(I envisioned this post more as a presentation...maybe with Powerpoint slides behind me as I give a lecture vis a vis a TED video. Also I apologize that the links don't open in a new tab, it'll make reading a little cumbersome, but hopefully well worth the effort)
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"I think it's better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier... " ~ Rufus, the 13th ApostleThe immediacy and tragedy of the issue is reflected in this story. While I know we don't all agree on the specifics of how policy is created or implemented, we all have to agree there are certain moral ends that we have to allow while we enjoy the benefits of living in a liberal society. Gay marriage represents one of those moral ends that tests our consciousness and tolerance. This is an attempt for me to address what I find to be some common claims against gay marriage.
Claim # 1:
"Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination." ~Leviticus 18:22
The first fallacy is to assume that we are a Christian nation. I defer to my friend the First Amendment to clear up any confusion if you think otherwise:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.Not only should you think of it as a guaranteed freedom to exercise religion, but a freedom from having a religion imposed upon you. We are not a Christian nation, but rather an inclusive "ChristianJewishMuslimWiccanPaganETC" nation. We cannot justify federal action with religion. Without citing religious justification is it even possible to defend DOMA without violating our sense of individuality and rights equality? I do recognize that Christianity is the majority religion in this country, but are we not a society dedicated to protecting minorities as well?
Another side of the initial argument is that Christians should be allowed to hold whatever religiously justifiable beliefs without persecution. True, no argument there. If there's a religion that says that every Sunday we need to make chicken sandwiches for our neighbors in order to make it into Heaven, well Hell, that's a protected belief. It's when those beliefs run in contradiction to human morality that we get into sticky territory: It's not ok if your religion requires you to rape 10 year-old boys every Sunday in order to get into Heaven (insert Catholic joke).
Buddy Christ is looking out for you
That then begs the question: is homosexuality (and by extrapolation gay marriage) morally wrong? Yes if you read the Bible literally. Leviticus states it clearly. Problem is, the Bible is not meant to be read literally: The Scopes Monkey Trial took care of that. While we look to the Bible for moral guidance, we need to move beyond literal prohibitions that are taken out of context: The Bible was written millennia ago and compiled centuries later, translated several times, and edited into what we see today. We can't live by standards that never imagined the internet, let alone electricity, a heliocentric solar system, calculus, or Aaron Tveit. Let me be more clear: the Bible serves only as a moral compass when taken metaphorically, not literally.
One could claim that marriage is a religious institution that should be respected. Yes, but marriage goes beyond that. Congresswoman Bachmann claims that a gay man can marry a woman and a gay women is allowed to marry a man, availing themselves of the equal right available to all citizens. This logic - while sound - is not reasonable. To think such a way denies the love between millions of Americans and bastardizes the sanctity of heterosexual marriage. Marriage should transcend a social or legal contract, manifesting love in whatever way possible. A marriage without love is no marriage at all.
"We accept the love we think we deserve" ~The Perks of Being A Wallflower, pg. 24
...and yes, you slippery-slopers. I open up the door for polygamy, incest, beastiality, and...lamp-loving. The broader issue is that if you don't like something, don't get one. Your neighbors' hetero-marriage has no influence on yours, so what makes you think the gay couple up the street is going to ruin it too? Taking it even further, will your neighbors' race affect your own? Will the very fabric of our society crumble if the institution of marriage is sullied? Again I defer to The West Wing.
" Shelley and Laura request the pleasure of your company
as they help destroy the sanctity of marriage..."
Corollary: I think abortion is bad; It's a horrible experience. While I think life happens at birth, the procedure is unnecessary and desperate. With that being said, I will never vote to ban abortion. It's none of my business what others do with their bodies. There are non-Christians receiving this procedure, so why would I apply Christian values to define its application. If federal funding will regulate it and make it safer, so be it. I'd rather my money not go to it, but I also would prefer my taxes to not go toward any border fences. There's always a broader issue. In both cases, we should err on the side of more rights than less rights.
Your feelings on the morality of gay marriage should be independent of your votes on gay marriage. Again, your thoughts on morality may inform how you live your life, but they should not infringe on how I live mine. There is a right to gay marriage, it is based in equality, and to deny that is to deny the inherent equality born of all humans.
Claim # 3:
"Will somebody please think of the children?!" ~ Helen Lovejoy
"Will somebody please think of the children?!" ~ Helen Lovejoy
Why do some people think that gay marriage will produce gay babies? Heterosexual couples don't produce strictly heterosexual children. Rick Santorum has claimed that gay marriage will be taught in schools while there is also a fear that acceptance of the gay lifestyle will promulgate the gay agenda.
