I've just read lola28's thread "For those against gay marriage". I thought I should present a clear message on what I think the gay marriage issue is all about. The trouble with most discussions on this issue is that it gets clouded by a plethora of side-issues, non-issues, cave-men chest-thumping and medieval puritanism.
I'm going to present to you a simple argument FOR gay marriage: the issue of equality (justice).
If you stand by the view that gay people must be treated EQUALLY with straight people, then gays SHOULD have the opportunity to marry.
If you oppose gay marriage for ALL gay people (not just yourself) then you do NOT believe that homo folk deserve equality with hetero folk.
Simple?
If you still don't get it, let me put it forward to you in racial/ethnic terms.
In a hypothetical world:
If Caucasians have been constitutionally denied the right (by their non-Caucasian fellow citizens) to get married, should he be thankful? Should he be grateful that he has been given the right to a civil union and some rights on financial matters that are granted by such unions? He could be. But the issue of marriage is an issue of equal opportunity. Even if only symbolic.
It is a question of: "Are Caucasian men the equals of their non-Caucasian neighbours, in that he should be entitled to ALL the opportunities and rights that a non-Caucasian citizen enjoys?"
This, in my view, is what the gay marriage topic is all about. EVERYTHING else is hot air. EVEYTHING else is a mere distraction. You wanna argue against gay marriage? Tell me how you justify the inequality, and hence why it isn't an act of concerted homophobia.
Don't tell me about:
(1) Bible as moral code for individuals and country (founding father-esque false nostalgia)
(2) Claims of wanting less government intervening in people's lives. (what? you're turning a freedom to love disourse into a lecture on economic theory?)
(3) Claims (often by other gay people themselves) that gay people do not need to conform to "heterosexual constructs of monogamy", cheered on by heteros who want to paint promiscuity on the rainbow flag.
(4) How natural is homosexuality...using Bible to teach about nature instead of Science.
(5) The meaning of marriage... people with such high rates of divorce shouldn't pretend to be experts on what marriage really is.
Get to the core of the issue. Tell me how you justify the injustice. Otherwise stop pulling the wool. I'm passionately allergic to it.
INQ.