work, I think it is cruel to force the other partner to suffer through that when they could find a spouse who would take those responsibilities seriously. Especially when the presence of that spouse actually makes life more miserable for the children involved.
I'm not sure that making divorce harder would change the lack of regard with which people treat the marriage commitment. I think the disease goes much deeper than that. I don't know what the best solution is, but I think a tightening of divorce laws probably wouldn't fix it.
quote:We resort to law enforcement to track down deatbeat dads, where once we depended on a sense of honor and social disapproval of divorce and illegitimacy to keep those guys in their homes.
This is far more what is needed, but how do you infuse such things into a culture? I suppose if someone payed for propeganda.... We used to be a culture where seatbelts were nearly unheard of. But a combination of laws and ubiquitous propeganda has "brainwashed" this generation into seatbelt usage. Brainwashing isn't necessarily a bad thing. Could something similar be done to help marriage partners take their commitments more seriously?
If religion does do this effectively, then that is a very good thing.
One thing for sure, divorce is far more common amongst the younger generations. While our grandparents' generation could get a divorce far more easily, they don't seem to be rushing out to do it. I suspect that they really do enjoy being married and something from their culture of the past really has help them make their marriages work far better than marriages today.
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quote:Actually, if one of the spouses completely "poops out" on their vows and shows no desire whatsoever to keep trying to make the marriage work, I think it is cruel to force the other partner to suffer through that when they could find a spouse who would take those responsibilities seriously.
When one spouse refuses to try, that IS a serious problem. I'm not saying we should trap people in unworkable situations. I'm saying that our culture should encourage people to be more compromising and motivated to make their marriages work.
People who consider their marriages temporary by nature are far less likely to even attempt to reconcile differences. By making divorce THIS easy, we've made more people more likely to get to the point at which they would need one.
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quote: People who consider their marriages temporary by nature are far less likely to even attempt to reconcile differences. By making divorce THIS easy, we've made more people more likely to get to the point at which they would need one.
This may be true. But I'm not sure if I believe that it is. I think it is also possible, and perhaps more likely, that the laws have been relaxed because the attitudes in our culture have changed so very much. I wish there was more we could do about those attitudes.
Just as the fact that gays are openly requesting marriage is a sign that our culture has changed drastically. (Not that this is a bad thing.) Before, they were far too ostracized, the request would have been inconceivable. If the laws about marriage change to include gays, it will be because our culture changed first.
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quote: I have heard so many people claim that by this he means they are not capable of adult relationships (perhaps because "dress up" is a children's game). But considering the immense respect and tenderness he shows the gay characters in his books, this assumption is ridiculous.
I have trouble imagining that OSC would have used the phrase "dress up" if he had not meant to make us think of the connotations inherent to the term. In other words, the guy's a professional writer; he wouldn't've used "dress up," I'd like to think, unless he meant to send a "children's game" vibe.
Sadly, he's never clarified this point -- which is a shame, because it's one of the most insulting things I've ever seen from him and I really would like to know what he was thinking; it seemed at the time to be strikingly out of character, and took me -- as someone who defended him quite loudly when the Salon interview came out -- entirely by surprise.
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I don't think that anything OSC has written about homosexuality was drawn from a personal evaluation of individual homosexuals, and I doubt he intended it to come across as the dire insult that many readers received.
You have to understand that, to OSC, taking part in the human reproductive cycle is one of THE central purposes of life and society. From THAT perspective, a marriage is DEFINED by its compatibility with the human reproductive process. A pairing that is not just incapable of reproduction for medical reasons, but is actually intrinsically irrelevant to the reproductive process is, to him, not a marriage. To him, the word "marriage" MEANS society's institution surrounding the human reproductive cycle.
Calling other pairings "dress-up" was an extreme way of saying "a marriage is only real and relevant if it adheres to these criteria ... other relationships, while they can be called marriages, lack the key thing that makes a marriage what it is." He was saying that marriages that are irrelevant to the human reproductive process are marriages in name only. If that idea offends you, go ahead and be offended.
What he was NOT saying, however, was all the other connotations people drew from his word choice. He wasn't saying that "gays are incapable of forming adult relationships", for instance. Such interpretations, while understandable given the emotional nature of this argument, are not warranted.
I think the idea he was trying to get across was something like this (and forgive me if I say anything that comes across wrong):
We've got a concept called "fishing". There are many ways to fish, but all of them involve somehow trying to manipulate one or more fish to come into your possession. Some people fish for pleasure, others for a living. Some people earn great hauls of fish, some people earn none, and some throw back what they catch. Even if someone fails to catch any fish, or if they don't even INTEND to catch any fish, if they sit by a river with a fishing pole and bait in the water, they are fishing.