What is the specific fear of the gay agenda? With the world population nearly reaching 7 billion, the claim that marriage should produce offspring loses its weight. Furthermore, senior citizens and sterile people shouldn't be allowed to marry under that argument. Is it sodomy? Nope, straight people do that too. Is it gay face or girly voices? Nope. Again, can anyone answer the question without citing religious text?
First thing I found when I Googled "gay face"
Isn't tolerance a virtue we want to instill into future generations? Tolerance of race, gender, religion...We focus so much on tolerance of specific traits that make us different that we miss the big picture. Discomfort with difference is fine. It's acceptable. Maybe you can even avoid those particular things that make you uncomfortable. We take it a step too far when we desire to eliminate traits, parts of our identities that we had no choice in deciding. Tolerance of differences is the impetus of humankind to look after one another. What is more Christ-like than that?
Conclusion:
"The greatest thing you'll ever learn: is just to love, and be loved in return." ~George Alexander Aberle
It was brought up: why are we intolerant of intolerance? We surely in our liberty of absolute American tolerance must tolerate those opinions that rile our anger, that disgust our sensibilities, that go against our fundamental instincts. Homosexuality also surely qualifies under those characteristics for some people. The problem is how all that discomfort manifests. God hates fags. Jews killed Jesus. Jim Crow and racial injustice.
There is a distinction between ignorance and stupidity. Ignorance is making a mistake without knowing the cause or consequence, while stupidity is choosing to make a mistake with fore-knowledge of cause or consequence. Intolerance from ignorance is discrimination while intolerance from stupidity is hate, both of which are remedied with friendship and love.
I leave you without a concrete conclusion to the direct issue. Rather I call for peace and love. The most Christian thing you can do isn't to spread Christianity, nor is it to impose the Will of God upon those unsaved, but rather we are to live as Christ lived, helping out our fellow man, loving all people, hating none, and above all achieving an enlightenment that helps you love yourself.
Reassess what you hold dear and reexamine that which you despise. Hold tight everything because you only have one life to live and you must enjoy and defend it with all you can. There is always a broader topic.
I like this logical assessment on the arguments for & against gay marriage, because a lot of the arguments I usually hear are emotional reactions (understandably).
ReplyDeleteGay people could probably relate to Jesus' actually teachings more than the typical Christian because I think they are opressed. Jesus had a huge place in his heart for underdogs.
(mark we talked about this, but) I think that gay rights movement has striking similarities to the civil rights movements of the 60's - it is odd to me that opressed groups of the past do not relate to the oppressed people of today. ie: it's not like African Americans want a push for gay rights.
It's only a matter of time until the US adopts gay marriage, but I think it's important to remember this movement because when we are old, there is going to be some issue that our generation will have a very difficult time with. I think that it will be the topic of eugenics. I hope the lessons we learn today will give us good lenses for the future.
I too enjoyed your exploration of this argument, but I must say I believe this to be more of a cultural issue than that of a religious one. Afterall, Jesus was an openly gay man.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, I don't see the argument. I can't grasp the reasons for why we should not abolish civil unions and allow same-sex marriage. It doesn't make sense to me. Neither does homophobia or racism or even xenophobia. I think everyone should have the right to have cross-cultural interracial gay sex, but I'm not a politician. In fact, I despise politics. Why? -Because on average, people are overly impressionable. Put this into any system of ethics (besides deontological, which requires that you "follow the rules") and it will pass. What's the deal? If not for love, let's do it for tax exemptions, at least.
Think of how gay wedding ceremonies could boost the economy!
ReplyDeleteI have been thinking a lot about the role of Christianity in America. I am saddened because as a majority group, it does a disappointing job of teaching its own message and tends to fund and back some of the most destructive and stunting policies. That is not to say there are not Christians doing good out there, its just the ones with the farthest reach tend to be more about protecting their own comfort versus finding ways to offer a fraction of the mental and material security they experience for the oppressed and disenfranchised. Here is a group that could be soldiers for peace and love and self-acceptance, spreading a message that is the core of its belief. Instead somewhere along the lines it became married to politics and now sometimes even I can't tell the difference between the strong ideology of a political party and the show of a church. The Christian church has strong potential for being front runners of a message for good and they choose not only to miss it, but to villainize it. For those in the group who are of this faith- don't be discouraged by all the Christian bashing. Continue to prove it wrong! Hell, prove ME wrong.
ReplyDeleteBottom line, it appears to be a very immature argument for someone to judge in a country that has such a strong foundation in something similar to a refugee camp, welcoming all who flee persecution, only to be measured against a bible. We have blurred the lines of morality and the biblical, forgetting to just be GOOD.
