Received this email just moments ago from the New Republic’s Franklin Foer:
Dear Reader,
Dick Cheney’s daughter is an open lesbian-and now she is pregnant. Her presence would seem to pose a problem for conservatives. How can they decry gay unions and then fail to decry Mary Cheney’s lifestyle? In this week’s cover story Andrew Sullivan explores the conundrum represented by Mary Cheney and then dissects the conservative reaction to her pregnancy. He asks, is the conservative position on homosexuality sustainable? Subscribe today for only $9.97 to read this article now.
Uh, no offense, Franklin, but I’m pretty sure I know Andrew’s answer, so I’m just going to save my ten bucks and respond instead to your email teaser.
First, Dick Cheney’s having an openly-lesbian daughter didn’t seem to hurt the Bush reelection bid (though Kerry and Edwards—tireless champions of the Other—certainly tried to exploit that fact to hurt Cheney with conservatives). In fact, that the Bush / Cheney ticket wound up with more votes than any other presidential duo in US history would seem to indicate that the problem Mary Cheney’s pregnancy would “seem to pose” for conservatives only applies to caricatures of conservatives, who—let’s be honest, here—are the spectres Andrew Sullivan now spends the majority of his more lucid moments doing battle with.
If, as this teaser insists, Sullivan is truly interested in exploring whether the conservative position on homosexuality is sustainable—and to be generous, I’m going to assume we’re talking about the official Republican position on gay marriage, not some sweeping assumption about a singular “conservative” position on homosexuality per se—then the answer is yes, of course it is sustainable. Which doesn’t mean the sustainability is determined, mind you. Just that there are a host of reasons for taking a position against gay marriage that have nothing whatever to do with one’s stance toward homosexuality—which means that there are a host of objections to gay marriage that are impervious to the kinds of attacks on “Christianists” Sullivan favors.
Or to put it another way, those who oppose gay marriage and who are not, in any sense, homophobes, have no problem sustaining their objections—even if an openly gay woman like Mary Cheney is pregnant.
Further, when Foer asks (almost rhetorically), “how can [conservatives] decry gay unions and then fail to decry Mary Cheney’s lifestyle,” the question itself is terribly (and perhaps intentionally) misleading. Because Foer and Sullivan must know that many conservatives don’t decry gay unions unless those gay unions are classified as marriage. Hell, the majority of commenters here support gay marriage (I don’t, but for semantic reasons I’ve written about on a number of occasions), and Sullivan himself would probably classify my site as a time share for budding neofascists.
I support civil unions and have no reservations about providing same-sex couples with the same kinds of benefits afforded traditional married couples. And if this is indeed what same-sex couples are agitating for, then there shouldn’t be a need to have their unions called “marriage”—save that they wish to expand the definition of marriage by force, and against established Western tradition.
I can’t see a good reason why this is necessary. Unless it is the goal of gay marriage proponents to force their values on those who hold different values. And just as I respect homosexual couples enough to argue for full benefits in civil unions, I likewise respect those who guard particularly cherished western traditions such as the long-established definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman, whether they do so out of a religious or a cultural impulses.
I got that stupid email, and it torqued me a bit, but for a change I simply deleted it quickly and moved on, confident that those on the other side will never get it.
Let me add a “me, too,” to what you wrote.
Bush: happy for Cheney’s gay daughter pregnancy
“Hey, Dick–how’s that gay daughter pregnancy thing going?” Sheesh. Bush comes across as a human being, and these progg journalists as total NUEs.
A conundrum? But not using one is how she got pregnant.
Andrew has those? Lucid moments?
Sorry, I gave up on him long ago.
He didn’t sidestep the comment; saying someone will do a good job in a less-than-ideal situation doesn’t mean you don’t think it’s less-than-ideal.
Precisely, Rob.
A. I support gay marriage.
B. I find Sully the Perpetually Annoying to be just that.
C. I could give a rip about Mary Cheney’s private life.
Are all these positions sustainable?
As the answer is, “Fuck, yeah!”, what’s next on our Israeli-coddling, Muslim-torturing, gay-bashing, armadillo-fixated, Bush-worshiping, environment-wrecking, war-profiteering agenda?
…I’m wondering, since I get called a conservative, why this is supposed to be a concern to me?
I’m just a dumb red-stater, after all, so maybe I missed something. Maybe an oh-so-enlightened leftist can explain it to me.
Bleepless–don’t tell me that’s what you call a condom for a turkey baster.
Firstly, I dont think any gays are looking for any sort of traditional marriage. Rather they are looking for the definitively modern kind: egalitarian and with no-fault divorce.
