Congratulations to Portugal for joining the modern world and legalizing same sex marriage. In celebration of this milestone, I am recycling a blog post that I wrote nearly a year ago elsewhere on the subject.
I have been told that it's rather harsh of me to say that arguments against same sex marriage come from a bigoted place. However, I have yet to hear a logical argument against it that isn't. So, what I am going to do is go through each of these arguments and show why they are seriously flawed and why they are bigoted.
Religious Argument
The religious argument against same sex marriage is not only extreme bigotry, but it is bigotry that hides behind Biblical justification and reserves a special status because one does have the right to worship as they please and as much as I dislike religion (for many reasons other than this issue), I would never dream of taking that away from anyone. This argument goes into paranoid slippery slope territory by claiming that if same sex marriage is allowed, then churches will end up forced to marry gay couples, forced to accept something that is against their religion, and ultimately, have religious rights trampled. This argument also veers off in the direction of making religious belief law.
First of all, I will be the first to say that even though I do not agree with the churches that consider homsexuals abominations, in a free country, they are allowed to preach what they want. Freedom of speech and religion, even if you think that the speech is hate speech and the relgion is hateful, cannot be compromised provided that the people in question are not doing anything illegal. So, I don't feel that a church should be obligated to marry a homosexual couple if it is against their belief to do so. If there is infighting within the church over the issue, that's their problem and their problem alone.Outsiders have no business telling them what do to. I think that this is fair enough.
Secondly, just because a group of people, majority or not, feel that same sex marriage is immoral or somehow less valid than marriage between a straight couple, does not mean that they have the right to force that morality on others. A homosexual couple that gets married has no bearing on anyone else's life. No one is being forced to go to a homosexual wedding, no one is being forced to socialize with homosexuals if they don't want to. Marriage does not require a religious ceremony because its legality lies within the domain of the state, and the state is the only entity that needs to validate it. If American churches want to have government policy created or upheld based on their belief system, then American churches should not be tax exempt. Mind you, that would be the end of America, and were they allowed to wield more power over the people than they already have it would spell disaster. Churches need to know their place, and their place is not in state affairs.
In short, what people outside of your religion do is none of your business.
Same Sex Marriage Cheapens the Institution of Marriage
This argument almost belongs in the religious argument category, but I am keeping the two separate because I have heard non-religious people say this just as often as I have heard religious people say it.
The concept of modern marriage as a sacrament was created by the Catholic church in the Middle Ages in order to collect extra money from those wishing to get together and procreate. Before this, it was common for the fathers of the bride and groom to hash out an agreement and have their kids shack up. Then we have the little problem of divorce, which in this day and age, is the inevitable end to about half of all marriages. Straight people have been shitting on their vows for centuries, and now they can shit on their vows with little backlash from society. No one is saying they can't marry, yet straight people have been the ones making light of their vows.
A person who is actually secure in their own relationships will not feel threatened by a same sex couple getting married.
This argument very often implies that men in general are incapable of making a commitment to one person, so on top of being flawed for the reasons noted in the previous paragraph, it also turns men into brutes that are unable and unwilling to stop themselves from sticking their peens into anything and everything. While some men (and women) are unable to commit or respect their partners no matter what their orientation, this hardly represents the majority. If it did, few people would marry at all. I find it rather insulting as well that my husband, father, grandfather, brothers in law, and an uncle that's been a devoted husband and father for 40 years would be thrown into this category of slobbering, sex crazed frat boys.
The Slippery Slope
There are those that would argue that allowing for same sex marriage will open the door to allowing for bestial unions, polygamous unions, and a NAMBLA uprising. This argument is incredibly bigoted because it automatically throws homosexuals in with people whose idea of a good time involves a Great Dane and a jar of peanut butter, baby raping, and all manner of things that have good reason to be illegal.
This argument implies that homosexuals are so depraved that same sex marriage is really a stepping stone to justify their screwing your dog, your children, and inanimate objects without consequence. The fear and bigotry in this argument is so strong that it's nearly comical. What keeps it from being funny is the fact that homosexuals are being painted with the same brush as a pedophile or an animal fucker.
