What Do You Think About Marriage...?

[Bowyn Aerrow]

I don't understand how anyone who IS gay can oppose equal rights for gay people. Why shouldn't we have the SAME rights as straight people?

I thought folk understood the why here...

Some LGBT are loath that LGBT share in the same stuff as Heteros.

Hetero-normal relationships is what marriage means. And there are plenty of LGBT out there who have been subjected to enough oppression to where they view the following of the oppressor's life style as being more oppression.

There has been a general push for LGBT to do things differently than Straights. We seek our own culture, our own life style and really, really hate the idea that our pair bondings may reflect the pair bonding of man and woman, so we struggle with other terms to explain the roles of the partner, Top/Bottom, Dom/sub... ask who the woman is in the relationship and its WAR!

LGBT have been struggling to figure out its niche since we started down the road of Revolution. We seek to be 'other' - to stand outside of society and be a distinct group based on the difference between Homo and Hetero.

So when a LGBT is saying 'Why should LGBT marry' they are really saying 'Why do you seek to be like THEM?'.

[Aike]

No, I'm not expanding the grounds of my argument. I'm just not allowing them to expand the grounds of their argument beyond a legal one in advocating one thing for one set of people and something else for another. I'm asking them to make a sound legal argument about why there should two systems, even if equal, and they have no such argument they can make. I am asking them to leave their emotional and religious judgments out of this and I am not allowing the government to make those judgments about me, which is what happens if you accept something by one name for some and another name for others.

Again, the question is: why would you care about any of that? From the standpoint of equal entitlements to benefits, everything else is irrelevant. There is no need to demand such justifications from your opponent.

I don't understand. You make it sound as though the paradigm of gay people somehow presents an entirely different family structure or set of family values as a straight couple. My family values are the same as if I were a straight person... and they're the same ones my straight parents taught me. Forgive me if I'm not understanding the distinction you're drawing here correctly, but I couldn't figure out what else you're saying here about how this is "not just arbitrary subjective opinions, these sets of values structure our social reality." Gay people are not proposing the introduction of any new, alien, foreign sets of values.

By the proponents of family values, I mean those who stand for the conservative ideal of the family, which is tied to the structure of the breadwinning authoritative father and the domestic obedient mother, to put it in a caricaturistic way. Even if women have been able to break away from this role somewhat, the institution of marriage is still tied to this cultural and economic baggage. This is why women continue to spend more time doing housework than men, earn less money in the form of wages, etc. Gay marriage would break this formula as it introduces same-sex family dynamics and a set of values, which differs from the traditional model. For example, the division of labor in the household would not be and is not automatically codified by gender as it tends to be right now in straight marriages. Some straight feminists are nowadays actually looking into gay relationships for answers to contemporary gender equality issues. This, by the way, is the reason I don't like it when gay rights activists support gay marriage with the claim that it wouldn't have any effects on the common straight marriage. Why? It should.

Again, I realize you're European and do not have this same history, but our courts and legal system do not recognize that separate but equal can work, it violates Equal Protections guaranteed as a right of citizens because segregated institutions were recognized as inherently unequal.

Thanks, that was helpful. It's good you guys have this idea inscribed into the law. But this is contingent upon particular historical circumstances and my question was specifically speaking analytic. I hope you got my point. There is no logical reason why segregated institutions should be recognized as inherently unequal on the basis of the law itself; one simply cannot make that deduction from some kind of constitutive legal principles. If the law does not recognize segregated institutions as equal, this is because it has been set so. And it has been set so arbitrarily, that is, for reasons, which cannot be derived from the law as such. All arguments, which try to justify the insertion of some new article to the law by the law itself are ultimately tautological ("This thing 'X' should be in the law because the law says so!").