There is a lot of mixing of these issues. How do these non-homophobic opponents of gay marriage vote on the various anti-gay amendments? Most of these do more than just prevent gay marriage. Most basically screw unmarried gay (and sometimes even straight) couples out of attempts to form families, or even to form family-like private arrangements. How should a non-homophobe opponent of gay marriage register their views when faced with the gay hate amendment? Vote the marriage issue? or Vote the gay hate? That’s the conundrum.
But I suspect its not that big of one.Because I suspect the non-homophobe sentiment is not as strong as the anti-gay marriage sentiment. So the western marriage tradition, in all of its glory, will get defended over the families of homosexuals. Thanks to the agenda-setting power of the assholes that draft these amendments.
Very few people worry about the world of the gays. The only objection i’ve read from conservatives is on the subject of marriage and I agree with them. Marriage is traditionally between man and woman.
Anything else they do in they’re private lives is just that, private. You live your life and I’ll live mine. One thing they are doing wrong and it has backfired on them big time. Don’t push your gay lifestyle on others. People will push back when pushed so far.
Right now I know more people that actually hate (5 years ago they cared less) the gays than at anytime in my 65 years and it (hate) was brought on by the gays themselves.
Very nice dichotomy, but there are some things which are unclear to me in your ‘push’ sentiment (by the way, the preferred phrase is ‘shove down the throat’
. Is someone’s estate/inheritance a private or a public matter? How about adoption, and parental support issues? Or their health care, or access to each other’s social security benefits?
Yeah, what Jeff said. (Well, that saves me having to write a post!)
Well, I left the question blank when the issue came up in Michigan. I didn’t like the idea of denying people the right to make contracts however and with whomever they want, but I also am less than thrilled with the attempt to redefine marriage.
On adoption, I think it preferable that children be placed with a loving and stable same sex couple over foster care or state care.
At the same time, though, I don’t find it problematic to assert that, all other things being equal, the traditional family should be given the advantage in adoption situations.
As for the other things you mention, actus, I’m for those who enter into gay civil unions receiving the same kinds of benefits as though who enter into traditional marriages. And of course, they should be subject to the same drawbacks should the union dissolve.
I’m going to guess that they can do it because expressing or failing to express an opinion on what someone does with their own life is an entirely different animal than legislatively endorsing it.
And here I am on the flip side. While I think bringing children into the world with the full knowledge that you’re going to provide them with significantly less than optimal circumstances is a selfish and unwise, I see no reason why gays shouldn’t be just as entitled to select their heirs, partners, next-of-kin, beneficiaries, etc… as straights are. I’m only against gay marriage to the same extent that I’m against abortions for men, ie; it’s ain’t possible. Unless you want to change the definition of marriage, in which case, uh…no.
But I don’t think those were your choices. Voting against the gay-hate amendment is not a vote for gay marriage. Or is it?
How does an adoption system give one set of parents an ‘advantage’? A couple works on adopting a child, and then another, more ‘advantaged’ couple comes along and snatches that child? A child comes up for adoption, and the more advantaged couple gets first dibs?
I’d say thats what makes them not so traditional.
The possible problem I find is how this ‘advantage’ gets expressed. There is no shortage of children needing adoption. But there is a shortage of desirable children. Does that mean that the gays have to ‘settle’ for the undesireable children? And likewise, that the undesireable children have to settle for the gays?
Ooops. That cut and paste job was a fuckup.
Marriage is traditional. Marriage benefits are granted by the state.
Voting against “gay hate” amendments is common sense. The last thing we need is more PC legislation—particularly the kind that tries to criminalize thought.
As for adoption, I said all other things being equal, a mother/father family is in the best interests of the child.
As you say, there are no shortage of children available for adoption. I myself am adopted. And from what I hear, there are no undesireable children in adoptive situations. Unless you think of them as things that might clash with your other decor.
Sorry I can’t comment more. I have some people coming over for drinks tonight. One or two of them may even be gay. But I’ll try not to beat them with my Bible.
“against established Western tradition”
Too me, that is the heart and the crux of the discussion. For some, and I suspect most, of the other persuasion, knowingly or not, that be the biggest ‘enemy.’ That is, until, they run into jihad.
Well, I never thought ohio had much common sense.
From what I hear, its easier to get a white baby adopted than a black 12 year old. Thats what I mean by ‘undesireable.’ And that ‘advantages’ being advantageous, it means that gays will be adopting in a certain demographic. Which might not bother me, but might bother someone who thinks that gays are less desireable parents. To be finding that children of a certain demographic are going to be more likely to be placed in gay families.