However, if someone sits in their living room and plays chess against themselves while watching the news, they are not fishing. Their choice of activity may be exactly as fun and legitimate as fishing. It may be very rewarding to them ... in fact, this particular person might find this activity much MORE beneficial to them than fishing ever could be. BUT what they are doing should not be called "fishing" because to call it "fishing" would extend the definition so far that the term would become meaningless, and a new term would need to be developed to denote "trying to manipulate one or more fish to come into your possession" and distinguish it from "playing chess and watching the news".
I think that this is the point that OSC was trying to make about marriage. He was asserting that relevance to the human reproductive process is an intrinsic part of the concept of "marriage", and that by extending the definition to include other relationships — no matter how similar they might be in terms of love, romance, loyalty, etc — would change the term in such a way that it would lose an important facet of its meaning.
I'm sure that he did not intend his "fired-up" words to cause quite the emotional reaction that they elicited in some readers, and I am also pretty sure that some of his word choice came mostly from his frustration with the smarmy dismissal that his views often receive from his (non-gay, but liberal) peers. He wanted to make an impact, and so he unleashed the power of Cardly prose ... with some unintended consequences.
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I too was more than a bit offended by that... More like deeply hurt, as it really isn't a logical statement considering what gays and lesbians go through.
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No, because it really is a cruel sort of statement. Not to mention an insult to people like my friend Jan. I took it rather personally. But, yes, it's not exactly... completely logical.
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Because homosexuality, for the most part is not some form of arrested development or a dress-up game, it's subjected to the same sort of gravity and struggles straight relationships are... Or perhaps I jumped to conclusions and instantly got angered by a phrase like that being used to describe gays and lesbians...
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Assuming Geoff is correct about OSC's intentions behind his statement (and I have this funny feeling he just might be )...couldn't homosexuality be considered 'arrested development' in terms of human reproduction? Bear in mind that though now it's certainly possibly to have children in a homosexual relationship, the technology hasn't been around long enough to have connected, so to speak, with the impulse.
I tend to believe OSC meant something much more benign and compassionate than many people seem to think for one reason: Songmaster. Josef (if I am spelling and remembering the name correctly) was definitely not sub-human, nor was he infantile, or just playacting. He was completely human.
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I agree with Puppy's and Rakeesh's interpretation of all this (thankfully, because I doubt I'd have the patience to detail my thoughts in posts as clear as theirs have been. *grin*) Keep it up, gentlemen.
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"Freedom of Religion" as codified in the United States Bill of Rights should be distinguished from "Freedom from Religion". The government could conceivably take away the rights to which marriage entitles one, but doing so would not eliminate the institution of marriage. It would, however, make it far more difficult for those who for whatever reasons wish to get married outside of any particular faith (atheists, agnostics, and people of two different faiths who do not wish to convert and do not think their clergy will consent to such a cross-marriage, for instance.) Such an event is higly unlikely.
My sister loves to tell the story of the courts coming down against lawmakers in Florida who attempted to write a convoluted law prohibiting one particular religion from sacrificing and consuming a chicken during ceremonies without simultaneously outlawing, say, kosher butchery...
I guess aside from throwing that information into the stew, I guess my point is that it is the government-enforced representation of marriage that is at stake, to which the religious representation of marriage has in most cases willingly tied itself.
I might also suggest that there _could_ be reasons for opposing homosexual marriage other than a closed circle of "homosexuality is bad because homosexuality is bad therefore homosexuality is bad and in conclusion..." One might infer, for example, that the children of homosexuals are more likely to adopt promiscuous behaviors and spread sexually transmitted diseases. Or that, as Puppy seems to imply, that accepting a wider range of relationships into the definition of marriage might weaken a bond and an institution already under stress, one which is necessary to the raising of healthy children. I don't happen to agree with these statements, as I think they are based on suppositions and that the potential good caused by allowing some manner of homosexual unions outweighs the potential harm, which I think is often exaggerated or imagined.
And I shudder slightly whenever some halcyon bygone era is conjured when marriages lasted and no births happened out of wedlock and people smiled and waved when you walked down the street and kids respected their elders and...
Fact: In the era following World War Two, America enjoyed prosperity as one of the few largely intact industrial centers in the world. A factory line worker home from a war could make enough to support a house and children, and the G.I. Bill of 1944 meant a lot of people coming home from the war had access to education that meant new opportunities.
A lot of the virtues of those much-touted old days rode upon those economic conditions.
