So, I’m sitting on the couch at home minding my own business when my wife of 40 years complains that I’m not pulling my weight around the house. There’s no reason, she says, that I can’t be more help.
Wisely, I apologize but offer a defense. “It’s not my fault,” I sputter. ‘It’s those damn gays and lesbians.’ They’re undermining marriage, and it’s destroying our relationship.”
Seriously, the campaign for same-sex marriage is a boon to husbands everywhere. Not giving enough attention to your wife? You’re just too distracted about the devastation of the gay agenda on traditional American values (whatever they are). Derelict in changing the kitty litter? It’s a too painful reminder of the crumbling state of American marriage. Forgot to put the clothes in the washer? They were just too soiled, reminding you of what our moral fabric will become if gays marry. Spending too much time with your buddies? The perfidious gay influence in the movies and media had me unthinkingly wanting to spend more time with the guys.
I’m Know I’m Right. Far right.
I know I must be right about my deep concerns.
After all, Tennessee ranks in the bottom third in the U.S. in per capita income, economic growth, state and local revenue, spending on police protection, and spending on parks and recreation.
It is dead last in K-12 education spending per capita, dead last in environmental spending, third from the bottom in higher education spending, fifth from the bottom in per pupil spending, and in the top ten in toxic releases and punitive sales tax rates.
If that’s not enough, to add insult to injury, we’re ranked # 3 in the ranking of states whose residents have the fewest number of teeth, beaten out by Kentucky and West Virginia.
And yet, all of these pale by comparison to the threat imposed by the notion of gays and lesbians saying wedding vows. I know that’s a fact, because in the face of all of these pressing, serious problems, some politicians are unable to shake their tendencies to feel superior to some one (they lost African-Americans) and propose that those “other people” have fewer rights than the rest of us.
Bizarro World
Thank God, because if gays can undermine marriage even more than we straights already have, they may truly deserve this omnipotent image as the force shaping the culture decisions in this country. In the wake of the decisions by a Republican-appointed judge in California that bans to gay marriage are unconstitutional, the defense of marriage folks are out in full force to make sure that marriage is between a man and a woman. Of course, the reality in the U.S. is that 50% of the time, marriage is between a man and a woman, then the same man and another women, but never mind. Meanwhile, about half of the men who divorce don’t see their children on a regular basis. And we’re worried that gays will damage marriage. We straights are doing pretty damn good without any help.
I just think the television commentator was right who said: “Why shouldn’t gays get married? They deserve to be as unhappy as the rest of us.”
There are times when these issues do seem to exist in a kind of Bizarro world where everything is done contrary to logic and reason. But, apparently Superman wasn’t the only person exposed to the strange gravitational pull of this alternate world. After all, our president and the far right religious fringe put forth an argument that goes something like this: gays live in a culture of promiscuity, gays serving in the military would undermine morale, gay rights is different than civil rights, and gays can’t raise children because they’ll all be gay (strange, since straight parents aren’t just raising straight children).
It’s almost too much for the mind to take in at times. Once, gays and lesbians were attacked as promiscuous and unable to form lasting relationships, and they confused things by asking for the right to marry. It was bad enough when they were just asking for the right to serve in the military, but now they want on all of our battlegrounds.
The Constitution as a Club
Sometimes it seems that for so many people, there is no greater impulse than to appeal to the basest aspects of human nature – the urge to marginalize those who are different, to dehumanize other people’s basic humanity, to feel superior to someone and to use the Bible (or the one verse they obsess on) as a club to beat up some of the state’s own citizens.
It’s just all too confusing for us, because we thought these same people were against big government intruding into our lives. The right wing can always pillory activist judges, as long as it doesn’t include the conservative activist judges on the U.S. Supreme Court overturning accepted law and precedent.
In her pleas for the sanctity of marriage, one leader said that marriage has been the fundamental building block of civilization for 2,000 years. (Apparently, they aren’t so sure about Jewish civilization before Christ.) Of course, it’s not worth mentioning that women and blacks were essentially chattel during most of those 20 centuries, but no matter, we’re supposed to be listening to the red meat rhetoric, not choking on the lapses in logic.
The last refuge of the scoundrel is to argue that the majority of Americans oppose same-sex marriage. That is true, but the tide over time is definitely running in favor of equal rights for gays, and at least civil unions. Of course, if public opinion is the standard for deciding our rights, interracial marriage would be illegal and Jim Crow laws would still be prevalent across the South.
Déjà vu All Over Again
In fact, some of the defenses against interracial marriage seem oddly familiar today. Back then, it was all about tradition, public opinion, morality, erosion of American life, and besides, it just made so many Americans just plain uncomfortable.
And as we learned in the days of the civil rights movement, laws that refuse to allow men and women to connect fully with their own identities in the end only rob all of us, not just members of the minority. In fact, it is in how we treat the minorities among us that we most define who we are and what we believe as the majority.
If people really cared about the “sanctity of marriage,” they’d vote to outlaw divorce.
That’s the problem with discussing same-sex marriage: The people who are against it will bring up argument after argument (marriage is about procreation; they’re protecting the institution; etc., etc., ad nauseam), not one of which holds a shred of logic to it. And you can dismiss these arguments one by one, and the person will keep making flimsier and flimsier arguments, desperately attempting to rationalize the wholesale denial of constitutional rights to a large subset of the US adult population.