I wouldn’t have thought you would be such a mensch as to have one.
Actus:
Would you mind defining “undesirable children”?
The “advantage” is secondarily to the hetero couple, it is primarily an advantage to the child. I would like you to produce the research that indicates that the father-mother model is NOT the superior parenting model both culturally and evolutionarily.
One could argue that having orphaned children adopted by gay couples is better for a child than being shuffled through foster homes. But to say that being raised by a gay couple is equally helpful to children as by a hetero couple is to throw gender identification and traditional psychosocial development out the window. Essentially children raised by single-gendered parents are human guinea pigs. There is no good longitudinal research supporting the claim that all families are equal. (And to ruffle everyone’s feathers, divorce is horrible for a child’s development, too.)
The absurdity of these suppositions comes home when viewed as an individual case. A friend of mine is a teacher at a Montessori School. When she told the little girl, “Say bye-bye to Mommy”. The parent became irate. “I am the FATHER FIGURE you narrow-minded bitch!” The woman yelled, “She calls me Daddy and you will, too!” So now it is narrow-minded to assume a woman with a child is a mother? Daddy? What the hell? Nothing like inducing gender confusion in a four year old.
It’s not clear to me why anyone cares anymore what Time Magazine’s Blogging Hystericalist(TMBH) writes and/or thinks. TMBH is so far around the bend these days that he’s only about one step removed from being institutionalized.
In discussing these matters with my elders as a child, it was understood that in the wild west homosexuality was no big deal. If a couple of gay miners wanted to live in a shack, and do God knows what all, that was between them and their God. One of the reasons, by the way, why Brokeback was a crock.
The issue with gays now is not an issue about whether or not 2 guys or 2 women can pleasure each other. A certain portion of the populace has always done that. And it’s nothing to break a straight marriage over either, as I tried to explain it to my son, to underline the absurdity of Brokeback, “What’s keeping this guy from just saying to his wife, Hey, I’m going over to Jack’s to watch the football game” I mean, isn’t that what guys DO when they get together to watch a football game?” But I digress.
The issue with gay rights today is not about whether gays can do whatever. It’s about attempting to legislate acceptance of what they do as “no different” than what a man and a woman do. (For example, my wife would not believe me if I said some Sunday, “Oh, I’m going over to Betty’s to watch the football game.” And rightly so.)
The number one reason why opposite sex coupling is different is that it may have public, social, consequences, otherwise known as “Baby.” That is why opposite sex coupling is sanctified and controlled.
On the other hand, if gays want the rights for their same sex unions in terms of hospital visits, inheritance, etc. by all means. And if they want to call such a civil union, marriage, may they be allowed to entertain themselves with that notion. But what you aren’t going to get with gay unions is the reality of unions with straights: you won’t have gays having to face a Big Problem when the birth control fails, you won’t have gays sticking together for the sake of the children (not often, anyway), you won’t have gays breaking up because someone got someone else pregnant, you won’t have gays having more kids than they would have liked because of passion or other failures (I would estimate 50% of babies are accidents or not-exactly-planned-either type occurrences). In short, what you will not get with gay unions are precisely those elements that have made the risk and responsibility of opposite sex unions ennobled and sanctified for many millenia.
Now, it’s true that the traditional institution of marriage is not what it was. Birth control and abortion are part of that. Artificial insemination is another part of that. The ease of divorce, much less of an issue. In researching my family tree, I found two great great grandfathers (=25%) who left their first families, moved somewhere else and just started another family. No record of divorce. Why? Because divorce was primarily a church or parish issue. In those days, if you didn’t want to deal with someone, or they didn’t want to deal with you, you just left.
It’s important to keep in mind that gays are simply asking for certain civil rights with regards to their unions. I have no problem with that. And they can call it whatever they want. But to pretend that it’s the “same thing” as what a man and woman risk everytime they couple, is just absurd, and, frankly, incredibly vain and self-centered. Like many gays.
Well, they’re going to end up adopting SOME child, right? So whats the advantage? They get the pick among the kids other people turn down?
I had the exact same reaction to that e-mail.
It is just another example of one arguing a point regarding what they think conservatives believe instead of what conservatives actually believe.
Jeff, Did you get my e-mail?
Can we put Actus up for adoption?
Please?
That happens all the time with heterosexual couples as well actus. The only two times it doesn’t happen is when the less advantaged couple who want the child happen to be the child’s parents or when just one of the child’s parents want the child. Trust me. That happens a lot. As Mick Jagger sings, “You can’t always get what you want”. That’s life. Deal with it.