But let us also remember a few things about those good old days. A lot of black people were being denied the vote. What we now call sexual harrassment was something to be tolerated, and joked about, if it was mentioned at all. Alcoholism was the subject of humor- some people just couldn't hold their liquor. Child and spousal abuse was between a husband and his wife and kids, and no one thought to intervene.
And most relevantly- that "queer kid" and the girl who let some boy go farther than any "nice girl" lets a boy and got "knocked up" still existed, but no one talked about them and there was an implicit acceptance of stigmatizing, shunning, and mistreating of same.
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Geoff, if that was really your dad's intent, it was a stunningly poor word choice. It's hard for me to imagine that he did not expect people to be offended.
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Even if he expected people to be offended, that does not mean that he meant the worst things people have said he must have meant.
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He's not responsible for everything someone reads into his writing. But it's not unreasonable to expect that the phrase "dress-up" was deliberately chosen for its chlldish overtones.
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I hope it hasn't been linked already, but this page has some interesting statistics on divorce rates for various Christian groups.
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I agree with you, Tom, that it was a poor choice of words. Possibly (and it seems to me likely) even chosen because of its obvious connotations.
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I think OSC's intention was to piss off the interviewer, frankly, because by that time she was chomping on his rear end like a pirranha. People on this board have said far worse when they get defensive.
Geez, cut the guy some slack.
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When he made the "dress up" comment, it was for one of his own essays on Ornery -- not an interview.
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quote:Originally posted by Sterling: "Freedom of Religion" as codified in the United States Bill of Rights should be distinguished from "Freedom from Religion".
That's a common slogan, Sterling, but it misses the point entirely. The First Amendment may not be aboeut freedom from religion, but it is most certainly about freedom from any particular religion.
Suppose the numbers of Catholics and Protestants were reversed in this country. Would it be justifiable for the government to make divorce illegal? Remarriage open to prosecution as bigamy?
quote:Originally posted by Sterling: The government could conceivably take away the rights to which marriage entitles one, but doing so would not eliminate the institution of marriage.
Precisely.
quote:Originally posted by Sterling: I might also suggest that there _could_ be reasons for opposing homosexual marriage other than a closed circle of "homosexuality is bad because homosexuality is bad therefore homosexuality is bad and in conclusion..." One might infer, for example, that the children of homosexuals are more likely to adopt promiscuous behaviors and spread sexually transmitted diseases.
One might infer any number of things. One might be making things up out of whole cloth in the doing.
In the first place, lesbians are far less likely to spread sexually transmitted diseases than heterosexuals. So maybe the government ought to think about only allowing marriage between women. Not that I'm suggesting such a ridiculous thing, but it follows from your "inference".
quote:Originally posted by Sterling: Or that, as Puppy seems to imply, that accepting a wider range of relationships into the definition of marriage might weaken a bond and an institution already under stress, one which is necessary to the raising of healthy children.
I've never understood how or why my being able to marry my partner could weaken, say, my brother's marriage to his wife. It doesn't make any sense. It's just rhetoric.
Let me tell you something about my daughter. She's five years old. She has already met the boy she intends to marry. They were three when they decided this. Who knows if it'll last, but they're both extremely determined children.
She is insanely into pink and Barbies and dress-up and all the things that so often get stuffed down little girls' throats.
But on the flip side, we recently watched the movie Quarterback Princess, where a teenaged Helen Hunt plays a girl who joins her high school football team against the strenuous objections of many of the townspeople. It's based on the true story of Tami Maida, who was both the star quarterback that year and the homecoming princess.
My daughter couldn't understand why people were making such a big deal about Tami playing football. She knows that she can do whatever she wants, and was born too late to remember when that was such a controversy. I know what a nightmare that must be to people who shudder at the thought of women outside of the kitchen or bedroom.
Sterling, we are Orthodox Jews. We don't even let her wear pants outside. She is being raised in a strongly moral environment. One in which modesty is a major value. Compared to the general US straight culture, I "infer" that she's far less likely to be promiscuous.
quote:Originally posted by Sterling: And most relevantly- that "queer kid" and the girl who let some boy go farther than any "nice girl" lets a boy and got "knocked up" still existed, but no one talked about them and there was an implicit acceptance of stigmatizing, shunning, and mistreating of same.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: starLisa, I really appreciate you giving OSC the benefit of the doubt in this debate. I think you're one of the only people I've seen who has managed to simultaneously (1) disagree with him, and (2) not demonize him. Hats off to you.
<nod> I've noticed a lot of knees jerking on the issue, starting with the interviewer, but certainly not ending with her.
