I was thinking about marriage again…

Last night my boyfriend and I were online browsing the blurbs about the presidential candidates, what they stand for, economic, social, environmental, foreign policy issues all nicely organized into links, with entire political policies summed up in a sentence or two. I paid close attention to immigration, abortion, and gay marriage, as those are the three social issues about which I feel strongest.

For clarity’s sake, I should point out that I am pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, and somewhat apathetic about immigration (I realize we are a country and therefore have borders, but am also aware that our economy is dependent on the diligent work of illegal immigrants and that’s not going to change until we make things better for ourselves…also, I think being willingly plopped into a foreign country for a while has greatly influenced my views on immigration).  This post is about gay marriage.

It’s great that some of the Democratic candidates oppose a constitutional ban on gay marriage, it’s great that some of them support civil unions for same-sex couples, and actually, Dennis Kucinich is actually pro-gay marriage…he’s the only one. I don’t feel the need to go into detail about how the Republicans feel about the issue, as it doesn’t really matter much to me since I won’t be voting for any of them and I fear any of them being in the White House…okay, they’re against it. But, with the exception of Kucinich, all of our liberal candidates are still opposed to gay marriage. I don’t get it.

I realize that as I was raised in a socially liberal and accepting town, school system, and household, around openly gay people and culture, and as I am in no way Christian or indeed of any religious faith whatsoever, I will never understand homophobia or any even remote opposition to gay marriage. I’ve accepted that. But I won’t cease to express my perpetual astonishment.

My biggest problem is the logic that politicians (and regular people) use to defend their stance. I understand that if you are a religious person and truly believe in the depths of your soul that homosexuality is wrong (which I disagree with and find ridiculous), then it goes without saying that you’d be against gay marriage. It’s stupid, but it’s a logical conclusion if you’re so misguided to begin with. Maybe a lot of the Democrats fall into this group (certainly most of the Republicans do), I don’t know. Otherwise, I don’t see any valid reasons being given for opposing gay marriage.

The argument that irks me the most, the one that prompted me to write this post, is the need to preserve the sanctity of/or the institution of marriage. That marriage is defined as the union of a man and a woman.  People have developed this strange opinion that history stops in the past, that culture has reached its peak, that all religious and social contracts are static (which I guess makes sense if you believe the Bible is the one and only word of God, but its redactors changed its contents for centuries, so even the authors believed in adapting to the times to an extent).  Old-fashioned marriages had nothing to do with love or a romantic relationship, but modern Western culture has been happy to phase out that concept. It is silly to think that change would or should end there. 

And if you’re trembling for the sanctity of marriage, worried that it will go down the drain while gay couples make a laughing stock out of marriage with their promiscuity and their HIV, while mere same-sex friends fraudulently reap the legal and financial benefits of marriage, while children stop being born because the gays are taking over and humans are therefore not reproducing (because homosexuality spreads, you know) and the moral fiber of our society disintegrates because our children see people having committed relationships that might not result in a contribution to the world’s overpopulation problem, but while simultaneously the moral fiber of our society might be disintegrating because our children see that gay people want children, too, and having two mothers or two fathers will certainly give way to a culture of terrorists and sodomites-and fashion designers…don’t waste your grief.

Promiscuity and infidelity are not, have never, and will never be unique to the gay community (which, by the way, has surely been around for as long as the straight one has), and we will always have plenty of husbands and wives to come home from an extra-marital romp to give their legal lover herpes or crabs or HIV. Haven’t we heard some stories about Giuliani’s love life? Ahem, the Clinton marital problems?

Men and women have been defrauding the institution of marriage for a long time. It’s harder than it sounds, from what I hear, but I don’t think that a pair of same-sex friends would be any more eager to pretend to be lovers than a man and woman with a platonic relationship. Probably less so, given the stigma of homosexuality. And the world is full of man-woman marriages for purposes of immigration or citizenship. That’s nothing new–does it sound like the institution of marriage is flawless and still regarded as a holy union by mainstream society?  Should it be?

As for the reproduction thing, not all gay couples will have children. Not all straight ones do, either. Obviously our species survives by sexual reproduction, and most people reproduce, but nature works in mysterious ways.  Actually, maybe it’s not so mysterious, because if literally every person reproduced, we’d be in some serious shit. And for those gay couples that do have or raise children, I don’t see how you can argue that an orphan or a foster child would be better off without a reliable home life than with two committed parents who happen to be of the same gender. While it’s true that sometimes the effects of an absent mother or father is visible in a child, there are millions of children around the world raised by just one parent or just one grandparent or just one aunt or uncle, that are fine. Nevertheless single parenthood is difficult, and certainly two parents would be great. A child just wants to be loved.

As some politicians that oppose gay marriage do support civil unions, is it possible that they’re just saying so to keep the Christian vote? If so, get some balls. Or is it because most of our politicians, even the liberals, still consider themselves Christian? If you accept homosexuality enough to support civil unions, according to many Christians that’s going against what the Bible says anyway (though I have to imagine Jesus has been continuously rolling in his grave for the last 2000 years), so why not just let them have the same benefits as a husband and wife? If you worry about what it will do to the state of marriage because you think gay couples won’t last long, don’t fret, because men and women seem to be doing a perfectly good job keeping the divorce rate up all on their own.

This is a vent session. I’ll never get it, and I know that. I accept it. That doesn’t mean that for the rest of my life I won’t be listening to homophobes and stupid politicians on TV yelling, “WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?”