As far as gay marriage is concerned, I’m for any two people to enter into a contract that outlines the privileges and responsibilities of a spousal relationship. However, I’m against calling such a relationship between two people of the same gender a marriage. I take this stand for the same reason a woman calls a ritualistic piercing of her clitoral hood a Bris. They are two different things.
actus – are you sure that your handle shoudn’t be clulus?
My guess is that you are, at max, 21 years old. You know, in 1967 I was involved with SDS at Rutgers. But guess what? One day, I grew up!
Here’s hoping that you do the same…
Well, they’re going to end up adopting SOME child, right? So whats the advantage? They get the pick among the kids other people turn down?
Why? Don’t those kids need parents too? Why don’t you propose a law. If ya take a good one, ya gotta take a bad one too.
You are teh suxor! Homophobic neonazineocon rethuglican!
Merry Christmas!
James Thurber came from Ohio, you egregious philistine.
And now you’re totally behind the war. Word.
Uh, what?
actus, you are not very well placed to simulate puzzlement at other peoples’ postings.
steve covers a lot of the points I make in explaining why I support ‘civil unions’ that are in nearly all respects the same as ‘marriages’, but don’t want the latter word applied to same-sex unions.
As a libertarian, I don’t want the government interfering with contracts between consenting adults; government’s role should be to provide the court system to adjucate disputes arising out of those contracts, and the police power to enforce the decisions.
But when I married The Bride of Monster, we were not the only parties to the contract. Even though neither of them had been conceived yet, Monsterette 1 and 2 were part of the nuclear family created that day. Clearly, they were below the age of competency to enter into contracts, so the state has a legitimate role in representing their interests.
Over time, cultures have experimented with variations: some allow a man to have more than one wife, or a woman to have more than one husband. But the package that is named “marriage” in what we used to call Western Civilization pretty much comes down to one each male and female adults, with certain restrictions on their liberties, in exchange for which the state occasionally repays them with minor privileges (such as transfer of assets to the surviving spouse exempt from estate taxation) not afforded to other relationships between adults.
Arguably, a union between a man and woman with no chance to produce children (such as my father’s second marriage; my stepmother was well past menopause before he ever met her) and no intent to adopt those produced elsewhere, isn’t really the ‘same thing’ as my marriage. But treating it the same way serves to maintain a consistency that reinforces the point of marriage, which is to civilize men.
Most of us recognize that mothers have a greater role in the upbringing of children than fathers do, so Mary Cheney’s kids, having the proverbial two mothers, should do better than someone with two fathers and no mother, or a single parent of either gender.
But as Dan Quayle struggled to point out, what works out OK for the real-life equivalent of Murphy Brown, people with incomes that allow them to hire nannies, and send them to great private schools, isn’t the basis for good public policy to cover the people who can’t afford such things.
Kids who grow up without having both a father and a mother suffer from the lack of role models. This is as true of one-parent homes as it is of the single-gender/two-parent variety. There are, of course, exceptional parents who struggle against the odds to raise decent citizens. But again, it’s a bad policy.
We’ve seen what happens when boys grow up without a good example of how to be a husband and father, and girls grow up without a standard to hold their boyfriends to. And it isn’t pretty. There’s a growing dysfunctional subculture that has utterly failed to civilize its men. And in case you haven’t noticed, there’s way too many uncivilized men in the world today for comfort.
I’m having a hard time believing this. No offense – but – that’s kind of hard to get my head around.
Moving on, and maybe this is naive, but after the gay marriage/civil unions thing is resolved, is there a “next big thing” on the “gay agenda”? I’m thinking the activist types better drag this one out as long as they can… the adoption thing is kinda lame … I don’t seeing that being endlessly debated, except maybe on NPR. But then, apparently I habitually underestimate the formidable powers of Andrew Sullivan to provoke and to stimulate. I guess Andrew’s just a square peg to my round hole.
I’m sure that Andrew would love to peg your round…no.
Andrew’s not too square to want to get round your…no.
No, no. Let’s just not. Must…be…mature…must…avoid….stupidly…homophobic…jokes…can’t…resist…pressure…
Andrewisgayandlikesbuttsex!
Sorry, it just came out.
The Monster,
Do you think Jeff and/or his son/wife recognize that?
The gift of life is always welcomed and I wish Ms. Cheney and her child the best years of their lives.
That said under the paradigm of marriage, a union between a man and a woman, there is no evidence that homosexuals have been banned from marriage. Homosexuals marry all the time, sometimes divorce only to marry again (they even pro-create which means they are engaging in male-female sexual activity) therefore it is a fallacy to say that those who engage in same-sex activity are not given equal opportunity to engage in marriage. The debate today is whether to alter the definition of ‘marriage’ in order to accomodate a chosen lifestyle or in other words, create a whole new definition as to incorporate special rights for a particular lifestyle.