Demonizing someone you disagree with is cheap. It requires nothing but rhetoric, and it cheats the person you disagree with of the opportunity to hear possibly valid criticism. As well, it cheats you yourself of the opportunity to hear possibly valid counter-arguments.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: Squick's first quote is from an extremely hostile and biased interview in which OSC was basically ambushed with a topic he had not planned to discuss. I'm pretty sure that (1) the quotes from him are not exact, and (2) had this been a written interview, and not a verbal one over the phone, he might have phrased himself more carefully to begin with.
So I presumed, on both counts.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy
quote:Everything gets so polarized nowadays. Was it always like that?
It always seems like it's getting worse, but I'm betting that I'm just becoming more aware of the sickness and more frustrated with it the older I get.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy: Squick, you can't just dismiss religion and pretend it doesn't exist, especially when you are legislating for this particular nation, a majority of whose citizens are, in fact, religious.
But it isn't a matter of dismissing religion. It's a matter of restricting any particular religion, or groups of religions, from forcing their beliefs on others.
The protections that religious groups enjoy in this country, where valid, should be 100% the same whether they are a majority or a minority. I think that basing an argument on a group being a majority is the first mistake.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy You might not value religion yourself, but that doesn't make religion and religious people any less a part of the society you belong to. To marginalize them and pretend that their needs and desires do not matter is no more noble than doing the same thing to homosexuals.
I think that's a false analogy. Essentially, this is a double-edged sword. If you want your religious views to be respected by others, you have to grant them the same respect.
I don't have any problem with someone who doesn't want to hire me because I'm gay. Well, I do -- I think such a person is a bigot, and I have very little respect for such a person -- but I would never, ever try to use legislative force to override someone's personal feelings in the matter.
And that goes equally for someone who might not want to hire me because I'm Jewish. Or because I'm a woman.
We've gotten so used to the "There oughta be a law" mentality in this country, where legislative coercion is used as a shortcut to avoid having to actually persuade people that they're wrong about something.
But this kind of thinking is not the sole province of the left. Using the law to support a conservative or religious institution is just as wrong as using it to support a liberal one.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy Our government is (quite correctly) designed to prevent any single religion from achieving dominance and state sponsorship. But that does not mean that the government should not take into account the fact that many of its citizens receive benefits through religion that the government itself cannot provide.
Certainly. But that seems a bit of a non sequitur to me. In another post, I asked whether it would be just for the government to make divorce illegal if Catholics were a majority. Allowing people to divorce can be seen by Catholics as a threat to their institution of marriage. After all, if divorce wasn't allowed in the US, far fewer Catholics would even consider the idea.
But it would be wrong.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy You have already heard arguments that marriage has evolved as an institution because it provides stable environments in which to raise offspring. In recent years, our culture has already largely abandoned the idea of marriage as a serious responsibility for adults, and instead treats it as a contract of convenience between a romantic couple that wants to share their assets for a while, and who can decide at any time to back out of their agreement.
And that is a terrible thing, I agree. But with the growing number of gay and lesbian couples who are raising families, what you just said is a potent argument in favor of same sex marriage.
My partner and I moved back to the US from Israel when our daughter was 10 months old. It wasn't possible for us to ensure legal recognition for both of us as her parents in Israel. And Arabs were targeting school buses.
Had something happened to the one of us who is our daughter's birth mother, the other would have had no legal relationship with our daughter whatsoever. It wasn't about "I have a right to be her parent"; it was about "she has a right to have both of her parents legally connected to her."
The issue of same-sex marriage is not anti-marriage. On the contrary; it is pro-marriage. It is a measure that will do for gay families exactly what marriage currently does for straight families.
In a society where marriage has become so weakened, same-sex marriage can only strengthen the institution.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy And now we have serious problems with unwed parents struggling to raise families with little or no support from a family structure.
So why try to deprive gay and lesbian families of that structure? Is it a "misery loves company thing"? With so many families breaking up, shouldn't pro-family groups be excited about gays and lesbians wanting the opposite?
quote:Originally posted by Puppy When someone signs on to raise a family and support a spouse, it should be much harder than it is for them to weasel out of their responsibilities. Yet we have decided that a parent's boredom or lust or unwillingness to compromise trumps a child's need to have a family.
You're preaching to the choir, Puppy. I was eight years old before I ever heard of divorce. My best friend told me that her last name was going to be different from then on, and I asked her why. I was shocked, because I'd never heard of such a thing before.
Don't get me wrong -- there is a time and a place for divorce. But it's not because someone feels an itch or because you're too lazy to work things out.
