Something's been bugging me...
Jun. 3rd, 2004 04:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johnpalmerSomething's been bugging me for the past few days, and I decided I wanted to put it out in the open.
People have mentioned that the SCOTUS decision legalizing "inter-racial" marriage is very similar to the logic I use to defend gay marriage... that marriage is the *only* extension of family that we permit a person, and that to deny marriage is to deny a person the chance to require people to take notice of the familial bond between two people.
Well, maybe it is similar reasoning... that may be true. But the issues are *not*, by any stretch of the imagination, similar.
You see, if I couldn't marry a woman I loved, because she haddifferent color skin, different features, or whatever, that'd be terrible. It'd be an unjust infringement on a right that people have long agreed that we should have.
But, *if* I could not marry the woman I loved, I would have a choice. I could live "in sin" with her (which might not even have been possible in the bad old days, but let's pretend)... *or*, I could find another woman, and marry her. Certainly, this is not a *good* choice, but the fact of the matter is, as a heterosexual male, there are many women who I will find appealing.
I don't believe in any of the great romantic notions of "the one". This person is "my one and only; no other person could make me this happy". It's true that the love you have for one person will almost certainly be different from the love you have with another, and that the happiness you have from one person will be different from the happiness you have from another... but that doesn't make the happiness less.
Even if you do believe that there are predestined soulmates, or somesuch, most folks acknowledge that tragedy can split a couple, and a person must find another partner.
Each member of a forbidden couple can find another partner, another person they can fall in love with, when one can't marry outside one's race.
That choice does not exist for gay folks. Gay men don't fall in love with women; gay women don't fall in love with men. They can't decide their marriage is forbidden, and choose to find another partner to marry if a marriage is what they want.
A ban on inter-racial marriage merely limited choices; a ban on gay marriage *eliminates* choices.
Sigh. But, sometimes, manifest unfairness to a small enough, barely-tolerated minority is just so blasted *invisible* to so many people.
People have mentioned that the SCOTUS decision legalizing "inter-racial" marriage is very similar to the logic I use to defend gay marriage... that marriage is the *only* extension of family that we permit a person, and that to deny marriage is to deny a person the chance to require people to take notice of the familial bond between two people.
Well, maybe it is similar reasoning... that may be true. But the issues are *not*, by any stretch of the imagination, similar.
You see, if I couldn't marry a woman I loved, because she haddifferent color skin, different features, or whatever, that'd be terrible. It'd be an unjust infringement on a right that people have long agreed that we should have.
But, *if* I could not marry the woman I loved, I would have a choice. I could live "in sin" with her (which might not even have been possible in the bad old days, but let's pretend)... *or*, I could find another woman, and marry her. Certainly, this is not a *good* choice, but the fact of the matter is, as a heterosexual male, there are many women who I will find appealing.
I don't believe in any of the great romantic notions of "the one". This person is "my one and only; no other person could make me this happy". It's true that the love you have for one person will almost certainly be different from the love you have with another, and that the happiness you have from one person will be different from the happiness you have from another... but that doesn't make the happiness less.
Even if you do believe that there are predestined soulmates, or somesuch, most folks acknowledge that tragedy can split a couple, and a person must find another partner.
Each member of a forbidden couple can find another partner, another person they can fall in love with, when one can't marry outside one's race.
That choice does not exist for gay folks. Gay men don't fall in love with women; gay women don't fall in love with men. They can't decide their marriage is forbidden, and choose to find another partner to marry if a marriage is what they want.
A ban on inter-racial marriage merely limited choices; a ban on gay marriage *eliminates* choices.
Sigh. But, sometimes, manifest unfairness to a small enough, barely-tolerated minority is just so blasted *invisible* to so many people.
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no subject
Date: 2004-06-04 12:06 am (UTC)(And, of course, those who read it as "homo*GUYS GETTING FUCKED IN THE ASS! DEAR LORD THAT IS DISGUSTING*SEX*BUGGERY*SEX*SODOMITES*SEX*uality.)
I think they're serious. I don't think they realize that love has anything to do with it.
I keep wanting to write an essay that is tenatively titled something like "Holy shit, faggots fall in love!" but I'm not sure if I can do it 'right'.
no subject
Date: 2004-06-04 12:44 am (UTC)I can't help but wonder how many of these particular critics think love has anything to do with any kind of marriage. Their own included.
no subject
Date: 2004-06-04 12:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-04 02:25 am (UTC)Nah. This isn't a God issue. Can't be. Because then you'd be talking about "Establishment of Religion."
no subject
Date: 2004-06-04 02:45 am (UTC)If gay people fall in love, just like straights do, then denying homosexual marriages is a terrible thing. But, if they are just in it for the sex, then it isn't as obviously wrong to deny them the ability to marry.
Somewhere, there's a key, I hope, that will make a man look at his wife, or a wife at her husband, and think "if someone told me *we* couldn't marry when we love each other this much..." and that will turn the tide.
no subject
Date: 2004-06-04 04:50 am (UTC)If/when you do, that's something I'd really like to see.