But this is an unnecessary digression. My main point was just that to treat marriage only as a kind of a legal contract abstracts too much from the social/economic/cultural context of marriage. As tempting as it is to reduce marriage to its legal form and fight for gay marriage on the legal basis, I do not think it's going to resolve all the problems surrounding gay marriage, many of which are not solvable by legal means. Take, for example, the question of inclusion in religious communities that I referred to in my post above. But, please, do not misunderstand. In no way do I underestimate the value of equality in front of the law. On the contrary, I think that gay marriage, in addition to providing equal legally inscribed benefits, would also serve as a kind of an institutional form of social recognition. It would be a tangible symbol of our equality, the meaning of which should not be underestimated.

I hope the following comparison drives my point home: take the problem of sexual violence. This is obviously a gender issue; the victims of rape are predominantly women. Now, if you treat sexual violence exclusively as a matter of the law, saying for example that the legal procedures surrounding rape should be changed to improve the situation of rape victims, you are ignoring the whole question of why the victims are predominantly women, why they're afraid to go to the police to report rapes, why sexual violence persists in our society, etc. You cannot abstract from all this and approach the question as if it was just a legal affair.

[Buzzer]

By the proponents of family values, I mean those who stand for the conservative ideal of the family, which is tied to the structure of the breadwinning authoritative father and the domestic obedient mother, to put it in a caricaturistic way.

Those people are still reeling about single mothers or couples who never marry, but both are also realities in our world even if it's uncomfortable for people with the more stark "traditionalist" view.

Thanks, that was helpful. It's good you guys have this idea inscribed into the law. But this is contingent upon particular historical circumstances and my question was specifically speaking analytic. I hope you got my point. There is no logical reason why segregated institutions should be recognized as inherently unequal on the basis of the law itself

In an ideal world, yes. But in practical reality, in any case where you're talking about making two different legal constructions to handle two different groups of people about the same mechanism... you're almost invariably dealing with a society that has a history of a minority group needing these legal constructions to be created because without them, their rights are not recognized or validated in society. So the motivation and the impetus for people to regard and treat them as unequal already exists, and you are handing them just another bit of ammunition for doing so with separation.

[jasonkirk]

Will: The LGBT community has fought long and hard for marriage equality, and the battle is far from over. So...it surprises me a bit to hear that many of my LGBT friends view marriage as irrelevant. For them, it's a political, not a personal issue. And I know a number of straight couples who feel the same way, that marriage has no meaning or purpose.

Adam and I are getting married in January, On a practical level, there are legal and financial benefits, and the fact of our upcoming marriage has already proven very helpful with the adoption process.

Beyond that --- we aren't naïve enough to believe that marriage holds any guarantees or will solidify our relationship in any way. But, for us, it's an affirmation. A way to publicly say, Yeah...we're in this for the long haul. I've said before that our only "relationship rule" is that Failure Is Not An Option. And, we're both romantics, and cherish tradition and ceremony and ritual.

So --- what do you think? What do you think about marriage?

i am very happy for both of you enjoy your lifes

[Beaux]

For me, marrying Carl was a gut-wrenching decision, and one that (at times) I felt that I regretted. To say that our relationship has had its share of ups and downs over the past 18 years is a monumental understatement, and quite a few do those "downs" happened in the more recent years rather than during our early ones.
Whith that being said, making the decision to STAY married to my husband proved to be one of the deepest, most personal epiphanies of my life and I do NOT regrets it NOW.

I did not expect things to be changed in our relationship because we married, but I was wrong for two reasons:
1) I was assuming that marriage would not change how I felt or behaved.
2) I assumed the same would be true for Carl.

What actually happened:
1) Carl changed after our wedding; he became more willing to compromise, he became more secure in our relationship (and by default more HONEST), and he became MUCH more committed.
2) By seeing Carl change SO dramatically, I was affected and, eventually, was changed myself. At first, his newfound honesty was actually hurtful to me because it made me realize how very dishonest he had been in the past (and how stupid I felt for having believed his past lies). Eventually, his new sense of fairness, compromise, and utter commitment won me over in the long run, but initially it was a very traumatic and unhappy process for me, which is something I never saw coming. At least not when he first asked, "Will you marry me?".

