There’s a plethora of standard arguments used as to why same-sex marriage shouldn’t be permitted. I want to quickly run them over with a bit of logic:
- Marriage is traditionally between a man and a woman. Actually, same-sex marriage was practiced in many parts of society, and indeed even the Roman Catholic church, ending within that institution around the 16th century. Not only that, there’s a lot of other things that have been traditional over the years, but they’ve been abandoned. If you look in particular at the current rights of women, not many of those are traditional if we go back to the timeframe when marriage became about a man and a woman.
- Homosexuality is unnatural. Actually, homosexual behaviour has been documented in hundreds of species – mammalian, avian, etc. On the other hand, homophobia has only been documented in one species – the human species. Which trait seems unnatural now?
- Homosexuals can’t have children, and marriage is about procreation. Given the planet’s population has topped 7 billion and is already dangerously unsustainable, it’s morally unjustifiable to argue for only allowing relationships that see procreation occur. What’s more, I’m yet to encounter evidence of any government that forces infertile couples to get divorced, or prevents older people who are past child bearing age from getting married.
- The bible is against homosexuality. The bible is against a lot of things, many of which are done without hesitation by christians on a daily basis. Eating shellfish, wearing artificial fabrics, working on Sundays, etc. You can’t cherry pick.
- We live in a Christian society. Actually, we don’t. Christianity is the major religion in Australia, but it’s not the governing religion. Other faiths are permitted, as are atheists and agnostics. In fact, the legal protection of the unbelief of atheists in itself should be sufficient cause to prevent any religious argument against same-sex marriage from being permitted.
- Gays and lesbians are seeking special rights and treatment. Actually, we just want equal rights. We don’t want special rights. We believe everyone should be treated the same.
- Permitting same-sex marriages is the “thin end of the wedge”. This is the deep-bigot argument that by allowing same-sex couples to get married society will be eventually forced to allow adult-children marriages or adult-animal marriages. This is ridiculous. Neither of those behaviours represent consensual acts and are viewed as repugnant by the majority of society. Homosexuality does not fall into that category.
- It’s just a sheet of paper. Why does it matter? If it’s just a sheet of paper, let’s not let anyone get married, and require everyone already married to get divorced. What, that’s unfair? Yeah, that’s what we’ve been saying.
- Same sex marriages will lead to polygamous marriages. Um, so what? As long as it’s consensual and loving, why does it matter how many people are in a marriage? Society spends way too much time obsessing about what consenting adults get up to between one another.
I know there’s other common arguments out there. Feel free to fire them at me, I bet I can shoot them down just as quickly.
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Interesting, I didn’t know gay marriage actually had historic precedent including in the Catholic Church. Do have links to more info on that matter? I try to keep in mind things that have precedent, so being ignorant that gay marriage actually does have historic precedent feels unbearable.
This looks like a good quick overview – http://www.gaychristian101.com/Gay-Marriage.html – I first read about it when I was 17 or so in a very well researched book, “Homosexuality: A history”.
My comment on the issues you have raised are these: If one takes away the so called ‘religious’ aspects of marriage (and we all know that is a farce), didn’t the whole issue of same sex marriage start (at least in Australia) as a ‘legal’ issue in terms of ‘spousal’ rights to property, wealth, etc, etc, after the death of one in a partnership? The whole point being that a ‘same sex partner’ did not have the same rights that any partner of a ‘normal’ marriage had in terms of property, wealth, etc? Is it not the same now for all in Australia, or have I missed something?
The whole issue of same sex marriage (or any marriage between two people)in fact is a moot point in actual law, yes? Marriage was originally constituted to safeguard hereditary rights (for the male offspring) was it not? Many ‘laws’ having originally been taken from ‘catholic’ cannon law (in the case of the Westminster system of government), which in itself is fast becoming obsolete anyway. Doesn’t the ‘De Facto’ come into play here. I have never personally filled in any form that stipulates that a ‘De Facto’ has to be male/female! I will freely admit as a heterosexual that I haven’t come across any problems in this regard, do they exist?
“…Same sex marriages will lead to polygamous marriages. Um, so what? As long as it’s consensual and loving, why does it matter how many people are in a marriage? Society spends way too much time obsessing about what consenting adults get up to between one another…”
I doubt this is of genuine concern! Same sex marriage cannot be classified in any way shape or form with polygamy. This is a proverbial red herring to any issue surrounding the subject. As an aside I guess my question on the ‘issues’ relate to the topic of polygamy that you have raised! I have no other question or objections to same sex ‘marriage’ as such. The question is one of legality: What would the legal rights of offspring from polygamous marriages as in regards to the financial costs of rearing children be(and the aftermath, perhaps, multiple partners laying claim etc).
The argument you are missing (although in mainstream political discourse it’s not necessarily common) is that legalising gay marriage would further entrench an oppressive and discriminatory social practice (ie marriage). As the right-wing blogger Andrew Sullivan has written: “the conservative tradition of reform and inclusion, of social change through existing institutions, of the family and personal responsibility, [leads] inexorably toward civil marriage for gays.”
Marriage is just another domain in which people who have been traditionally excluded from a discriminatory practice are demanding access to that practice rather than its abolition. Many critical theorists have made arguments along these lines (Michael Warner is one of the most prominent) but it is generally ignored in mainstream discourse.
The real challenge though is that if you end up in a situation where there are two different terms – one for heterosexual union and one for same-sex union, you’re continuing the inequality meme. “Marriage” will continue to be recognised as the “real” relationship, and “union” will continue to be not correct.
See here for some thoughts on this: What’s in a word?
I completely agree that having different words for heterosexual marriage and homosexual marriage would be a terrible outcome for equality and would be counter-productive. But I don’t think that situation is a likely result of what I am advocating.
There are plenty of desirable legal alternatives to modern “marriage” (eg France’s pacte civil de solidarité), but they do not work (in terms of reducing oppression and discrimination) unless they are implemented across the board.
The power of the concept of “marriage” lies in a differentiation between those who are “married” and those who are not, with the former considered to be in a superior type of relationship. There is no way to eliminate this inequality without also eliminating the word “marriage”.