However, it is anti-gay discriminatory behavior. Someone might in their heart-of-hearts not feel the least bit anti-gay, but fail to recognize that denying marriage equality is in fact, anti-gay behavior. You see this all the time in Detroit. White people from the suburbs who know without a doubt that they aren't anti-black, fail to treat blacks as their equals. Talk is talk. Ignorance does not absolve you of the consequence of your actions. You can harbor no ill-will towards homosexuals, and yet treat them in an inequitable manner. If so, your actions, are anti-gay. You are functionally anti-gay.
This is my exact issue with this article, thank you. I was having trouble expressing it myself, as exhausted as I am, and I'm glad to see people agreeing. Having compassion and love for something 'despite' some part of who they are as a person that you see as wrong or flawed is not really the kind of compassion and love I personally want, and I'd imagine a lot of people agree. My sexuality and gender identity, while not necessarily defining me as a person, is integral to who I am. It is not something that I choose nor can I change it. By ignoring something so important to me, you ignore who I am.
I'm against gay marriage because I'm against marriage. I agree with the point in the title but I must say I disagree with the article overall. Sure, many people opposed to 'gay marriage' don't do so out of intentional malice, but that doesn't make them not bigots. Calmly and respectfully stating an oppressive viewpoint doesn't negate its oppressive effects and origins. Ignore the discourse and look at the real social consequences of the implementation.
Against marriage in what sense? Personally I think it's weird that married people get treated differently for tax purposes than unmarried people, but I guess I can see why it's done. On the other hand, I'm for people choosing to dedicate themselves to each other in the interest of creating a richer life experience for themselves. I don't think that it's right or necessarily good that people are expected to marry in order to find that kind of fulfillment though.
As an anarchist atheist polyamorist, I'm opposed to the state, religious, and social aspects of marriage. So all of it. That's all well and good, but why should the state have a hand in it? I suppose its current use is mostly for tax purposes, insurance coverage, power of attorney, inheritance, and all that, but there are plenty of much more flexible ways to handle those questions, and there's no reason they should be tied to a religious institution. Definitely. I speculate that if the institution that enforces & embodies all that restraint were struck down, it would be easier for people to escape.Against marriage in what sense?
On the other hand, I'm for people choosing to dedicate themselves to each other in the interest of creating a richer life experience for themselves.
I don't think that it's right or necessarily good that people are expected to marry in order to find that kind of fulfillment though.
If you were trying to sway someone to consider an alternative way of dealing with insurance, inheritance, power of attorney, etc. what would you propose? I certainly see some of the shortcomings of monogamy and if I'm honest, I have played several hands at once, though I don't think that counts as polyamory. I have friends that experimented with polyamory (I don't know if they still . . . is "practice" the the right word?) and one thing that seemed to come up was jealousy, which I can understand. From your perspective and experience with polyamory, how does a person deal with it?I suppose its current use is mostly for tax purposes, insurance coverage, power of attorney, inheritance, and all that, but there are plenty of much more flexible ways to handle those questions, and there's no reason they should be tied to a religious institution.
I'm a polyamorist so not really down with monogamy anyways.
For health insurance, well, the policy can have its own procedure to add new covered members, like car insurance does now. Power of attorney already has its own mechanisms for transmission. For inheritance you can write a will, of course. Spousal transfer is just the default, and there's usually no confusion even in weird situations like common law marriage. In many cases there are children with obvious partial claims. Married people shouldn't get tax breaks, if anything multiple-wage-earning households should have higher taxes, and tax breaks should be based on the number of non-income-generating people in the household. "Don't be jealous" is the optimal solution. I guess that's not very helpful but it really is the best course of action. It helps if you have good personal relations with the other partner(s). Healthy poly relationships depend heavily on openness, communication, and mutual support, just like any other relationship.If you were trying to sway someone to consider an alternative way of dealing with insurance, inheritance, power of attorney, etc. what would you propose?
one thing that seemed to come up was jealousy, which I can understand. From your perspective and experience with polyamory, how does a person deal with it?
As someone who has dabbled in polyamory: I think learning how to get rid of jealousy is a process, but a very doable one (people are off-put by how little I care about previous partners, for instance - my roommate and some of the people I date don't seem to understand it). The funny thing is I am now much less jealous/made insecure by other dates/previous partners (I am not actively practicing polyamory and can't confess I'm very interested in doing so at this time) than I was when I was in a polyamorous relationship, or at least when I started being in one (the relationship spanned about 2 years). I think it helps to date a ton of people and potentially a ton of people at once, and by "date" I do mean the very casual "seeing someone" as opposed to "have any sort of committment" with them. I think if you start with that framework, of "I don't expect them to have any commitment to me nor I to them" and you start to understand the really enjoyable aspects of that framework, and understand that until there is an established agreement to monogamy there is no expectation and indeed no right to expectation or offense if either date-r is non-monogamous, then it sets you up better for a relationship where you can continue to hold onto those values. Polyamory doesn't really interest me for other reasons, but I'll tell ya what - not being jealous always interests me. I don't consider jealousy an attractive trait, and minimizing it in my own life is definitely something I'm glad about. Other people look at you askance though. My own roommate has tried to make me feel guilty for seeing multiple people at once. She doesn't understand that until you have a discussion about monogamy there can't possibly be any expectation that either party is monogamous. Then again she's also ragingly insecure, so... (From my limited, anecdotal experience, people who are ragingly insecure seem to believe you should just kind of 'be monogamous' from the start if you start seeing someone you are interested in. I'm like "All your eggs in one basket, does that sound like a familiar idiom to you? one that doesn't usually end well?" )"Don't be jealous" is the optimal solution. I guess that's not very helpful but it really is the best course of action.