But here’s the rub: You can never, ever win this debate, because it’s not a real debate. The arguments the other side brings up are not the real reason they’re opposed to same-sex marriage. Their arguments are smokescreens constructed of pseudological hogwash, put in place to keep them from having to admit the real issue.
The real issue is that the thought of men kissing makes them uncomfortable. It’s that simple. And it’s so upsetting to them that millions of dollars get spent and states will actually amend their constitutions in order to legitimize this one simple, fearful delusion.
AP: Well-said. Thanks.
Nailed it.
Those who disagree with SCM are bigots. There’s a surprise. They’re not wrong, they’re not holding legitimate beliefs (same as all human history), they’re not to be persuaded; they’re just plain bigots. Bull Connor Juniors, all of them, just like the cartoon says.
Makes it easy to argue with them.
Makes a boring, predictable, blog too.
anon, your side is losing this cultural battle. Just like your side lost all the other cultural battles. Personally, I don’t give a damn whether you “hold legitimate beliefs.” You are wrong, end of story. Since no right wing Christians adhere to the Bible in toto, anyway, and they pick and choose what they want to follow (ALL of them do it) they have no basis on which to selectively quote what the Bible says about gay people and use that as the basis on which to discriminate. We don’t live in a theocracy…thank God.
“If that’s not enough, to add insult to injury, we’re ranked # 3 in the ranking of states whose residents have the fewest number of teeth, beaten out by Kentucky and West Virginia.”
One of the first things I noticed when I moved here.
Where’s everybody’s teeth? haha.
Anon here. Packrat, where did I quote the Bible? And “my side” is losing? Every single state where gay marriage has been put to a vote, it has lost by large margins, including California. Some loss.
Its “bizarro” to me to compare the awful experience by African people here in America in recent history to the so called plight of the gay and lesbian community. It is lunacy. I understand that the cartoon is simply a cartoon, but I dare you to give one example of a gay or lesbian person being forced to the back of the bus, being lynched by the government, being bought and sold as chattel, being etc. There is no comparison. The American System is not perfect, but only a troglodyte could have this sort of blind insensitivity to a truly awful part of recent history. Last time I checked, gay and lesbians have held powerful offices, high positions in major corporations, and have been influential cultural leaders. Africans who live in American still remain oppressed by the economy, education, racial prejudice, et al. Poor choice of comparison.
Anon, that’s true about the popular vote. But you know as well as I do that the tide is turning. If you look at the age demographics of those who oppose gay marriage vs. those who support it, or it’s a non-issue to them, it should become apparent that in 25-30 years, in most non-southern states (hey we always have to be last don’t we) the votes will swing th other way. The culture is moving in the direction of freedom and equality, and this societal shift cannot be stopped. But I’ll reiterate what others have already stated: if you’re for the “sanctity” of marriage, then let’s get behind a movement to ban divorce.
The Bible may or may not contain passages in which homosexuality is frowned upon. But the constitution, not the Bible, is our lodestar, and discrimination against homosexuals is inconsistent with the 14th amendment.
Christopher Tutor:
We’re for anyone believing whatever they want and worshiping whatever version of God they like, but we’re not for people using their religious framework to set law for the nation.
To our way of thinking, the reading of the Bible to take such hard and fast stand against homsexuality is selective. Out of all the things in the Bible – stone your wife if she’s not a virgin and stone your son if he disobeys – it’s curious that so many people are fixated on a verse of two.
It seems to us it’s one of the classic uses of the Bible over time: I’ll decide what I think and then I’ll find verses to support it.
I do not wish to have other religious beliefs forced on me.
Be sure to understand what you are saying when implicating. You say “everyone can believe what they want”, “what you believe is ridiculous” and “I am right, because I am right” in the same breath.
The Bible is a historical account, not a rule book. To take a sentence, albeit strange, and say that it prescribes to modern life is uneducated. The verses you selected are typical of the Ancient Middle East. The New Testament comes as a relief for the rules of the Old Testament.
The Bible does say that homosexuality is a sin, just like if a son is disrespectful to the father, or if a new bride is not a virgin. This is not contradiction. Jesus simply becomes the payment of the debt for our sins. Its quite simple.
HIstorical account? Really? Including the part with the talking snake?
What about slaves and killing those who embarrass you?
I don’t like anyone who takes texts literally and tries to enforce their opinionated translation on others.
The first words of the Bible are “In Beginning” not “In THE Beginning” and if you don’t see it like that in your bible, you have an adulterated copy made by someone trying to hoodwink you.
A Chris Tutor.
What you posted was opinion about what you think it says and means. You can’t follow your bible literally, you have to follow the spirit of the law if you are Christian, because that is what Christianity is supposed to be for. You can’t follow the letter or expect or to be able to command others to.
To me, the highest form of blaspheme is when you think you know what God wants to the point that you would harm others to make it so. That is ego.
I’m late getting back here, but:
“The people” clearlyly do not want gay marriage legalized in most states. It’s worth pointing out here that when Virginia v. Loving was handed down in 1963, legalizing interracial marriage, something less than 20% of the country approved of it. Supreme Court justices are appointed for life precisely so that they won’t be bound to the whims of the populace.