Words and their meanings provide structural foundation from which society can communicate and relate. For example, despite the technological advances available to aid in conception nature still requires the sperm and the egg, and no amount of emotional overkill is going to change this nature. How is a biology teacher to explain the concept of same-sex parents? In the name of equality of outcome will father and mother be replaced by Parent A and Parent B? What will become of parentage? The labeling of extended families? These are valid question which gay activists refuse to answer or even acknowledge.
Marriage evolved in order to accomodate human nature’s need to provide a stable environment for its off-spring not as a means to guarantee orgasm for human beings. I think it is wonderful that two people of the same sex are able to enjoy love and companionship with another and I do take into consideration their need to economically and legally benefit from that union however, I do not agree to altering the structure of words and their meanings in order to accomodate an emotional appeal which does not provide reasonable logic to nature’s structure.
What turns me away from gay activist’s emotional appeal is their need to incorporate an artifical construct which provides no logical foundation for its existence. Using emotional blackmail (ie throwing around the word homophobe) to get me to believe in an illogical premise is not going effectively change the foundation that nature demands.
In the great Xanadu that is PW, the adopted, agnostic/Jewish Classical Liberal and the natural birth, evangelical Christian Reagan Conservative agree.
Hail the peace making power of PW!
A few thoughts: To say that gays are not interested in changing the traditional definition of marraige is demonstrably false. It may not be a majority but in several states there are vocal gay rights groups framing this argument within the confines of civil rights and nothing less than full marraige recognition, both legal and moral, will do. There are other gays who think that civil unions are sufficient, that it’s more important to gain the protections under the law than making a sociological leap that is opposed by so many and may only serve to delay the important legal protections.
Examples here, here,
Even Dr. Dobson, the evangelical “boogeyman” has supported the concept of legal protections for same sex couples. While there are a small cadre of zealots who are opposed to any recognition of gay unions, the vast majority of “mainstream” Americans are simply opposed to the redefining of traditional marraige and the (rather ludicrous) concept that there is no difference between M/F and same sex unions. I would postulate that if gays had been pushing for spousal rights rather than lobbying for equal historical and traditional status, this wouldn’t be as big a kerfuffle that it has become.
Actus: as I stated above not all Marraige Protection initiatives were designed to deny legal rights to same sex partners. Most were in response to the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling that the state constitution required that, in effect, the government recognise any union so designated by 2 individuals as marraige. You may believe that Civil Unions represent a de facto discrimination against gays but, from my perspective, they represent the actual reality of a union that, simply put, is not the same as the traditional coupling.
Well within this framework is the opportunity for peace on this issue, regardless of the radicals on both sides.
My sense of the attitudes of my unReconstructed neighbors, relatives, and friends is that despite protests from a few malcontents and obstructivists, a civil union law would have been available for the asking… until the events in Massachusetts and (even more) San Francisco. If you’re going to back people into a corner and exult over your ability to do so, you should pay attention to the capabilities of the one being cornered.
And I have a question for actus and allies: please do specify an objection that (1) contradicts the notion that homosexuals should be privileged, able to decree our policies and attitudes whenever they please and (2) will not be denounced as “gay bashing”. So far I haven’t noted one.
Regards,
Ric
Of all the arguments in the gay marriage debate, this one is among the dumbest.
Some families do some really Freaky things. You wont be able to legislate against it all.
Which, after hanging around this place for the last couple of years, only demonstrates how apt the name ‘clulus’ really is. (Thanks, lost dog; that was inspired!)
I think Steve almost gets this one perfectly right. To one extent, I believe scientific evidence still concludes there is a biological basis for homosexuality, and in that respect there can be made a classic civil rights argument for laws mandating non-discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
The problem is that at least to the public at large, homosexuality is not defined by biology but by a behavior, specifically a particular subset of sexual activity (always a tricky area in and of itself). In effect, the demands being placed on society are:
1) Society must regard a particular behavior as normal by legislative fiat.
2) Individuals must come to regard a particular behavior as normal or be labeled as bigots.
In effect, this is what generates the pushback. Most people have some hobbies or interests or tastes (behaviors) that otherwise might be regarded as abnormal. I’m a geek. I can’t stand to watch professional sports. This leaves me ostracized to some degree from my peers and society as a whole. But were I to demand that society treat me as normal I would expect to be met with ridicule.
