Why I have resisted writing something like this:
Because there are many issues involved, it would be too lengthy and boring.
Why I have written this:
A great philosopher said, "This ain't heaven." I think she meant that there is nothing in life which is completely good or right (as well as evil or wrong), including this statement.
This is NOT to advocate banning same sex marriage. It is to advocate looking at different sides of an issue. No one wants to fall into the Rush Limbaugh-religious-zealot-syndrome-where-the-other-side-are-all-morons.
I have been influenced by a number of things people said on this blog many months ago. Two notable ones are Myk, when he said "We have bigger fish to fry" and Katty, when she told the story of her gay friend weeping when Proposition 8 passed in California. Myk's point is self explanatory. Katty's point let me see that, while it has been described as a religious and/or a civil rights issue, it is fundamentally a human happiness issue.
These will not be compelling arguments to you, but they will have substance. I don't find them compelling, but perhaps people with other genes, backgrounds and values will. They will be brief and thus you will find a lot of holes in them. I'm sorry, but I will not make this lengthy.
1. At a time when almost everything, from economics to games, is cast in a Dawinian light, we should recognize the fundamentally powerful development of marriage as perhaps the principle reason the race has survived as well as we have.
2. Related to No. 1, perhaps because marriage has been such a powerful force, it obtained religious significance. It has become mystical. Every major religion defines marriage as between a man and a woman. While religious beliefs must change with cultures, it is usually not the best policy to dismiss one that is held so broadly.
3. For thousands, if not millions, of years practically all cultures have considered marriage as the union of a male and female. Apart from the basic human willingness to see it that way, the historical value of something that has survived so long, should lend some credence that it may be a good thing.
4. Studies have shown that people in homosexual relationships live an average of 20 years less than those in heterosexual relationships. Like steroids or smoking, should the government be advocating something which may shorten your life. (There are arguments for and against interpreting these studies in this way. As I said I am going to be brief.)
5. By promoting same sex marriage, marriage is being taken in a completely wrong direction. This is a happiness issue. The proper direction for marriage, to ensure the happiness of the greatest number of people, is to have arranged marriages. It has worked successfully in the past. It would help eliminate events such as the LA Fitness Center disaster.
4 comments:
I never meant to hijack the blog for gay rights, sorry. So I implore you Jim to sit down with me for a beer because these 5 nonsensical things are not arguments, instead they belong in the same realm as insisting the moon is made of cheese and Global Warming is God hugging the world ever so more tightly.
I would love to do that, however, if there was nothing in any of the 5 points that struck you as more meaningful than "the moon is made of cheese," it does not bode well.
I have the same question for Jim that the fellow had for God in the Crash Test Dummies' "God Shuffled His Feet":
I'm not quite clear about what you just spoke
Was that a parable, or a very subtle joke?
Quick response to Jim's five points;
1. Irrelevant.
2. Not true. Buddhism attaches no religious significance to marriage and allows polygamy. Islam permits up to 4 wives. In Biblical times, the Hebrews practiced polygamy. I'd discuss Mormonism, but those people are weird.
3. Not true, see above. Also irrelevant. The statement that "the historical value of something that has survived so long, should lend some credence that it may be a good thing" could also apply to hereditary monarchies, slavery, women having the status of property, child labor, military conquest, and lots of other stuff that we're better off without. The argument that something is bad just because we've never tried it before is just un-american.
4. Stupid and misleading. First, whether we permit gay marriage or not, this has nothing to do with the number of gays and lesbians in the world. Plus, why don't gays and Lesbians live longer? Because they can't get married.
-GLB people commit suicide at rates from 2 to 13.9 times more often than average.
-GLB people have smoking rates 1.3 to 3 times higher than average.
-GLB people have rates of alcoholism 1.4 to 7 times higher than average.
-GLB people have rates of illicit drug use 1.6 to 19 times higher than average.
-GLB people show rates of depression 1.8 to 3 times higher than average.
-Gay and bisexual men (MSM) comprise 76.1% of AIDS cases.
-Gay and bisexual men (MSM) comprise 54% of new HIV infections each year.
5. Again, the successfully worked in the past argument. So, did slavery (if you were the owner).
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