Topic: Opinion
For those of you paying attention to something other than the Iraq War, gas prices, and Fox News' insistence that Obama is a secret Muslim who will kill us all - The California Supreme Court this week ruled that that ban on same-sex marriage is illegal, therefore gays can get married now. Much jubilation from both the homosexual community and the wedding industry in California - "We're going to sell so much cake!" says bakery owner.
Which leads to my story.
Yesterday while driving hither and yon through Santa Ana for work meetings, I drove past the old court house in Santa Ana, in which the now legal gay weddings were taking place. I know, just by driving past, what was going on the courthouse within, because the sidewalk without was occupied by protesters holding pickets condemning the homosexuals for their sins. One protester's sign said that he loved Jesus and that the gays were denying God. I wonder how these self-proclaimed "Christians" finds room in their souls to hate, if their hearts are full of Christ.
There are a lot of opportunistic jokes about gay marriage, for example Chris Rock: "Go ahead, let them get married. Let them be as miserable as the rest of us!" or my own favorite trope – "Of course gay marriage is bad! What's bad for children? Divorce. What's the leading cause of divorce? Marriage. Ergo, more people getting married, means more people will get divorced, which means more bad for the children! Please won't somebody think of the children!"
Joking aside, I guess I'm not on top of this 'Sanctity of Marriage' thing or how gays ruin it. A lot of things make mockeries of marriage - domestic violence, spouses who can't stand one another, people who married for money or power rather than love - but I can't imagine how homosexuals mock marriage. "Nyah nyah nyah, we don't have to pay alimony to our gold-digging trophy ex-wife and you do?" (We're looking at you, Heather McCartney). Seriously, how have two women, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon,made a mockery of marriage by receiving legal recognition of their 55+ year commitment to each other? Marriage is a social contract, not a biological one; if it were a biological one, no marriage would last past when the young born of the marriage are grown. The Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese released a statement that says the Church holds to the view that marriage is between a man and a woman for creation of new life. So, to all the Catholic heterosexual couples out there who suffer from infertility – a great, big 'screw you and your failed union' from your church leaders. You're welcome.
The 'slippery slope' argument posits that allowing homosexual marriages will lead to polygamy and bestiality (yes, I know…). This is a classical fallacy that is easily addressed.
Historically, marriage has never been, in most societies, limited to one man and one woman. Biblical patriarchs had more than one wife at a time; men of means in many cultures had junior wives or concubines, which in modern society would mean mistresses. In at least one central Asian culture, plural marriages are polyandrous rather than polygamous, through which means do the family prevent its wealth from being fractured away via its sons. My objection to polygamy is that traditionally the concubines and mistresses were subjugated in powerless roles and were not given choices. My grandfather had a wife and a concubine, and children from both women; neither woman chose it, and both were unhappy (my grandfather was something of a jerk, apparently; he acquired a Japanese concubine after WWII but discarded the poor woman after the novelty of boinking the enemy wore off).
The key here, is INFORMED CONSENT, and it is here that the slippery slope claim falls apart. Homosexuality does not equal polygamy does not equal bestiality. The polygamous cults in the US are wrong, because they consider 13-year-old girls as marriageable, with absolutely no informed consent; therefore it is child rape, and therefore it is wrong. The lack of informed consent is also what makes bestiality wrong – dumb animals cannot say yes or no (or neigh, if we're talking about horses – sorry), therefore, sex with an animal is animal abuse. Now, if we're talking about adults who are capable of informed consent, and are able to agree to the arrangement and make legal contracts to protects assets and agree on support of minor children (basically, everything entailed in a marriage), then have at it, my fellow Americans! The US Supreme court struck down bans on interracial marriages in 1967, and OMG the white race didn't get destroyed, the nation didn't disintegrate, and we're pretty much through with the anti-miscegenation nonsense by now (Most of us anyway - there will always be some mouth-breathin' coloreds-hatin' cross-burnin' slackjawed fools somewhere). One day we'll be through with this too.
Coming round to where I started here, I still don't know why it matters to the protesters what two consenting adults do? Doesn't matter to me. I myself will never have a gay marriage, so none of this is really any of my business. Which, let me point out, includes a day-job that requires me to be somewhere in the middle of the morning on a workday, and not available to picket on the sidewalk against strangers doing private things that don't involve me. I would like to say that when needed, I will rise up in protest; but we all know that's not going to happen - being of an apathetic and indolent disposition, I'd just write about it in my blog, get a coffee and a cookie (you know, one of the nice ones with the macadamia nuts and not too much sugar), and call it a day.