But society does treat you as normal.
actus
The “homosexuals marry all the time” argument is not dumb. It is made explicitly to point out that no where, under any written family law statute is sexual orientation any kind of qualifying matter in getting a marriage license.
McGreevey not only married, but fathered children, before deciding to indulge the gay side of his bisexuality.
The “civil rights” argument by the pro-SSM advocates … IE “I should get the right to marry whomever I love” … is not only not logically convincing (it is purely an emotional argument), but if taken legitimately, no restriction to who, and what number, of people can demand the “right” to marry can resisted.
SSM advocates attempt to say any discussion of polygamy is a diversion…but it is not, since polygamists themselves are already using SSM arguments, practically word for word, in their push for legalization.
You don’t know me very well. Legally, sure, I’m treated the same as the people next door, or Mary Cheney for that matter. I’ll admit that the degree of alienation for people who don’t follow professional sports or current TV fads (among other points where I diverge from the general population at large) probably isn’t to the same degree as someone who bases their self-identity on a particular sexual activity that isn’t considered normal by society in general. But still, I can’t hold an extended polite conversation with any of my coworkers because we have nothing to talk about; my cultural frame of reference is completely divergant from theirs. This hurts my ability to network with others, and as such probably has a long-term negative effect on my career.
btw actus… your gratuitous snark against Santorum?
Research the way Victorians approached death, especially with the advent of photography.
My grandfather was a mortician and then a memorial counselor with Forest Lawn for over forty years. #2 daughter is in a mortuary science program, working towards state licensing. I’m well aware of the history, traditions and rituals surrounding death, and the Santorums way of handling the death of their newborn is neither “freaky” nor unusual.
Except to the narrowminded, of course.
The problem is really one of semantics. If homosexuals promoted the idea as ‘equal domestic partnership rights’, they’d be supported by most Americans because the vast preponderance of Americans are for equal rights under the law.
Non-believers tend to see marriage as a mere legal relationship but, technically, it is a sacrament of the church: a relationship blessed by God, specifically requiring a man and a woman. Using the word ‘marriage’ angers those who believe because it is a secular attempt to redefine an important religious ideal. You wouldn’t want some interested third party interfering in your religious beliefs, either.
As long as homosexual activists insist on labeling the idea of their legal relationship as ‘marriage’, they will encounter stiff resistance. If they drop this demand, they can have equal rights almost immediately. (Yes, that is a separate issue from social acceptance, which comes more slowly. A great portion of the American public views their activities with unease, and they’re just going to have to accept that until things change for the better. A legal partnership is not going to magically change this fact.)
Guys,
“Gays” aren’t pushing the marriage issue. Politicians and media folks are.
The hew and cry for “Gay-Marriage” is an urban media-movement. And it is false, just like the “Neocon” caricature, “Cowboy Unilateralism,” or the “Anti-War” movement in 2003.
The myth’s peddlers are distinctly urban, politically liberal, and very interested in the niche votes and concomittant copy-sales. Period.
-Steve
For those who didn’t click through:
I think that’s charmingly gothic, in a James Agee kind of way, and as much as the article wants to slam the Santorums, there’s nothing adduced that suggests that the Santorums offered their experience as some kind of proscriptive example of how people should handle this sort of thing, so it doesn’t seem to parallel very well with the (apocryphal?) Mr. Mom lesbian who was insisting that people accomodate her … accomodate her … not sure what you call that. Her view of her own paternality?
Tangential to this thread, has anyone seen the write-up of the gay heroic soldier who distinguished himself in Iraq or Afghanistan? You’d think a robust gay activist movement would have put him across as a household name by now. It would be tres NPR you’d think… It may be that we’ll just have to wait for it since I guess they can have some enterprising history grad student “discover” this guy later when it better serves their narrative.
Didn’t get your email, Sparkle, sorry.
Should be private!
What the hell does that mean……what IS an undesireable child.
Its just as dumb as when it was used against Loving vs. Virginia. That there was equality because neither blacks nor whites could marry the other.
And homosexuals aren’t interested in making it a qualification.
Well, marriage and love tend to involve emotion. yes.
Great.
I’ve often thought that would be best to proceed incrementally. To ask for a system that was separate but equal. Beacause eventually those too tend to fall.
Oh,, we’re going to go to victorian mores? ok. well then that ought to make things better.
Thats the point. Some very narrow minded ninnys out there.
actus
“Race” is a biological myth, sex is not.
Sorry, I can’t let this one go by…
Bullshit!
I was wondering when actus was going to pull the old “separate but equal” canard out of his bag of rhetorical cliches.