But think about it. What keeps my family together? I make about 4 times what my partner does. In terms of the law, I could cut her off just like that. It won't happen, ever, because I love her, and I do believe in making things work. But why shouldn't the law protect our family in the same way that it protects yours?
quote:Originally posted by Puppy That really sucks, and with marriage weakened as it is, we have very little means of encouraging people to stay together and counteract this plague of broken homes. We resort to law enforcement to track down deatbeat dads, where once we depended on a sense of honor and social disapproval of divorce and illegitimacy to keep those guys in their homes.
When you depend on the police, and not social pressure, to do your social work for you, your society has already failed.
I agree completely. But failure can be reversed.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy There ARE still subcultures in America that take marriage seriously for the purposes I've described — treating it as an honorable adult responsibility geared towards raising healthy and civilized families. The problem (for you) is the fact that most of these subcultures have managed to hold onto these values because it was a part of their faith.
I don't know. My family wasn't very religious at all. I'm unusual in that regard. I didn't become religious until I was in college.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy Where members of other subcultures might be more promiscuous, or might break up their marriages with less provocation, these people AREN'T and DON'T, and society benefits because of it.
And wouldn't society benefit just as much by giving us the tools that would strengthen our families?
And in terms of "subcultures", not all gays and lesbians are part of the "gay culture" you see in the media. There's a promiscuous subculture in this country that cuts across lines of straight and gay. Unfortunately, it's becoming more correct to say that it's the non-promiscuous who are the subculture.
Turn on your TV, Puppy. Check out swill like Desperate Housewives.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy Wouldn't it be nice to live in a society where people made responsible decisions about sex, did not risk having children without first ensuring that they would be raised in a stable family, and stuck to their responsibilities once they said their vows (barring abusive situations, of course)?
Absolutely. But consider: gay and lesbian couples can't have children by accident. It's impossible. When we do, it's because we've thought it through and planned everything.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy Government cannot make this happen. Education programs cannot make this happen. Nothing can make it happen perfectly, but the societal force that comes the closest is religion.
But... whose religion? I have a former friend who is Wiccan. Does her religion deserve less protection from the law than yours or mine?
quote:Originally posted by Puppy People willingly changing their behavior, not because they are forced to by the police, but because they believe it is right, or (when their personal morals break down) because they will face disapproval from their fellows if they don't adhere to their religion's standards.
THAT force is much more effective than anything you could legislate. And you can't just make it up, either. You can't go and invent a new religion for America that provides all the benefits you want, with none of the esoteria that you'd like to eject. Well, you CAN, but I doubt anyone will listen to you.
Well, I think there are cultural groups in this country which are strongly moral without the need to be part of one of the big, established religions.
People have to take responsibility. People have to be willing to make their case and allow others to listen or not. Legislating your position onto someone else isn't a good answer. It may seem pragmatic enough, but it's a moral shortcut.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy So the problem with the gay marriage issue is, it basically repudiates some of the only subcultures left in America that still value marriage and family the way I've described.
Again, how so? Do you believe that legal divorce in this country repudiates the Catholic faith? Do legal sales of pork repudiate Judaism?
As an Orthodox Jew, I can tell you that it's far easier to keep kosher in Israel than it is in the US. I can walk into a grocery store in Jerusalem and just buy groceries. I don't have to check everything to make sure it's kosher.
When I walk by a restaurant in Chicago and smell the ribs cooking, it's a major temptation. Some people give in to that temptation. We might lose fewer kids to assimilation if pork was banned here.
But as the saying goes: "We could do that. But it would be wrong."
quote:Originally posted by Puppy I think that civil unions are a fair compromise because that concept allows these religions to maintain their marriage traditions as a separate institution from what is offered by the government, and can keep the benefits they offer their people going strong, while still providing for the needs of newer subcultures for whom those traditions are not helpful.
Don't assume that "religious" and "gay" are so separate. And I'd be happy with civil unions if they were supported on a federal level, and if they carried 100% of the rights and responsibilities of federally recognized marriage. I won't quibble about the word. But people with a Vermont civil union can't file their taxes jointly. Neither can married couples in Massachussetts.
quote:Originally posted by Puppy If, after fifty years, these cultures merge, and the two become synonymous, then you've got your victory, and you can gloat.
Wow. That seems a little bitter. Why would anyone want to gloat?
quote:Originally posted by Puppy In the meantime, though, why do you want to repudiate some of the only modern cultures that are promoting stable marriage in an efficacious way?
I don't. I don't see any repudiation here.
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Thanks for the clarification; I'd read the Salon interview, and thought he'd said something of the sort, but there you go. Though I still think people ought to be less willing to bark over every comment he makes, I can see why that phrase might rile the feathers.
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