Homosexuality is a Genetic Flaw
People have attempted to use science to justify bigotry ever since science has become respectable. If you look back through history, science has been misused in order to justify slavery, stances against interracial marriage, and segregation in general. Basically, it is bigotry hiding behind respectability. The argument commonly used in the case of homosexuals is that there is no evolutionary purpose for homosexuality because they cannot procreate naturally.
Based on that logic, anyone that marries without intending to procreate should not have the right to marry. If you cannot have kids, screw you, you shouldn't be married. If you don't want kids, screw you especially because that's what marriage is for. So, because I am tokophobic and my husband and I agree that we don't want the responsibility of raising another human being, we shouldn't have been allowed to marry. Apparently, the fact that we have different genitalia makes us exempt. Why is that? If one believes that marriage is for procreation purposes, then they should not just single out the homosexual population. Why not punish barren couples and couples that choose not to have children too?
The Majority Doesn't Want It
The majority of California voters, whether through treachery or honest opinion, voted down same sex marriage with Prop
The problem here is often the activists themselves. People get soured on obnoxious acts that turn them against the very cause that the activist is trying to bring attention to. A lot of times, they cheapen their own cause by being just as intolerant as those who are opposed to their view. It also creates stronger stereotypes. Newsflash: not all homosexuals are happy with this sort of activism either. They are suffering because there are those out there who misrepresent the cause and what it is trying to achieve. I'm looking at you, Perez Hilton.
The other problem is generalized homophobia, which needs no further explanation.
Homosexuality is a Choice
There is no greater bullshit than this. If you talk to just about any gay person out there, they will tell you that they knew that they were different before they even understood sexual desire. Most scientific research has pointed toward either a genetic component or a slightly different brain function that makes it so that people are born gay.
The idea that people choose to be homosexual is rather absurd, but when people believe this way, they tend to believe that there are secret gay societies out looking for recruits, and those recruits are your precious little snowflake children. If they admit that it is not a choice then they cannot be outraged or paranoid enough to let loose with this bigoted view. There is little evidence to support homosexuality being a choice. In fact, a lot of homosexuals would choose to be straight if they could just to avoid being discriminated against, hated by their own families, and otherwise targeted for senseless crimes. A lot of homosexuals are brought up in an environment where their sexual orientation is demonized and forced to remain in the closet for the sake of "peace" in the family, which roughly translates into "for the sake of perpetuating bigoted attitudes."
A lot of times this argument will cite the LUG's (Lesbian Until Graduation) who experiment sexually with other women. There is a huge double standard here. The porn industry, which caters to male fantasy for the most part, has made it more and more acceptable for two women to have sex, which is okay if it is for the purpose of getting a man off. This existing male fantasy has come out into the open and entered pop culture rather smoothly because as long as those women are doing each other for the pleasure of a man, it's okay for women to take part in a homosexual act. However, if those women are butch, have no interest in doing it for a man's pleasure, or are otherwise unwilling to have sex with a man, then it's not okay.
Bisexuality in its truest form, is not defined by a LUG, or any woman who is engaging in sexual activity with another woman to please another individual.
The double standard becomes even more ridiculous when men who experiment, or are bisexual in the same way as a woman might be are simply labeled "fags" and will never enjoy the status that woman on woman action currently enjoys in the eyes of straight men, and even many straight women.
Seems a bit hypocritical, doesn't it?
All of these arguments are based on the following concepts and combinations of concepts:
Religion
Homophobia
Ignorance
Hatred
Bigotry
A note on bigotry. Bigotry doesn't automatically mean that a person is hateful. Bigotry comes in many forms, and many times, it does stem from long held ideas that people do not perceive as being wrong.
None of those concepts should be allowed to dictate government policy. I would love to see an argument against same sex marriage that doesn't have its roots in these ideas. That would be a worthy debate.
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