Threatening My Marriage?
So yesterday I posted one of my marathon comments on a piece that Pam wrote. Someone asked a fairly simple question (how is it that allowing same gender marriage, thereby encouraging more people to get married, means that you're attacking marriage?), and it got me thinking, and it came down to this: opposition to same gender marriage = homophobia.
Yes, I know you're all saying "Thank you, Captain Obvious" right about now, but there's more here than meets the eye. A lot of people, some who I know and love, oppose same-gender marriage on grounds that are ostensively not related to "Fags are icky" or "Fags are evil." There are a variety of arguments, but one of the most popular is the "Dilution" argument. Here, for your reading pleasure, is my take on the Dilution argument, the vast majority of which is lifted verbatim from my comment on the Mighty Pandagon.
I’m still a little lacking in understanding here - exactly how is any institution under attack by making it more popular?
OK–assuming this is a serious question, I’m going to try to use my insight (developed through years of indulging my perverse fascination with extremists) to explain the reasoning.
As far as I can tell, there are basically three lines of reasoning–the first is just that some people hate/fear queers, and have a strong gut reaction that anything they touch is defiled beyond recuperation. So, if queers get marriage, they will destroy it.
Second, is a variation on the “They hate our freedom” horseshit from 9/11. Queers are banished from decent society, therefore they hate decent society, therefore they will do anything to destroy it. Ergo, their attempts at “marriage” are just a thinly-disguised campaign to destroy a fundamental social institution. Kinda like pouring cyanide in the water supply because everyone else is nice and you’re evil. We see this in cartoon villains a lot.
But the third line is the one that probably resonates with more people than the other two. I think of it as the “dilution” argument. Marriage is a privileged state to which people are admitted when they meet certain conditions, and it confers certain privileges and responsibilities. There’s an understandable objection if you feel like it’s being watered down or given away cheaply.
It’s like the letters PhD or USMC after your name–you bust your ass to get them, they confer both rights and responsibilities. As long as it’s known that those letters mean specific things, then you can count on people extending the privileges and holding you accountable to the responsibilities. But if it’s generally accepted that anyone who wants to can legitimately call themselves "Doctor Smith" or "Marine Sergeant Smith" just because they feel like it, then you know that you will no longer be given credit for what it took to earn those letters.
The problem with the above reasoning is that the underlying assumption is that queer marriage is not “real” marriage.* You have to assume that queer folk somehow do not deserve the status of marriage before the “dilution” argument makes any sense. If queer folk are just as capable of love, affection, responsibility and commitment as straight folk, if their relationships need and deserve as much societal support, if they have just as much to contribute, if their children are just as important, then the “dilution” effect disappears.
Which means (sigh), that it all boils down to homophobia again. If my friends Mary and Linda are my social equals, and their relationship is equal to mine, then there’s no “dilution” going on, and it’s just another way to rationalize gut-level bigotry.
And rationalizing gut-level bigotry is what the modern Religious Right is all about. That's why it's almost pointless to attack things like creationism or abortion laws.** They aren't the problem--they're the symptom. People who reject evolution do so because they have a basic aversion to its implications--all the pseudo-science is just window dressing. the majority of people who want to banish abortion aren't interested in the babies--that's just a outgrowth of the basic desire to (as I have said before) control women's sexuality.We are not dealing with a movement that can be turned back by appealing to logic and rationality. Hell, some of these people are opposed to logic and rationality (no, really).
So I'll leave you with a quote from an old-school diatriber that pretty well encapsulates the problems inherent in turning back a Theocratic movement in a Democratic society:
It is useless to attempt to reason a [woman or] man out of a thing [she or] he was never reasoned into.----------------------------------------
--Jonathan Swift
*I’m sure there are plenty of guys who felt that their PhD or USMC was cheapened when women were allowed to use those titles, because women couldn’t be “real” scholars or Marines.
**That is, to attack them as rational constructs. By all means, attack them in their social and legal instantiations.
posted by RJ @ 11:43 PM
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6 Comments:
Great post.
Yes, makes the point clearly. The people who oppose gay marriage don't think that gays/lesbians *deserve* the same privileges that they do. You are so right, it's the same as the men who complain(ed) about women having the vote, education etc. They are afraid their precious 'privileges' are only worthy when denied to some other group, so they can feel superior.
