A Couple Things

Those opposed to gay marriage do so for homophobic reasons (like Diane Medved for instance). There is, after all, no legitimate argument as to why two men or two women should not be able to get married. All of the illegitimate reasons that are cited are of one of the following variety:

1. God says it is wrong. All this means is that the man is the sky is a homophobe just like everyone else who is against gay marriage. Needless to say, public policy need not invoke his holiness for very good reasons. The framers were smart people.
2. This is how we’ve always done it. Or, marriage between a man and a woman is “traditional.” The assumption, never stated, is that the ways we used to do things are better than the ways we will start doing things. Note that this is the same argument that racists used in the 1960s to prevent integration: “this is how we’ve always done it.” Same story here. The homophobes today are the racists of yesterday.
3. We need to procreate. And here we have the lamest argument of all: we need marriage between a man and a woman to keep society going. The state, the argument suggests, has an interest in seeing the population grow and continue. Empirically this is BS. The problem in this world isn’t too few people, it’s too many. Beyond that, however, nothing about gay marriage says that these individuals can’t be parents. That they can’t adopt children and raise them in very stable and loving households. I also feel sorry for those folks married in traditional marriages that can’t conceive; they must feel so inadequate given that they can’t fulfill their societal obligations. Insert rolled eyes emoticon here.

So there you have it. At the end of the day anti-gay-marriage is about homophobia, just as anti-integration was about racism. It’s always couched in other terms, like the ridiculous arguments noted above, but the latent ultimate cause is a certain nervousness about homosexuals.

It’s just sad in this country that we can’t treat everyone the same way, whatever race, creed, sexual orientation, etc. they happen to be. One day we’ll get there. We’ll overcome this homophobia.

Some other things worth reading on the subject:

• To Form a More Perfect Union
• Same Sex Marriage and Homophobia
• Gay Marriage and Irish Homophobia
• The homophobia of Prop 8
• Who supported Prop 8?
• A Primer on Equality

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 9th, 2008 at 10:52 pm and is filed under Domestic Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.