"If love is the only measure, then the only measure of love is love without measure." - St. Augustine
Marriage equality is coming. It is inevitable. It may not happen nationwide this year before the Supreme Court, but it will happen eventually. There has been an unmistakable generational shift on the issue that reaches across political and religious boundaries, and once that age cohort is running the show, gay marriage will be as obsolete of an issue as interracial marriage.
(Note: I know "marriage equality" is the more PC term, but for brevity's sake I'll often refer to it as "gay marriage." We all know what we're talking about here).
I know
what it’s like to wonder if you’ll never be able to get married. I’ve been there. For me, thankfully, it came through. Of course, some people never choose to marry,
and that’s fine too. But it should be an
option, and I can’t imagine being told that the government forbids me to marry
the person I love. This is why I fully
support the right of gays and lesbians to marry whomever they choose.
It is
obvious that the course of history bends toward marriage equality. The most virulent opponents of gay marriage are going to, frankly, die off, and polls show that 80% of people under 30 support marriage equality. That's not likely to change anytime soon, and those people will only get older. I credit the Millennials' acceptance of gay marriage to modern communication making interaction with gay people and the gay community easier than ever before. As people learn through first-hand experience that gays and lesbians are not the societal outcasts "traditional" culture has made them out to be, it becomes natural to believe that they should have the same marriage rights as anyone else.
I understand that for many people, especially in rural America, the overwhelming trend toward marriage equality can be a bit discomforting. Perhaps they've never met an openly gay person. They have allowed the bigotry spread by right wing media - which has a lot more penetration in middle America than Out Magazine - to affect their attitudes, even if only on a subconscious level. This is why gay marriage advocates need to honestly and kindly combat negative images through their own media efforts. Eventually this will likely not be necessary, but as marriage equality continues to meet strong resistance in many parts of the country, a continuous outreach effort will be needed.
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| Pretty sure these dudes could beat me up. Please, get married. |
For example, here are Larry and Randy. They were one of the first couples to get married in Washington state when gay marriage went into effect there on January 1, 2013. They're not exactly the flamboyant young party animal stereotype, are they? They're normal dudes. They look like they could be my dad's hunting buddies. All they want is to love each other and have the legal recognition of such. Who are we to deny that? To all you libertarian types out there - who is the government to deny that? Either embrace your small-government beliefs, or quit pretending.
Such images are moving, and will only be enhanced as the gay community and its allies can effectively introduce themselves to the heartland. I'm from there, I know they're good people, and I maintain my belief that they can be more accepting if the hate can be met with love and personal exposure. The power of personal knowledge and awareness
is undeniable. Even Republicans such as
Dick Cheney and Rob Portman have expressed support for equality after one of
their family members came out. And if Cheney and I can agree on something, it
must have some merit.
For the second half of this post, then, I'll address what I see as the most common arguments against marriage equality. There's some tough love for opponents in here, but it needs to be said. In 20 years these arguments will be outright ridiculed and automatically dismissed; at least I'm taking the time to explain their flaws.
1. Gay marriage is against God's will.
You are free to believe what you want to believe. However, it doesn't matter. Sorry if that sounds blunt but it's true. There's a reason why there were zero religious-based arguments brought before the Supreme Court. They have no place in American jurisprudence. Religious freedom means we celebrate a diversity of belief. It does not mean the freedom to impose religious views on the majority who disagree with you on an issue that fundamentally has nothing to do with religion. Moreover, no gay marriage law to date has forced churches to perform gay weddings that they are opposed to, and that's not going to change.
However, the Christian Right is clutching their pearls over the mythical Christian persecution that I've blogged about before. They somehow believe that a country where 95% of religious people identify as Christian (and 80% of the Congress) will systematically destroy Christianity if gay marriage is allowed. I'm not exaggerating. Frequent Fox News contributor Erick Erickson: "Within a year or two we will see Christian schools attacked for
refusing to admit students whose parents are gay. We will see churches
suffer the loss of their tax exempt status for refusing to hold gay
weddings. We will see private businesses shut down because they refuse
to treat as legitimate that which perverts God’s own established plan." In other words, because of perceived fear of discrimination against straight Christians, he wants a black check to be able to discriminate against gay people. Disgusting.