I recently heard a serious discussion on this topic, and I wanted your take on it. I seriously believed that the author's thoughts were not based on bigotry, but rather an obsession with children.
The argument was that "marriage" is about many things, an expression of love and fidelity being one of them. But also included is the "having and raising of children."
In other words, the idea that you should be married in order to have children. That two-parent child rearing is one of the fundamental reasons for marriage.
The argument then continued by saying that SSM "dilutes" marriage because it shifts the focus of marriage towards the love/devotion aspect and away from children. Gay people want to marry because they feel their bond deserves the same public expression and protection.
I believe that is what some people mean when they say "redefining marriage". (At least the non-whacko ones.) Just a reprioritizing of the reasons for marriage.
Finally, the argument went that we NEED a children=marriage institution. Two parent homes are needed for children to turn out right. By refocusing what marriage is "about" - we lose some of the emphasis on marriage as a committment to the well-being of children in favor of emphasis on the committment to each other.
I think we should have SSM because I think this is a small price to pay compared to shutting out genuinely loving couples, but I don't think it's a bigoted point that should be dismissed summarily.
50 years ago:
Q. Why do we have marriage?
A. To help raise children
50 years from now:
Q. Why do we have marriage?
A. For two people to express their love.
The author was just saying that we weaken something important with that. (I know that gay people can and do raise children, but that takes a back seat due to obvious difficulties.)
Chris:
I think that argument makes a couple of big assumptions, and I'm glad you bring it up because it's one I hear a lot.
One of the assumptions is summarized in the "50 Years" part at the end. Marriage has changed in a lot of ways in the past 50 years. To "help raise children" you could add "so a woman can be financially supported (and still be respectable)." By that reasoning you could say that all the work that has been to fight gender discrimination in the workplace has been diluting marriage, not to mention the laws that gave women ownership of their own property, the right to take a job without their husband's permission, redress to the law when beaten or raped by her husband, etc., etc.. I don't think many of us would accept a return to that definition of marriage, yet few would argue that letting a woman charge her husband with rape dilutes or "threatens" their marriage. Marriage has been evolving forever, but no one complained much about it until the GOP decided to turn LGBT folk into the electoral boogey-men (excuse me--I think they prefer "people of boogey").
The other assumption is that gays and lesbians won't raise children. In fact, that's one of the main reasons that people are fighting for same-sex mariage. I go to bed each night secure in the knowlege that if my wife dies, her creepy father won't be able to challenge me for custody because I'm a "legal stranger" to my children. My friend Mary does not have that luxury.
A quick peek at the census tells me that one-third of lesbian households and one-fifth of gay households have children. Married couples come in at just under half.
So, we see that child-raising rates, while lower among gays and lesbians, are quite substantial. Then there's the question, of course, of how many more would have kids if they knew they were legally protected. With fully revised marriage, custody, adoption, and foster-care laws, we could well see lesbians at a rate equal to heterosexuals and gay men not far behind.
And then there's the blind eye that's being turned to heterosexual marriages that don't intend to produce children. Do they dilute marriage? Even if one honestly answer "yes," I doubt that they would advocate stripping those people of the rights and obligations conferred on them by the legal agreement to marry. I would buy that argument a lot more if the same people who are pushing to ban same-sex marriage were also pushing for a requirement that all heterosexual couples sign a pledge of intention to have children before they could be married.
Hetero couples who don't have children are a non-issue. Lesbian/Gay couples who don't have children are held out to be a threat to human society itself.
What does that tell us...?
[NB--I've responded to the gut-level, "this is why I personally oppose SSM" argument, not the legal "this is why it's legal to exclude certain people from a basic human right" argument. The argument Chris mentions has no credibility at all from a legal standpoint.]
Great point about logic and rationality not working on these assclowns. I think a lot of people don't want to believe it--*how* can these people not understand if I just explain it to them rationally and logically? surely they can see *this?* But, no; because there's another transaction at work here.
Perhaps it really is all about the control of women and their sexuality?
After all, gay men aren't doing their part to properly control women, so therefore they are not "real men" and can't be treated with the same respect. In a sense they are traitors to "the cause"...
On the other hand, gay women are eluding proper masculine sexual domination and are therefore not "real women" and should be banished from achieving legal unions.
Sounds like we've got another witch hunt going on...
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