Why do homosexuals who wish to join together in a civil union have the “right” to insist on using as a designation for that union the word “marriage”, particularly when their union is not, by the standard and traditional definition of marriage, “marriage”?
There is no separate but equal problem here. You’ve read near unanimous support here for full civil rights for same sex couples. But in this case, separate but equal doesn’t carry the baggage you wish it carry as a rhetorical shaming mechanism. Instead, you have by necessity a separate but equal situation, because the two types of unions vying for benefits are, well, not the same.
They are separate.
And in Loving, the impediment was race. For the analogy to hold up—even were we to bracket Darleen’s correct observation—the impediment would have to be sexual orientation.
I don’t think that’s the impediment. Instead, the impediment is the institution of marriage insisting on its traditional definition.
As I noted in my post, if what same sex couples are after is the rights granted to married couples, that’s fine. But what they can’t have is the “right” to insist they are married. Because by definition they cannot be, so long as the traditional definition of marriage is respected.
Lee – you’re wrong really … live and let live attitudes are for the most part prevalent throughout American history as long as homosexuals lived with a discretion calibrated to their community. They were not socially embraced, but tolerated? Sure… But Steve is wrong about Brokeback … the takeaway from that film is not how difficult is is to be gay, but how difficult it is to be gay, stupid, uneducated, and working class.
Good take on Brokeback Mt., Happyfeet, I’ve never seen the movie’s plot put so succinctly, as correctly as you did.
It’s a sad, depressing flick. And, Actus, “Marriage” rights wouldn’t have resolved the sadness in the film. Remember Martha and George’s dilemma in “Who is Afraid of Virginia Wolf?”
What never gets talked about in the gay marriage discussions is that we’ll see quite a bit of relationships between 18 and 19 year old guys and 40+ year old rich guys getting sanctioned. Go out to eat in West Hollywood… it’s just so sad.
There is something wrong with that, if only aesthetically, and gay marriage, by appropriating all of the romantic and value-laden baggage of the traditional institution, will hold the marriage of the pretty skaterboi and the middle-aged dentist coequal with that of the guys who have lived monogamously for 25 years. Alls I gotsta say about that is that it seems that civil unions have an inherent elasticity that can embrace these variations in a way that marriage doesn’t, or shouldn’t.
Yes, duh, straight old guys marry young chicks all the time, but they hardly ever get invited anywhere, so in a way, these marriages are “separate but equal” to more traditional unions anyway.
I don’t think its a right. I think its something that will be done, eventually, though.
I know. People will see it as a problem later.
Just like rich old dudes with young women.
Actus, it is not just like rich old dudes and young women. When young women marry old rich guys, they generally are not concerned with their own professional development, and they are probably going to be bearing children pdq, to lock in the ching ching. These young women have made the decision that what they are not going to be is feminist role models. Which is okey dokey. I guess.
When young guys hook up with old rich guys and forego their own development as men who can make their own way in the world, they pay a price for it later. In terms of their self image. In lost earning capacity because of the skills not developed. In a stunted emotional development in not having developed the skills necessary to sustain a true partnership. And going home for Christmas is usually pretty awkward.
That happens to lots of women that get married. Not just the young.
Well then by all means let’s extend the institution as broadly as possible.
God forbid the damage that a gay anna nicole smith could do.
Consensus achieved!
Sorry, I can’t let this one go by…
Bullshit!
Well, that’s persuasive. I can tell you that, growing up in the Bay Area, I had ample opportunity to discuss the whole issue of gays with relatives whose roots in California went back to the Gold Rush. The consensus of all of them—and they were religious people, usually Masons, which is why I phrased my comment as I did—was that there was nothing new about homosexuality, it’s just that it was considered impolite to talk about it, as it was also considered impolite in those days to talk about sexual activity at all. Read some books, diaries, etc. about the Old West and put two and two together.
Life of Brian, Scene 7 key lines paraphrased: it’s my right as a man to be a woman.
http://www.mwscomp.com/movies/brian/brian-07.htm
Well, that changes the whole idea I thought was being advanced. I took Steve to be saying there was no closet in the old west, a cowpoke could wander in a saloon, pick out a chorus boy, and rent a room, all without raising the eyebrows of the other patrons.
I mean, homosexuality was “no big deal”, right?
If what was meant was, there have always been homosexuals, well, yeah.
I won’t,however, go along with the idea that there was much tolerance for the gay lifestyle 1880 Texas.
Actus Obtusis
With regard to Loving vs Virginia the obvious distinction is that color of skin is not a behavior, engaging in same-sex activity is. It is offensive to blacks and their justified civil rights movement to compare it to people who simply enjoy their orgasm.
