Sunday, June 23, 2013

Day 19 - Now with Less Snark


So, again, there is some hubabaloo on the site about something I wrote. I want to clear things up. And to reduce the miscommunication and bring it all down a level, I am going to try to do this without relying on sarcasm.

This could get ugly. And by ugly I mean boring as I'm not sure what kind of writer I am without my snark.

I started reading this book because I am genuinely interested in why some folks think that by allowing two men or two women the opportunity to get married, their marriages or marriage in general will be less. I agree the government has an interest in regulating marriage. I don't want to see 15-year-olds walking down the aisle. I don't want to see first cousins getting married. I also don't think you should be able to marry someone you've known for less than 24 hours, yet, all of those things are presently legal in at least one state.

Also presently legal in some states is gay marriage.

And while I don't see or hear an uproar on television or online about Nevada's lackadaisical marriage (and divorce) laws, I am currently reading an entire book laying out why gay marriage is bad for our society.

So far it has yet to fulfill the promise of its title. Of course, I am only on chapter 4.

The arguments the authors are presenting have already begun to fold in on themselves. In the introduction we learned their definition of marriage to be “a comprehensive union: a union of will (by consent) and body (by sexual union); inherently ordered to procreation and thus the broad sharing of family life; and calling for permanent and exclusive commitment, whatever the spouses’ preferences. 

But then they offered that straight couples that can't have children (“This is not to say infertile couples cannot marry” followed by a confusing sports analogy) or simply don't want to have them (“procreation need not (even where it can) be the most important aspect of marriage”) can also considered comprehensively married. 

In chapter one they write that the revisionist view of marriage being based on emotional connections and bonds opens the door for polygamy, which of course is in direct opposition to the exclusivity requirement of conjugal marriage. Then in chapter three they write that polygamy is fine. It isn't perfect, but it is okay so long as it is a man with multiple women.

[snarky comment by Mark Twain redacted]*

This is a little confusing to the reader, because to borrow the author's words for a minute:
So a husband and wife’s loving bodily union in coitus and the special kind of relationship that is seals are valuable, even when conception is neither sought nor achieved. But two men, two women, and larger groups cannot achieve organic bodily union: there is no bodily good or function toward which their bodies can coordinate. 
So, then, why is polygamy okay? How can a man and his two or three or four wives coordinate their bodies to achieve an organic bodily union?

Further, if gay marriage allows for polygamy, then why isn't the reverse true? Why doesn't polygamy allow for gay marriage. Why is this inorganic bodily union okay, but not the bodily union of two men or two women without a man present? 

Still, I’m glad I went back and reviewed the text. Because, I think I might have found the root of the authors issues. It is hinted at in this chapter. It is fear.

Yes. Just like when the no-fault divorce law passed, divorce in this country was normalized, allowing gays to get married will legitimize their relationships in our society. Being gay will be looked at as something perfectly normal.

Because it is and should be.

And maybe that is what my father's issue is. Maybe he is afraid. Afraid that if gay marriage is allowed in our state, I will come out as gay and get married and beaten up by gay-haters and my children will be taunted and teased and beaten up and they will hate me and kill me and my partner as we sleep and Lifetime will make a movie about my life and Craig T. Nelson will refuse to play my father.

Daddy, if you are reading this: Again, I'm not gay. Picky. But not gay.


*Okay, the Mark Twain quote was just too good and too appropriate to not include here: In his short story Letter’s from the Earth, Twain writes as Satan, banished to the earth, who is writing letters to the other angels to recruit for his cause. One of his observations proving God’s finest creation Man is mad goes like this: “Now there you have a sampling of man’s “reasoning powers,” as he calls them. He observes certain facts. For instance, that in all his life he never sees the day that he can satisfy one woman; also, that no woman ever sees the day that she can’t overwork, and defeat, and put out of commission any ten masculine plants that can be put to bed to her. He puts those strikingly suggestive and luminous facts together, and from them draws this astonishing conclusion: The Creator intended the woman to be restricted to one man. 

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