Rev. Donald Sensing has a pair of very fine posts up on the topic of marriage, and the gay marriage controversy. Sincere and thought-provoking, as usual.
* The "Gay Marriage" Controversy (Feb. 17, 12:55pm). Actually, says Rev. Sensing, the real problem is with the state of traditional marriage.
* Separate the legal and the spiritual in the wedding business (Feb. 16, 5:04pm). "Instead of getting the state out of the wedding business, I would rather see the church get out of the wedding business."
Is the second link heading to the correct place? I scrolled down and saw several blogs on gay marriage, but none in that general vein.
Jesus, that's a depressing article. Oh well, I guess as in the physical world, in the cultural world, entropy is a one-way street. Sucks though.
Ah yes, Blogger's infamous "sometimes they work" permalinks. I've added the exact dates and times to help people find them if necessary.
All Right. For the sake of argument let's keep religion out of marriage. (which is difficult since I'm the leader of the Church of Fandel) The question then is, does the majority of Americans think a union between people of the same sex is as valuable, is worth as much as a union between people of the same sex. No, they don't. The majority of people do not think the value of these two unions is the same.
This might be discriminatory. I know liberals at this point jump in with the "black" issue.
I think in 1960 we were ready to accept blacks as equal to whites. There was a small minority who didn't like it, but the fast majority supported integration.
Right now the majority of Americans do not support gay marriages. It is up to gays and liberals to win over the hearts and minds of the nay-sayers. You will not win over their hearts by breaking the law as they do in San Francisco.
I find reality shows like "The Littlest Groom" and "My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance" and "Married by America" far more damaging to the concept of marriage than anything homosexuals have done. Perhaps when more straight couples take marriage seriously, I'll feel differently, but as long as the likes of Brittney Spears are using slipknots when they 'tie the knot', I can't feel comfortable condemning two people who honestly do want to get married.
Celeste,
I don't entirely disagree with you. Our culture as whole no longer takes marriage terribly seriously. But I remember having a discussion with a liberal friend of mine when I was in academia about affirmative action in college admissions. One of his arguments was, "There was never a time when admission was a pristine meritocracy. What about legacy admissions, children of major benefactors of a university, etc?" My response was, "Essentially, your argument is that since college admissions are not perfectly fair now, we should make them even more unfair." That's how I would respond to your argument. The fact that we do not take marriage seriously enough does not seem to me an argument that we should take a step that arguably would cause it to be taken even less seriously, i.e. legalizing what most people in this country would consider a J. Fred Muggs parody of marriage.
itd be great if someone on winds of change could do an overview of all the best arguments, article links, and blog entries about the current state of the gay marriage debate. we have a ton of good content out there just unconnected at the moment. take a "winds of war" approach to gay marriage would be very helpful.
See Sensing's newest essays, published today, entitled "What makes a thing a thing?" and "Jesus' silence on homosexuality". They are very thoughtful and well done.
If you really want to fix marriage, I think the first thing you should do is remove artificial incentives for it. There are plenty of people getting married for really bad reasons like health insurance, citizenship, lower taxes, unplanned pregnancies, gold-digging, etc. Benefits like that should be removed as much as possible (and yeah, some of those cases are really tricky). That should cover many bad marriages.
Another thing is perhaps raise the minimum required age. I don't think it's pretty rare to find someone really emotionally mature enough to handle a decision like this until at least their late 20s. And people change a lot in their 20s. Maybe also mandate a waiting period. That'd take care of cases like Britney Spears & Dennis Rodman.
Gay marriage doesn't hurt heterosexual marriages at all. It's just a matter of society's comfort with the idea. Just as with interracial marriages, this will change over time. The sooner, the better.
Just like naked breasts don't hurt children. There is nothing inherently sexual or obscene about the female breast. Many other societies don't treat it like a sex object it like ours does -- because it's an organ for feeding babies, for crying out loud. Yet our society is squeamish over the idea of exposed female breasts for no good reason. Well, the same goes for gay marriages.
Fred -
I don't feel like the affirmative action analogy works too well in this case, because with college admissions you are competing for benefits. When you engage in affirmative action, it means that some people who otherwise would have gone to that college will be unable to, because there are a limited number of admissions spaces available. Not so with a marriage. The benefits granted via a marriage are automatic, and are not in a limited supply. The marriage of two men will not reduce the benefits I would gain from a marriage one tittle, nor will it reduce my chances of getting married.
I just feel like we're better served, trying to get people to take marriage seriously, than we are trying to keep only some people from getting married.
fling93: I don't think it's pretty rare to find someone really emotionally mature enough to handle a decision like this until at least their late 20s.
It was probably obvious from the context, but the above should instead have read: "I think it's pretty rare to find..."