Marrying someone with different color of skin is a behavior. That behavior was punished and forbidden in VA. Until activist judges stopped that punishment.
Marriage isn’t a behavior, it’s a legal contractual state between two individuals.
First, same-sex marriage isn’t and wasn’t ‘illegal’, and the VA amendment codifies the existing definition into the state constitution. The state recognizes the definition of marriage to be between one man and one woman, not currently in a relationship classified as marriage, of legal maturity, and not related by blood by more than a certain degree. If you want to get two guys and an official and declare them married, no one involved is going to get arrested. They don’t get the legal benefits of marriage because they don’t meet the legal definition of marriage. If you want to decouple some of the benefits of marriage from marriage and make them more freely available, more power to you. (The amendment, which I voted against, also prohibits marriage-in-all-but-name arrangements, but it was sold as prohibiting same-sex marriage. Had I not completely read the proposed amendment at the polling place, I would probably have voted for it, and I consider myself pretty knowledgable about politics. Laws making sodomy (a behavior) illegal are a different matter from gay marriage and should be struck down. Also, if marriage is a civil right, shouldn’t the genetic relationship between the two individuals be immaterial?)
Second, unlike skin color or race, gender is a legally quantifiable definition. I can go through the entire population of the US with a set of rules and instantly determine whether an individual is in column 1 or column 2 (and I’ll only need the rules for a tiny handfull of people). You can’t do that with race. Quick… what race is Tiger Woods? What race is Ward Churchill?
Actus you really are obtuse.
TW: Just thought you needed to know.
Somebody: [T]he takeaway from that film is not how difficult is is to be gay, but how difficult it is to be gay, stupid, uneducated, and working class.
You forgot totally irresponsible, and moronic.
Now then the question stands: I did not like a movie about two guys who were gay, stupid, moronic, uneducated, working class, and irresponsible. Would I like a movie about two guys who were stupid, moronic, uneducated, working class, and irresponsible. No. What made Brokeback such a ridiculous waste of time was that it was “Dumb and Dumber” played as a Greek Tragedy.
Lee: I have found that 90% of arguments on the internet occur because people talk past each other. For example, I might say, “Rabbits are known to carry a deadly disease.” Then someone will say, “Steve, who wants to exterminate all rabbits, has weighed in the current topic ….” but I did not say that. And so on.
No, the premise in Brokeback was not that guys were gay, and going to Miss Kitty’s to engage in sexual relations upstairs. The premise was if some guy or guys were living together out on the range, it was (a) assumed they were gay, (b) people have a virulent hatred at the thought of two men pleasuring each other, and (c) they’d go out and murder them, and (d) drag their kids out to see it. Now, I’m not suggesting something like that NEVER happened. But my read of the Old West, including oral testimony, and the Gold Country in particular, both environments in which women were very scarce, suggests that people had more important things to worry about than whether some guy was a “bugger” (the term most often used).
I’d go further and say that if you look into the history of the West (in the larger sense) in general you will find that people disapproved of homosexuality but it was actually not that uncommmon especially among the upper classes. And I can’t recall, for example, Leonardo, or Walt Whitman, or Tchaikovsky, being beaten to death for being queers. (Although I think Whitman got a citation for engaging in some kind of conduct in public, if memory serves.)
Certainly, it has rarely been as in your face as it is now (“We’re here, we’re queer, etc.”) but there are exceptions too, which I could cite if I had the time or energy.
From what I can see the big clampdown on gays as such took place as a result of the ideological warfare of the 20th Century; where anti-gayness became an issue with fascism and Nazism, and then was picked up by its opponents. There was certainly a strong anti-gay strain in the entire Post WW2 Red Scare in the United States. It would be interesting to see some writeups on this.
It’s both. Importantly, it’s something people choose to do.
Of course, there are hermaphrodites.
Lincoln shared a bed with a man. But he wasn’t killed till a white supremacist came into the picture.
There is one, that of getting married.
And yet, the lovings were prosecuted.
A behavior is a manner of behaving or acting. While there are many behaviors that are stereotypical to married couples, there are none that are unique to married couples. More importantly, there are no behaviors associated with marriage that are prohibited to same sex couples in the discussion in question. (There may be some places in the country that prohibit some behaviors associated with same sex couples under other laws, but just about the everyone here agrees that such laws are immoral).
In other words, all we are talking about is the collective set of legal benefits and responsibilities that are collectively defined as marriage, and who is so entitled to those benefits. There are no restrictions on behavior in this discussion.