[AdamAndWill]

For me, marrying Carl was a gut-wrenching decision, and one that (at times) I felt that I regretted. To say that our relationship has had its share of ups and downs over the past 18 years is a monumental understatement, and quite a few do those "downs" happened in the more recent years rather than during our early ones.
Whith that being said, making the decision to STAY married to my husband proved to be one of the deepest, most personal epiphanies of my life and I do NOT regrets it NOW.

I did not expect things to be changed in our relationship because we married, but I was wrong for two reasons:
1) I was assuming that marriage would not change how I felt or behaved.
2) I assumed the same would be true for Carl.

What actually happened:
1) Carl changed after our wedding; he became more willing to compromise, he became more secure in our relationship (and by default more HONEST), and he became MUCH more committed.
2) By seeing Carl change SO dramatically, I was affected and, eventually, was changed myself. At first, his newfound honesty was actually hurtful to me because it made me realize how very dishonest he had been in the past (and how stupid I felt for having believed his past lies). Eventually, his new sense of fairness, compromise, and utter commitment won me over in the long run, but initially it was a very traumatic and unhappy process for me, which is something I never saw coming. At least not when he first asked, "Will you marry me?".

Will: Thank you for this incredibly hones post. It has given me more to think about on a personal level than any other response.

Adam and I have lives together for close to 6 years and have gone through some life changing experiences in the last year, including postponing our wedding for six months and going into couples therapy, adopting a child together and most recently, bringing his father to live with us.

I guess I've been feeling pretty complacent, but you've given me a reality check here.
I realize now that a marriage license doesn't mean that we've "arrived". How does that old song go...We've only just begun.

Thank you. You've helped me more than you know.

[Iceblink]

Again, the question is: why would you care about any of that? From the standpoint of equal entitlements to benefits, everything else is irrelevant. There is no need to demand such justifications from your opponent.

Again, it is because a civil union is not just something to give you the same rights as heterosexuals. It is something that in theory gives you same rights, but since it is something by a different name, it comes with something else, by default of it being something different, a statement that you are a different kind of citizen than others. There is already something in place to give these same rights, so there is not need to bring in something new, something designed for only a certain set of people. This is not demanding justification from your opponent, this is demanding justification from your government that would pass such a system and it is demanding from them that they do not legislate and institutionalize prejudice and bigotry. There are some of us who will accept nothing else than exactly the same thing is given to other citizens and then there are some that will continually kiss the ass of bigots and keep apologizing for making them uncomfortable for simply being the people we are. Sorry to be so direct, but I find it quite offensive that gay people would even push this piece of shit idea that we should just settle for something different from our governments that what other people get.

[AdamAndWill]

Again, it is because a civil union is not just something to give you the same rights as heterosexuals. It is something that in theory gives you same rights, but since it is something by a different name, it comes with something else, by default of it being something different, a statement that you are a different kind of citizen than others. There is already something in place to give these same rights, so there is not need to bring in something new, something designed for only a certain set of people. This is not demanding justification from your opponent, this is demanding justification from your government that would pass such a system and it is demanding from them that they do not legislate and institutionalize prejudice and bigotry. There are some of us who will accept nothing else than exactly the same thing is given to other citizens and then there are some that will continually kiss the ass of bigots and keep apologizing for making them uncomfortable for simply being the people we are. Sorry to be so direct, but I find it quite offensive that gay people would even push this piece of shit idea that we should just settle for something different from our governments that what other people get.

Will: This is exactly how I feel.

I want all of the legal protections and benefits provided by marriage.

I also want - and intend to have - a church wedding with white runners in the aisles, flowers and candles and music and rings - a big wedding cake, champagne and every other damn thing that heterosexual couples take for granted.

Is there a reason that ANY of that should be denied me because I'm gay?

[Maverick]

"Is there a reason that ANY of that should be denied me because I'm gay?"

None that I know of.... hope the event is as awesome as you guys have it planned out to be!

[Anocxu]

I have my Vera Wang Gown ready!