Fortunately, many Christians have embraced equality and refuse to let fear of diversity get in the way of spreading the message that God loves all of us and wants us to be happy so long as we respect Him and each other. I have hope that they will soon become the vocal majority of Christians. My favorite is this clever minister, who turns the words of racial bigotry into a powerful argument for marriage equality:
2. Gay marriage goes against "traditional" marriage.
This is closely related to the first argument, as most proponents' idea of "traditional marriage" falls neatly in line with the modern American Christian ideal. However, the concept of marriage has evolved greatly through human history and around the globe. For much of history and in many cultures, marriage was merely a business or political transaction. Marriages were prearranged from birth. In some cultures polygamy and harems were widely accepted practices. In many, you were not allowed to marry for love. You were not allowed to marry outside your social class. You were not allowed to marry outside your religion. You were not allowed to marry outside your race. All these practices have been defended as "traditional marriage," and all have lost. We may be heading into uncharted territory by recognizing gay marriage as valid, but gay people have been around as long as straight people. If we finally acknowledge that they can marry whom they love as much as anyone else, I think that's an expansion of "traditional marriage" that we can be proud of.
Tied into this is the idea that gay marriage somehow devalues or damages straight marriage. I'm not exactly sure how this works. Apparently our straight marriages are so fragile that seeing gay people get married will lead to their destruction (never mind that half of straight marriages end in divorce anyway). Gay marriage is already legal in ten states, and I'm pretty sure society isn't crumbling there. The attorney arguing against gay marriage in the Supreme Court - hopefully a leading expert on the issue - could not come up with a single reason why gay marriage harms straight marriage. That's because there isn't one.
3. If we allow gay marriage, what will be next? Polygamy? Marrying children? Marrying dogs? Marrying toasters?
This is the lamest, most offensive snowball-fallacy argument I have ever heard. It's so weak it almost feels like something marriage equality supporters would put forth as a straw-man argument because it's so easy to knock down. And yet Rush Limbaugh made the "gay marriage leads to pedophilia" claim just the other day. What's to stop marriage/sex with a child? Oh, I don't know, how about the law and the age of consent? Marriage is between consenting adults. If we allow gay marriage, will an arsonist set fire to your house? Because that has about as much to do with gay marriage as pedophilia does. To claim otherwise is insulting and demeaning to every gay person on earth. We better ban straight marriage too then, because there's certainly a lot of opposite-sex pedophilia going on as well. That some people take the argument further into "dog and toaster" territory is laughable. Please, please try telling a gay person that the love they have for their partner is roughly equivalent to the love for a pet or inanimate object. Would you ever say that to a straight person?
Polygamy is a separate issue that needs to be worked out on its own merits and divorced from gay marriage. You can certainly argue that consenting adults should be able to organize their families as they wish. However, whereas being gay is not a choice, polygamy is, and recognizing it would open up all sorts of legal issues regarding spousal benefits and such. It's an issue certainly worth discussing, but it's completely separate from the issue at hand.
4. Marriage is defined by natural procreation, and gay people should not be parents.
A double-whammy here. First, are we going to tell all the infertile straight couples that their marriage is invalid? What about straight married couples who choose not to have children? Older folks who get married past child-rearing age? We have never prevented them from being married. So obviously we cannot hold natural procreation as the basis for a marriage definition.
The second part of this argument involves a bit of concern trolling, in that opponents claim to be worried about the effects gay parents, or the lack of both a mother and father, have on children. While I agree that ideally a child should have strong role models of both genders in their lives, there is no guarantee that their parents will be such. Maybe the dad is abusive or in prison. Maybe the mom is an alcoholic or watches TV all day. Is such a situation really better than having two loving, doting fathers or mothers? Don't conservatives want kids to grow up in strong, married families? (Oh, but only the kind of marriage they approve of, I see.) I taught in a school with a lot of broken families. Hardly anybody came to parent-teacher conferences. I would have gladly welcomed two moms or dads coming into my classroom to talk about their child.
Additionally, as Justice Kennedy (not a flaming liberal) noted, there is legitimate cause for concern over the detrimental effects denying gay marriage has on gay couples' children. They are indirect beneficiaries of the benefits denied to gay couples that straight married couples enjoy - inheritance, tax breaks, medical benefits, etc. Is it fair to deny kids such just because of who their parents are? Not to mention the social issues these children face due to the stigma that comes with having same-sex parents. Not that making gay marriage legal will solve that issue overnight, but recognizing their marriage as valid will at least set us on the right track.
In that vein, I'd like to close with the words of a brave sixth-grader advocating for his parents' right to marry in Rhode Island. Cynical opponents of marriage equality would argue that he's being manipulated and put up to it. Personally I think he's a smart kid who just wants there to be a little more love in the world, and there's nothing wrong with that.
