How I Came to Support Same Sex Marriage - Page 8

On June 25 2013 06:57 Lixler wrote:

It can be an essential feature of marriage that couples typically reproduce even if not every couple reproduces, but opening up marriage to couples that fundamentally and intrinsically cannot do so would make it no longer an essential feature.

Consider the following. It is an essential feature of humanity that humans are able to reason. But not every human can reason. Does this mean that reason is irrelevant to being a human? No; it's still one of the main things that separates us from e.g. bonobos, it's contained in most conceptions of human behavior, etc.

Similarly with marriage. Even though not every married couple does or can reproduce, this doesn't mean that reproduction is totally irrelevant to marriage. The notion of having children is intimately tied up with marriage, and if we allowed marriage between people who could by the very nature of their union not produce children, we would change what marriage is.

This doesn't establish that this change would be a bad thing, just that it would really change what marriage is. Right now, we associate marriage with mutual love. Does that mean every married couple loves each other? No, it doesn't; but it does mean that we wouldn't recognize a similar institution between people who could never love each other as marriage. Would disentangling the two concepts be good (ignoring questions of possibility)? This here is where arguments need to hinge.

Also, I don't think that not considering homosexuality a disease counts as a lack of homophobia. Conservatives who see homosexuality as a choice certainly don't see it as a disease, but they are often homophobic. You have not established that contemporary humans are less homophobic than their predecessors.

On June 23 2013 17:36 thedeadhaji wrote:

Last fall, as election season raged on, I was thinking about the candidates and California State Propositions I would vote for. Same sex marriage was not on the ballot this year for California. Prop 8 had reached the Supreme Court earlier in the year. However, the issue was front and center in several other states.

I started thinking in earnest about what my views were regarding same sex relationships and same sex marriage, and how I should best make my voice heard (through votes and other actions) given my beliefs. I decided to throw out my incumbent positions from my mind and construct a belief and decision framework from scratch.

Previously, my position was that I was is favor of providing all the rights afforded to "married couples" (tax benefits, visitation rights, etc) but in an ideal world I preferred this to manifest itself through a civil union rather than "marriage". Having had gay friends in college for the first time in my life, I definitely wanted them to enjoy all the rights and privileges that heterosexual couples have access to. Growing up in a fairly conservative family and attending a prep school founded by a Mormon family, I unfortunately can't confidently say that I held these beliefs prior to college. But once I had personal relationships with friends who, at that time, wouldn't have the same rights and privileges as I would, I knew for sure that they deserved all the nice things I had access to.

But at this time, I wasn't quite comfortable with gay "marriage". This was certainly due to my conservative upbringing with the undertones of a Christian values. While I myself am agnostic, the values and positions of those around me had permeated into me over the years. While I wasn't "against" gay marriage, I definitely wasn't comfortable with it either. When every image of marriage I'd had in my life had been between a man and a woman, same sex marriage instinctively felt somewhat awkward.

As I sat there in the fall of 2012, I was adamant about throwing all these preconceptions and existing beliefs out the window. I was going to start from scratch, start from the very basic building blocks of my attitudes and wishes for my gay friends as well as my assessment of the political situation, and construct a position anew.

What was the most important thing in all of this? Until now the most important factor was myself and what I was comfortable with. Since I wasn't quite at ease with "gay marriage" itself, I had wanted to see a civil union with full rights. But when I really thought hard that day in my kitchen, feet on the counter with an absentee ballot in front of me, I realized that the most important thing in all of this wasn't me and what I ideally wanted. What mattered most were my friends who still didn't have all the rights they deserved. It became clear to me then that a future where they'd enjoy all the benefits I had access to, currently kept away from them owing to the random whim of genetics, was infinitely more important than my nit picky discomfort.

The political situation is very polarized. The choices are either "yes gay marriage" or "no gay marriage". The choices presented to me as a voter doesn't include "civil unions with full rights". So there are only two possible futures. Yes or No. No middle ground. Faced with a choice, Yes or No, I could no longer say No in good conscience, now that my values and priorities were made anew. I had to say Yes. Even if I still wasn't 100% comfortable with what the Yes would bring, the Yes world would be much better than the No world for me. It's not the best world for my selfish soul, but it is easily the better choice and the only good choice that had a chance of becoming a reality.

And so finally, after all these years, I am a supporter of gay "marriage". I still feel a little bit uneasy when thinking about it. But this isn't about me. This is about the people who are affected directly by this. This is about the people, friends, who should have every right I have and yet don't.