So many get lost in seeing the world in black and white, fighting about whether or not gray even exists. We are missing the entire point. In looking for black, white, and gray, we are missing the opportunity to see the world in color.
I agree with you on the issue of gay marriage, but for a lot of different reasons. I think you should focus more on attacking the arguments that the opponents of gay marriage make rather than commenting about their beliefs. Like you pointed out, it is difficult to change a person's beliefs. You won't be able to easily convince someone that the Bible should not be read literally, or that the main goal of Christianity is not to spread Christianity, but you could potentially make the argument that gay marriage will not damage family life or harm children. Attacking the Bible or Christianity in general will do nothing but polarize people into your supporters and your player-haters.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I think the main issue here goes back to the separation of church and state and that, with the issue of marriage, the state has merged with the church in providing marriage licenses. Marriage should be a ceremony that you hold with your faith of choosing and cohabitation or deciding to live with one person for the rest of your life should be state-given.
The state has a few duties, but one of the main ones is to protect its citizens from other people (and in some circumstances themselves). Unless it can be proven that one couples' bond causes real harm to others, then the state should not be intervening. Someone would have to go through the effort to understand the impact that homosexual marriage has on society to make that determination. I sincerely believe that there is no impact whatsoever.
As for the issue of Christianity, I think you are correct in stating that the main goal should be to love thy neighbor, but that love, from a Christian perspective bleeds into wanting the salvation of the world more than anything. Christians believe in Hell, and if Hell is an option, then preventing your neighbors (whom you love) from an eternity of suffering is probably on the forefront of your mind. I think that Politicians, representing the Christian faith, fail to communicate that Christianity is not about protecting yourself from the harms of the earth (you should be confident that Jesus is protecting you and that any suffering experienced here would pale in comparison to the joy of heaven), but rather to be focused on loving and protecting the world from sin and darkness by bringing them into the faith.
Christians believe that the only way to heaven is through Christ. With that in mind, their main goal should be doing whatever it takes to ensure that all people avoid the terrors of Hell. If you look at the world from their perspective, you can see how desperate they might be to convert people to the faith. With the issue of Gay marriage, I think that they are afraid that, by allowing non-Christian values to propagate through America, they will be weakening their ability to convert or maintain Christians. I disagree with that as Christians should understand that the world will always sin and always fall short of the glory of God. In God's eyes, gay or straight, you are still an asshole. It is only through Jesus that you are cleansed of your asshole status.
Anyway, whether you are Christian or not, you should all be focused on bringing people together and avoid polarizing people into separate groups. I like to think that we are all extremely arrogant in thinking we know a lot more than we do. We should all understand that the fastest animal on Earth can only travel .00002% of the speed of light. The biggest animal on earth is smaller than an atom compared to the size of the universe. The longest living thing on Earth lives for a blink of an eye compared to the lifespan of the universe. That being said, we are the smartest creature on Earth, which means we are probably very very dumb.
@Everyone, thanks for reading into this and seeing the conflict between my religiosity and the rest of my life.
ReplyDelete@Dan, maybe you can excuse this as my opportunity to bitch directly to those [proverbial] people who would normally make the argument. Have any of us met atheists (or agnostics) who are not supportive of the LGBT community (though I guess now's not the time to make generalizations)? I really look forward to your post this week ^_^
@Everyone again, if you're gonna watch some of these videos, at least watch "There's always a broader topic" and "no choice in deciding."
Hey guy, gals, and anyone in between. I have enjoyed reading much of what has been posted thus far, and I usually tend to just enjoy reading, but I was compelled to respond to Mr. DLV’s statement regarding atheists or agnostics who are not supportive of the LGBT community. Without delving too far into my religious beliefs or the lack there of, the main thrust of my contribution here is that I would consider myself to be in one of those categories, and simultaneously I would say that I don’t tend to “support” the LGBT community in their cause for marriage equality, and similarly I would say that I don’t support the straight community either in their maintaining of the status quo (that is not to say that all straight people are against gay marriage, but simply to delineate an opposition to LGBT.)
