Texas is... progressive?Follow

I think that all of this debate kinda misses the really key point, and the real problem with gay marriage. It's not really about the rights (although they are important). It's not really about the benefits (although they are as well). It's not even about the relationship between the two people (also important of course).

The problem is that no matter how far we go down the rabbit hole that is the gay marriage debate, we ultimately end up at the "social acceptance" problem. It's actually at the core of the need for the name of marriage. The thinking is that there's some special social value placed on a marriage and that unless gay people have that too, they'll always think their relationships are taking second fiddle.

Of course, the problem is that no amount of name-changing, legislative changes, or sweeping court decisions can force the individuals withing a society to view a relationship in a different light. There will always be people who will view an opposite sex relationship with a greater degree of validity and value than a same sex relationship. Period. And that's really what most gay people are missing. And it's the one thing you can't force to happen via any sort of government action.


Social change and social acceptance takes time. The fastest route for gay couples to gain that social acceptance is to show that their relationships are just as valid and useful and valuable to society as straight relationships are. And guess what? Making a mockery of people's traditions doesn't help that cause. Running into churches dressed like clowns and disrupting their worship does not help that cause. While there are many gay couples out there who just want to live a life together, those who are most "active" in the cause of gay marriage seem to take an approach that the more outlandishly they portray their relationships and the more "in your face" they are, they can somehow force people to accept that no matter how little they seem to respect the institution of marriage as a social structure, they can have it anyway and then make fun of how they were able to force everyone around them to give it to them.


That's the negative aspect of this. My worry is that the harder gay right groups push for gay marriage, the less legitimate gay marriages will be viewed in the social context. The high standing we place on married couples in our society is based on a belief that the themselves will behave as a responsible couple towards that society. That rarely seems to be the case with gay couples. If you want the social respect that comes with something, you really have to earn it. You cant force people to accept it, no matter how many court battles you win...

I just think that there's a difference between accepting changes external to one's self, and actually changing your own views. There are a whole bunch of things I accept because the law says I have to, but it doesn't change my opinion that said things are stupid.

Every gay couple I've talked to about the issue (and yes, that number is higher than zero you ninnies!) has ultimately arrived at some larger need for social acceptance as their motivation in the first place. When the issue of civil union versus marriage comes up, it's not usually what minor differences in the law may exist, but the fact that their relationship is called something different. Period. The believe that as long as it's not called the same thing, their relationship will be viewed as not the same thing.


The problem is that in at least one very clear biological way, their relationship isn't the same thing. And that's always going to be the case. No change of labels and no amount of legal enforcement of the use of said labels will change that. People will adapt to calling their relationship whatever they insist on it being called, but no one's ever likely to fail to recognize that the biological makeup of a relationship changes the meaning of the relationship to the rest of the society. I know that many of you insist on downplaying this, but there's just no way around the fact that a society places greater value on couples who may procreate than those who may not (regardless of exception cases).


And I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with "the people" viewing a young man and woman choosing to marry eachother differently than a young man and man, or woman and woman. And yup. It really does come down to biology, child birth, improvement and enlargement of the society, etc...

Edited, Oct 2nd 2009 6:11pm by gbaji

OMG! No one's ever brought that point up before! Oh wait... They have. Many many times.

You're arguing the exception and trying to use it to refute the rule. Car collectors often buy cars and never drive them. Does that mean that cars don't exist primarily as a means of transportation? If I decide to use a balloon as a strap to tie something down with, does that mean that balloons really aren't designed to hold air? Of course not...


From a social perspective, it's hard to argue this. Care to guess how often your Aunt and Uncle's parents asked them "So... When are the grandkids appearing?". Does the fact that it's completely ok for them to choose to not have children, or to not be able to biologically change the likelihood of disappointment that they didn't reproduce? We can work really hard to reinvent the meaning of something like marriage, but I suspect that you'll find it hard to get away from that assumption.


Even if you change the labels, it'll still be there. A young man and woman marry (or enter into a civil union or whatever), and you can bet the thought on everyone's minds is what sort of children they might have together, and the family they could create, etc. No amount of legislative label changing will ever put those thoughts in people's heads when a same sex relationship is involved.