In closing, I should mention that while I have "come around", I don't think everyone needs to do the same. Whatever decision we make by examining our own beliefs deeply is fine by me, whatever that decision and position may be.

But I do hope that the decision is yours and yours only. I hope that we all think hard for ourselves, looking back at who we know and what we value, and come up with our own choice, rather than hazily following the lead of others. It's not our community's choice or our parents' choice or our religion's choice. It's our own choice as independent, introspective, incisive individuals.


----

Crossposted from http://www.hkmurakami.com/blog/

On June 25 2013 18:52 LastWish wrote:
Tell me one thing thedeadhaji...

Throughout the past years I've liberated myself from most of the conservative believes and non-truths that my parents brought on me through my upbringing(with religion and strict morals).
However when we meet I'm not able to talk with my parents straight forward..
I know I can't convince them to change, but they are so judgemental and hipocrites... I find that annoying and I find annoying pretending to be ok with that.

How do you cope with your parents and their beliefs?

On June 26 2013 19:58 xSNRx wrote:
There’s much discussion here about the definition of marriage and the role of government and church in such definitions. What I find missing, is a discussion on the moral implications of homosexuality. Let me add a bit of history, and philosophy.

Prior to the normalization of homosexuality in 1973, homosexuality was considered as a “disorder”, if you will, under the psychiatric manual. This meant that if your friend tells you that he/she is homosexual, then it would not be wrong for you to express concern on such tastes, and suggest that he/she seek counseling or treatment. Post-normalization, homosexuality officially became what we know today as a “preference” – that is we no longer view it as being “wrong” (wrong in the deviation-from-norm sense). From a moral standpoint, the cultural view of homosexuality also shifted from it being morally wrong (as in sexually immoral similar to cheating on your spouse you could say) to morally acceptable. Given these changes, it was inevitable that at some point, the same-sex-marriage debate would come up.

Why is this relevant?

Because today, in just the same way that homosexuality was normalized, there are researchers and interests groups out there who are looking to normalize pedophilia – perhaps based off of evidence that there are numerous/growing-number-of well-adjusted individuals in society who have pedophilic tastes but do not act out in ways that violate the rights of others. Consider the possible consequences of this? In 40 years, we could potentially have pedo-pride parades, debates on child-adult marriages, and child-adult couple adoptions, etc. Now I'm sure even to those who support same-sex-marriage, this must be a bit unsettling.

Thus, this whole issue hinges not just on definitions of marriage, but also one’s views on the morality of homosexuality itself. If you are one who believe that morality is a social construct that shifts with cultural paradigms, perhaps to maximize happiness or survival, then you might agree with same-sex marriage, or child-adult marriage, or whatever suits the shifting tastes of society as a whole. If you are one who believes that morality exists regardless of human affirmation/denial, then you might want to think a bit deeper about what that morality really is, why it exists, and its purpose.

On June 27 2013 03:55 rauk wrote:


LOL what an amazing argument homo marriage equals pedo marriage. Hahahahahahahshsh
There's a fundamental imbalance of power in a relationship in an adult child union. Homo relationships are victimless, aside from maybe your 15th century sensibilities

On June 27 2013 03:55 rauk wrote:
LOL what an amazing argument homo marriage equals pedo marriage. Hahahahahahahshsh
There's a fundamental imbalance of power in a relationship in an adult child union. Homo relationships are victimless, aside from maybe your 15th century sensibilities

i mean, that's obviously a terrible troll, but why would you even assume that the old view of homosexuality as a disorder is correct? maybe the romans were right about homosexuality, gay sex is okay as long as you're on top and pederasty is cool

On June 27 2013 04:09 OmniEulogy wrote:
This is the kind of reasoning that hurts my head a little bit. Why do people not see a difference between two things that are obviously very different in nature. To me it seems like a scrambled defense of a system that is not justified anymore. People fear change and will try to use anything to protect themselves from it I guess. As long as people have equal rights and one group doesn't get special rights I'm fine with it. That said I don't get my own parade or history month The Irish always get shafted!

On June 27 2013 09:41 rauk wrote:
consent isn't just an arbitrary construction of the united states constitution. it relates to autonomy, moral agency, etc, and if you're a moral relativist in the sense that absolute moral truths don't exist then it's not possible to argue with you

On June 25 2013 16:55 wei2coolman wrote:

THIS. All forms of current marriage should just be called "civil unions" in the eyes of the government; and just classify marriage as something people do in their religious institutions.