ReplyDeleteI’ve struggled for years with the “rights” discussion as it extends to marriage, and how, not only marriage rights are doled out, but rights in general. It was in the appropriation of the rights that I found the crux of my contention to, well, marriage in general. For me it centered on Love, this complex, simple, crazy, sane, definably obscure, idea of Love, and there I sat trying to figure out legislation to box it in, package it up and determine who would get to have a public display of it, be recognized by the state, and receive all the benefits thereof. When looking at this I realized that I had accepted the premise that Love was something that could be legislated and then tried to argue who was in love and who wasn’t. That was why I kept having such an issue with reconciling the two sides. I felt that I had spent all my time trying to figure out the marriage house and who we would let in and who we would keep out, that I forgot to check the foundation of the house. I came to believe that we should have never built the house to begin with. Love is a warm sunny beach that requires no shelter except whoever the hell you decide to have join you on it. The best way I can describe it is, when we talk about the appropriation of rights based on the pigment of one’s skin are we also talking about the same thing when we talk about love? Is it that simple, that cut and dry? If it is then I’ve never been in love, and that may be true, but I doubt it. Sure we can talk about science experiments that prove people are gay, straight, built upside down and sideways, but I don’t think that is the heart of what we are trying to get at. We can even say that maybe I’ve gone too far in equating marriage to love, and switched the terminology. God knows everyone’s not getting married for love, but I believe that out of the concept of love grew the idea of marriage and thereby the state sanctioned support of it through rights and benefits. But I honestly believe that maybe we should just start tearing down the house. We’ve all acknowledged its flaws. Somewhere between 50%-60% of marriages fail, second marriages have an even higher rate of failure. Will the LGBT community have a higher success rate? Maybe, maybe not…what will we end up saying then if they do? Their Love is deeper than that of straights? Or god forbid, would if they get divorced at a higher rate? And I think we all can acknowledge the “slippery slope” argument referenced in prior posts. Granted, I still believe it is an argument made by a failing ideology, but certainly we would be lying to ourselves if we don’t think we are not a few years off from having this same discussion with sister wives, and brother husbands.
Is this as simple as abolishing marriage, no, it will be a total societal overhaul…but I think that was the intent of this group. In the end, I may just be echoing the last paragraph of Mr. DLV’s first post. It took us thousands of years to get here, and it will probably take a few more for us to undo it all, just in time for some kid in the year 4011 to start a blog, with a few friends and hit the reset button.
@Philip, your perspective is the EXACT one I think my soul has been waiting for [dangling preposition]. If anything, I would tear down the house that 'marriage incentives' created, but the house of 'modern marriage' the recent generations have created is well worth preservation. Curt brought up (in person) how our generation actually idealizes marriage more than previous generations. Marriage was a rite of passage into adulthood for people of the 20th century. Without marriage incentives, with less arranged marriages and shot gun marriages, people that get married do it out of love. While that doesn't necessarily imply stability or maturity, it represents a shift in thinking. Maybe it's a peek into mankind's innate inability to distinguish love and lust. Anyway Philip, quite glad you decided to speak up.
ReplyDeletei dont feel that my 2 cents on gay marriage debate is really going to add to this one, as pretty much everything has been pointed out in one way or another haha. i will instead offer a word of hope.
ReplyDeletebe patient, passionate ones.
i am gay and my dad is a "non-denominational" (baptist) minister and my family is insane. well not really insane, just very very very scared. of course they believe, wholeheartedly, that i am going to hell. although i do not label myself a "christian," my spiritual beliefs are actually very close to their own, but they seem unable to listen or accept them. to this i say to myself on a daily basis: patience.
i grew up calling people fags and dikes and hating gay people, just like them. then i realized i was gay, and went on a spiritually tumultuous and tormenting journey for years to follow that led me to the edge of death, and back up to this wonderful place called "life" that i now love and will never lose again.
RISE ABOVE. passion is something that motivates, provokes, we fight and work and live and die for our passions. what the passionate often forget, though, is PATIENCE. it would be simple to write my family off, hate them for not accepting me, hate them for taking my destiny into their hands, hate them for never asking a single question about the girl i love and have been living with for 6 months now. but there is patience, and if we have hope, we MUST have patience.
working for justice, such as gay marriage is a fight, but, as many of you pointed out, there is a light at the end of the tunnel and i know we can see it if we are looking in the right direction. we are in an era of extreme social change (in the US, gay marriage is IT right now.) there was this one time when women couldn't vote, and black people had to use different restrooms than white people, and jews were murdered for just bein themselves, and on and on and on.
i see the trend, and i see the social movement happening right now. we all have a place in it. i have chosen to love unconditionally, to fight for my cause, but above all, to have patience and faith in both god and humanity.
use your passion and fight, but never forget that patience is invaluable.
Hang in there not everyone thinks ur damned to hell. I know it's tough when it comes from ur own family.
ReplyDeleteno hangin, more like swingin and playin these days. much better :)
ReplyDeleteHey guys, prop 8 announcement tomorrow (Tuesday)! Stay tuned to the news!
ReplyDelete