So yeah. It's always going to be viewed differently.



Except that "man + woman = marriage" exists currently because of the fact that "man + woman = baby" most of the time. We get that not every man and woman will produce children together, and not every marriage will be about procreation. But the two are far more connected than you probably think.

Again. You can change the definitions, but that thought still remains. When a man and a woman enter into a committed relationship there are different assumptions and expectations than if two people of the same sex do. Whatever you want to call it, or however hard you insist on separating the word "marriage" from the biological reality of procreation, that biological reality will continue to exist. It is what it is, regardless of what you label it. And most people will recognized the societal importance of it and place value on it.



Not the point I was making. And someone has to have children just to maintain society. Guess what? It's better that they do that when married than when not. It's really not about trying to hurt or hate gay couples. The whole thing is about encouraging straight couples to create the next generation of kids in the best possible manner, so that they make our society better instead of worse.


It's why old people smile when young people get married.



Yes. People are going to have sex one way or another. And people will therefore produce children as a consequence of said sexual activity. Marriage as an institutions helps to encourage those people who will have sex together and will as a consequence produce children to do so in a more stable and self-supportive socio-economic construct. It's not about the exceptions. That some people can enter into loving relationships without having the biological equipment to produce children together is great, but should also be irrelevant with regard to marriage. And that some people who have the biological equipment, but choose not to have children together can get married anyway also isn't relevant. It's better to let them do so unnecessarily, than try to guess ahead of time which heterosexual couples will and wont have children.


I really don't want to get into the whole argument with you. I've made it a dozen times in the past in other threads. My point here was primarily about the social acceptance angle. No matter what labels you apply to something, you can't change what it really is. But it seems as though the gay rights groups are trying to do just that. And that seems silly and self damaging to me. I think it would be better to accept that your relationship is what it is, and holds the position and importance in society that it holds.


I guess my larger issue is with the conflation of the value of what someone does versus who that person is. You are no less a person and no less valuable as a person based on whether you are gay or not, or married or not. The value of what you do is based on how it benefits others. In the same way that a ditchdiggers labor may not be valued as highly as a police officers, but we don't say that the ditchdigger has less rights because of it (monetary compensation isn't a measure of rights no matter how much people seem to want to say it is), the fact that society values relationship which produce productive members of society more than those which don't, and those more than those which produce destructive members of society, does not confer some difference in terms of rights or legitimacy as a citizen. We reward the behavior, not the person. If I don't reward you for marrying someone of the same sex, it's not because I don't value "you", but because what you're doing is of no greater value to me (or the rest of society perhaps) than someone who didn't marry at all.


Unfortunately, it seems as though far too many people derive their own value based on choices they make and actions they take. That's a whole nother topic though...

Yes, but the benefits for raising children should be extended regardless of the couples orientation, but only to those who have children. Wouldn't that be the best usage of our resources?

Who's forcing gbaji to do what now?

MAH TAXES!! You can't spend TEH TAXES on silly things like gender equality. Those taxes are better off spent on other things, which actually benefit society.

Like illegitimate wars.

Then why do you do it so damn much?

Who the hell is "stubbs"??

I stopped reading anything after this. I mean, really?

I can't believe I still manage to be surprised by the insane lengths gbaji will go to in order to rationalize why he dislikes the thought of two men or two women marrying. Icky icky!

His position in the past has indeed come down to "I'm totally for changing all marriages, but since that will never happen let's just deny gay people the rights." Never mind the small population of homosexuals and the even smaller population of homosexuals that will marry will probably correlate to a tax increase of at the absurdly most of $1/person. Most likely your taxes won't change at all as a direct result of gay marriage.

"But CBD, it's the idea of it! I don't want my taxes to be increased for anything!" I'm crying you a river over here, really. Come back to reality.

"You're making those numbers up and you always yell at me for that!" I'm not really going to be half-assed to run or find the numbers for you, but I'm sure we could if you wanna go down that road. It's not going to end well for you though.

Edited, Oct 2nd 2009 11:04pm by CBD

I see.

You can't really argue with someone if they are dense enough to think that this is true.

He changed it to take a hilarious "cheap" shot at BT and has since, been stuck with Brownduck.