Perhaps I should reiterate my stance on gay marriage. I'm against it.
I don't care for heterosexual marriage, either. Gay people should not ask me to work for the expansion of an institution best avoided altogether.
True marriage occurs in the heart. If a union exists there, anything written on a piece of paper is superfluous, and perhaps even detrimental. A formal exchange of vows is often the first sign of failure in a relationship.
In an abstract, theoretical sense, I suppose gay people ought to have the right to make the same mistakes that we hets make. Then again -- in a abstract, theoretical sense, people should also have the right to eat shattered glass if they care to do so. I would not encourage anyone to exercise such a right. I will not fight to protect such a right. I cannot pretend to care about such a right.
Yes, marriage does possess certain legal advantages. By all means, let us find ways to make those same advantages easily available to one and all, regardless of marital status.
Will the readers of this blog -- and dr. elsewhere -- disagree with this stance? Can't wait to find out!
7 comments:
I've lived with women and I've been married and I've lived alone. What's different about marriage is that you can make plans. 'Cause you can at least pretend you're committed to working it out together. While living together it's possible to experience smooth sailing engendered by avoidance of conflict and avoidance of making plans--and to mistake that for peace and harmony.
Makes perfect sense to me.
Keep in mind what George Bernard Shaw said: "Marriage will always be popular, because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity."
admirably bold and independent position, joe. we'd expect nothing less, naturally.
and just as naturally, i honor your right to view marriage in any way you feel, however you wish to express it, even if it means a full out rejection of the traditional notions.
in some ways, though, that is precisely what is at stake here, your right - and mine, and everyone else's - to express this very personal and private decision in whatever way we see fit, as long as no one else is harmed or has their rights violated in any way.
and that includes homosexuals.
does it not just amuse you to death to hear rightwingnuts rant and rave about THEIR rights being violated by having homosexual marriage shoved, er, down their throats?
so, joe, consider this: surely we agree that everyone ought to have the right to express personal commitment in any way they choose, and enjoy the accompanying privileges. and surely we agree that this godforsaken amendment is nothing more than a political ploy to appease the base (the ever-dwindling base, we must emphasize), but more importantly, to erect yet another wedge issue (like immigration) to divide the country. yet another wedge issue that demonizes liberals.
nevermind the fact that this amendment with which they choose to appease and wedge is in itself a brazen violation of the very constitution it would amend.
all these things considered, then, how can you possibly claim to 'not care' about this assault on our constitution, on our right to individually make such personal decisions, and our right to enjoy equal privileges? because that is what it is.
this is not about your abstract notions of marriage, joe, or anyone else's (and bush really doesn't give a s**t). this is about manipulating the public. and if we don't see through the abstract nonsense to the concrete core issues of rights to choose and privacy, if we choose to let our personal biases cloud the deeper issues, then we are being just as selective about these things as is the opposition.
by comparison, i would not advise abortion for most situations i might personally encounter (professionally might be another matter), but i will fight passionately for every woman's right to choose. if i'm not mistaken, any one of us who is not in a position to carry a child in pregnancy, but still supports a pregnant woman's right to choose, is in the same boat.
i see these situations as intensely parallel. so do the rightwingnuts, because they have yoked them similarly in religion in order to deny the vulnerable their rights.
don't miss this aspect of the issue, joe. and don't miss the importance of the 'legal advantages' of marriage. there are some such rights that cannot necessarily be granted to everyone. these have to do with children, property, and personal access in life-threatening circumstances or death. we cannot grant everyone such privileges to everyone else; that just defeats the purpose of affording individuals dignity and a certain sovereignty over whatever tiny domain they may hold, be it children or a home, or even a name or your last moments and wishes. there is no legal way to grant these things, which most of us hold sacred to some degree, to everyone without defining the nature of the relationships involved.
and that is what this debate is about. the rightwingnuts would have us exclude those among us who choose to partner with their own gender from such sacred privileges, despite the commitments they may have made to one another, on paper or not.
we'll grant common law wives equal footing with legal wives in divorce and death, but not same sex partners who are clamoring for paper.
if you support the constitution, and if you support the right to choose to terminate a pregnancy, and if you support your own right to reject marriage vows, then this current debate over this absurd amendment should matter deeply to you.
just my humble opinion.
since you did ask.
;-)
(and by the by, dr. elsewhere is a reader, too! quite an avid one, i'd say!!)
p.s.
just saw where the pope has called gay marriage 'an eclipse of god.'
hmph. i'd say this pope is an eclipse of god. just my opinion.
but THAT is what this debate is all about. my opinion, joe's opinion, the pope's opinion.... we each have a right to these and the right to express them.
but when it comes to the laws of this land, the pope does not make them, and he cannot make them. nor can james dobson or pat robertson. it has to be you and me and joe and all us other slobs who want to be treated as well as everyone else.
and if we slack on the fight for any one group, we slack on us all. because we are only as free and protected as the least among us.
Just a thought. It is true that the exchange of vows is sometimes a final attempt to nail jelly to the wall, but it can also be a public declaration of what one feels inwardly. For some people, such a declaration is not just a description of "Where I am now," but of where I intend to remain.
My own relationship with the Supreme Allied Commander has lasted some 25 years, including 21 years as married. I have also found that, in the rough patches, the existence of the marriage commitment can give you the stamina to get through it.
Heaven knows there have been days when divorce, or possibly murder, seemed like a good idea for each of us. But those days pass, and we are still here, and we are (most days) glad that we stuck it out.
For this reason and others, I am increasingly of the view that marriage has meaning and value, apart from the social conventions. And if it does, denying the validity of relationships that are marriages in all but name is simple bigotry.
I think that the issue should really be dealt with immediately, so that the Bushies can get on with the trivial quotidian business of government, like finding Bin Laden, preparing for NOLA's annual bath, and even providing armour to the garrison in Mess o' Potamia
I like Mike Malloy's approach.....it's something I've been thinking about for years. My amplification of this approach is that no state can marry people, nor can they delegate such activity. All of the benefits of 'marriage' are actually civil matters. So if two people decide they love each other and want to spend their lives together, they can enter into a civil contract which will identify and specify their rights and obligations to each other and with state agencies. Such could be the normal obligations of citizens, as which or both were to be responsible for debts, utilities, inheritances, all much as some marriage vows currently are. But the beauty of this is that one's mate is not necessarily and automatically the one who would decide on life or death, since that could be a contract with another (perhaps a sibling). If you follow this thought out, children of responsible age could be included in the contract. Some contracts could be all inclusive, some limited by specifying clause by clause. The state could set certain specific basics (e.g., responsibility for children), but could not discriminate as to any social/ethical/religious characteristics not specifically related to civil contracts.
THEN if the couple is religiously inclined, they could be 'married' in the holy place of their choice, either simultaneously with signing the contract, or at a later date. In the end, MARRIAGE is the religious side of a civil contract, which any couple may or may not decide to employ.
Post a Comment