If you think it harms you because it “undermines” your marriage, that’s a sad statement about the shaky state of your marriage. In all seriousness, you need to seek marital counseling.
Good arguments from Loyal Opposition about the absurdity of the gay marriage debate. He correctly divides marriage into its religious and civil rights components, and then shows why on both those counts liberals are on the right side.
There is a third component, however -- the sexual aspect of marriage. Really this is the only way that the marriage of two individuals of the same gender differs from one between a man and a woman, and it's this aspect that gets "moral values" conservatives hot under the collar. They don't like gay sex, they don't approve of gay sex, and if they could ban gay sex they would. Thanks to liberals and progressives, legislation regarding things that consenting adults do in private have largely been stricken from the books, and rightly so. But this does not stop these people from thinking about it and, in the context of a gay marriage, feeling that it undermines their own.
The problem is that some people think of their marriage as a permit to have sex. Pre-marital sex, while it has lost nearly all of its stigma in liberal circles, is still seen as morally wrong in the traditionalist red states. Unmarried couples still have sex, of course, but if they live in a conservative community they will need to keep it quiet. Their private life has an illicit air to it as they skulk about attempting to keep their relations secret, as if they were having an extramarital affair. If the daughter brings her boyfriend home for the holidays, her Republican parents will host them in separate rooms, and if they want to sneak time together they had better do it quietly.
But this all changes when a couple gets married. Their community will expect them to share a home and perhaps have a family. Their parents will put them up in the same bedroom when they visit, and may even offer to babysit so the couple can have personal time. The husband will get risque compliments on how lucky he is, but within the frame of approval from his friends and neighbors. The marriage has legitimized their sexual relationship for the community.
Faced with legal gay marriage, the moral values crowd has two choices. They can either accept that the sex in the marriage is legitimate, or they can say that the marriage is legitimate but the sex is not. This forces them to choose between accepting that gay people are allowed to have sex, or revoking the power of marriage to grant its sexual license. It's this second option that conservative are citing when they complain that gay marriage weakens the whole institution. They fear that if they can despise other people for having sex inside marriage, they may come to despise themselves for their own.
And I agree, these people are sick and need counseling.
- jack*
A license for sex. Hadn't thought of that angle. Hard to imagine there's anywhere left where premarital (nonmarital?) sex has to be kept secret! Mayberry is still out there?
Posted by: loyopp | November 20, 2004 at 07:21 PM
The tony suburb next door to mine has city ordinances prohibiting unmarried couples from sharing a residence. There was a famous case a few years ago in which they made a big stink over a cohabiting couple, eventually forcing them to get married if they were going to stay in their house. OTOH they don't seem to have the same prohibition for same-sex couples; I know of one gay couple that lives openly there, with all the neighbors aware of the situation.
The whole business of putting through anti-gay marriage referenda is simply the exploitation of a wedge issue by the radical right-wingers now running the Republican party (and by extension, the country as a whole). I think the most vociferous of the anti-gay sentiment doesn't rest on anything more sophisticated than an emotional revulsion for gay sexuality (or at least for the cartoon version of what gay sexuality is as imagined in the minds of a pretty ignorant collection of people). The talk of gay marriage hurting straight marriage is just a rationalization for people indulging their prejudices.
Posted by: jimBOB | November 20, 2004 at 08:14 PM
Moral absolutism is rooted in essentialism, and this requires defining hard boundaries between categories. Thus one's humanness begins at conception, and one's adult life begins with a specific birthday or some other event. For sexual maturity this is traditionally marriage. The truth that we transition gradually between ill-defined states is an anathma. This is partly why they hate Darwin so much.
But that's a whole different essay.
Posted by: jack | November 21, 2004 at 12:19 PM