Oh, I wouldn't blame her insecurity. There are plenty of ragingly insecure poly people. And I might be reading you wrong but it seems you've portrayed or at least insinuated that polyamory and commitment are mutually exclusive. I disagree. It's definitely possible to have strong commitments that don't include exclusivity. A current relationship I'm in has a stronger emotional connection and more clearly defined commitment than any relationship I've been in previously, including the monogamous ones, and I honestly feel it's because we're trying to act the way that polyamory idealizes, and not just sexually.
I didn't mean to imply that, more that I found it easier to learn how to manage jealousy when starting on a less committed track. I now think I can carry those skills over into a relationship, if I want. It was compared to my earlier approach of essentially jumping into a committed relationship with no practice at non-monogamy and not being jealous. I view casual dating as a great way to try - to dabble at - polyamory and practice shedding jealousy. As opposed to starting out with something that feels very intense and serious and having that be your first go at not being jealous and/or practicing polyamory.
Isn't this kind of like saying racism requires a measure of malice to be racism? Would it be any more acceptable to champion separate but equal policies if you did it with a gentle heart? Because that's what the "marriage versus civil union" debate smacks of. They're separate institutions, you see. Separate... But equal. And that's totally okay, right? The author's argument rests on the idea that if we call anti-gay marriage advocates homophobic, that leaves little impact for homophobia as a descriptor for more violent offenders. But homophobia, like racism, exists as a gradient, not a dichotomy. Speaking against gay marriage might be soft homophobia, but it's still homophobia.
I can see the author's point, but I'm also unsure whether I agree with it. Of course there are plenty of people who are good people who hold some prejudiced points of view. I think that's universal whether we're talking about race, sexuality or any kind of identity. But specifically with marriage, I think that not just gays, but everybody should have to get a "civil union" to get protection under the law. Why should the state recognize an inherently religious ceremony? I think that everyone should have equal protection under the law, and that only officers of the law (e.g. judges, clerks, mayors, etc.) should have the authority to grant civil standing to couples. If couples want to have a traditional wedding as well, then that is their right, too, but it's then a private matter that has no meaning beyond the meaning which the couple and their loved ones ascribe to it (which, obviously, can be huge; I'm not trying to minimize what a wedding is to the affected).
You're totally right- plenty of good people hold prejudices. Those prejudices, IMO, are only problematic when they're obscured or repainted as innocuous. In which case, they either stagnate and fester in the hearts and minds of otherwise good people, or else they're allowed to blossom in more malicious circles. Think we can all stand to be called out on our prejudices every once in a while, for the sake of building a stronger society. No need to simply write them off as flukes in an otherwise healthy worldview. Totally with you on the civil union thing. Civil union should be the parallel secular status granted to all married couples for policy implementation purposes. Like when you go to get your marriage license, you also get your civil union form. Or is this already how it works in some places? Pretty sure that right now, that's not how it works. Currently, I think marriage generally has to be defined and confirmed by the state, and then that's the basis for all the rights that marriage affords. And that version seems really backwards. Requiring state validation of marriage provides all sorts of political disincentives to support less traditional unions. Seems like it would make a lot more sense, both for political purposes and in the interest of church/state separation to establish the following policy standard: Each religious institution has the right to decide whether or not they want to allow gay marriage. All marriages effected by religious institutions will be recognized as civil union by the state. That would support religious freedom, offer an outlet for everybody to get married if they want to, and make the whole gay marriage thing less of a political minefield, as it doesn't have to be specifically addressed in legislation.
Interesting point. How could we explain a person like an insurance actuary, that is only anti-gay marriage due to damage he/she predicts it will do to his/her company? Let's say that person has forged this veiwpoint solely on financials? Should this person be considered homophobic, or just a greedy a--hole? Or, on the flip-side, how do you describe the same insurance acutary that is pro-gay marriage only because there is a tidy sum of money to be made from the new partnership insurance premiums that are on the way? A helpful homophobe?
Sounds like the actuary would oppose or support the marriage itself, not the type of marriage, and base his conclusion on variables independent of spousal gender. Presumably, Mr. Insurance would reach the same conclusion if he approached the situation gender-blind. Doesn't sound like homophobia, just good ol' fashioned bean-counting, right?