A couple of weeks ago I volunteered for Basic Rights Oregon, for a night of calling Oregonians and trying to persuade them to support marriage equality.
At the training, me and other pro-equality volunteers roleplayed conversations before we went onto the phones. Roleplaying the part of someone opposed to same-sex marriage, I explained that I didn’t think that there was anything wrong with gay sex or gay relationships per se., but that I was concerned with how changing the definition of marriage would alter the country’s already fragile marriage culture. If there’s no longer a special status set aside for generative relationships, how will we continue to say that every child needs and deserves a father and a mother?
My roleplaying partner was bewildered, and scanned through the sheet of suggested responses to common arguments without finding anything helpful.
Later, once I was on the phone talking to real-life opponents of same-sex marriage, it became apparent why such intellectual arguments against marriage equality hadn’t been included on Basic Right Oregon’s cheat sheet.
It’s because those arguments never came up.
What I heard, over and over, from opponents of same-sex marriage is that they’re against it because “that’s what the Bible says.”
That’s what all but two opponents of SSM I spoke to said. Other callers seemed to have a similar experience.
While there are logical rebuttals to “that’s what the Bible says,” some of which were on our cheat sheet, the responses that might score points in a formal debate didn’t seem persuasive.
What seemed to be more effective was to talk to people about their own marriages (if they were married). How long have you been married? Why did you want to get married? Why do you think gay people want to marry?
Most people said what anyone would say — that they married because they were in love, because they wanted to build a family, because it was the right time.
Don’t get me wrong, it was extremely rare for someone to change their minds (none of the people I spoke to did). But even among those who didn’t change their mind, most said that gay and lesbian couples want to get married for the same reasons they did.
I’m sort of addicted to the process of civil argumentation. It helps me to clarify my own arguments and thinking, and it also helps me avoid bad mental habits (like demonizing those who disagree with me). But I’m not sure that the sort of careful, highly intellectualized discussions we have on this site really have much to do with the real “gay marriage” issue as understood by most Americans.
And in the end, the issue will probably be decided more by cohort replacement — by older voters being replaced by younger voters — than by persuasion and changing minds.
Categories: Marriage
RK, for me, the legal debate is the only debate.
For you, it may be. For reality, it is not.
Am I right in deriving from that that you think that the cultural debate is meaningless? Problem with that is that, ultimately, whether or not neutered marriage works, not only for the society as a whole, but for gay people as well, depends on a lot of cultural factors. Leaving the cultural debate out of the equation is like leaving ecology out of the question of survival.
I say this because, though my parents were religious, studies of earth history and human history have influenced me from a very early age, enough so to say that the question of what works for species and cultures depends on a myriad web of factors, most of which we humans still can’t or are only beginning to explain. One thing I do get from this is that the rapidity of the changes made by post-Enlightenment, post-technological man present a historical anomaly, a blip on the time screen, that could go off in who knows how many directions, most of them likely leading to collapse (simply because extinction really has been the rule). That’s why I have to advise caution in cultural as well as environmental changes. We are all at the mercy of the earth, so to speak, and that can be taken ecologically or culturally. That is, we are at the mercy of forces bigger than ourselves and our desires. It’s the fact that so many cannot see this and instead insist on looking at major cultural changes through a small lens that I find troubling.
Now, I’ve said that I would be willing to find a way to give gay couples an exception from the rules of marriage without changing the understanding of marriage for the whole culture. Because I do have compassion for them, even if I refuse to have that used as a means to stifle debate. You guys won’t have it, though, so we’re at an impasse.
Mont D.:It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.
You don’t have to like gay people participating in family formation but legally you won’t be able to stop them.
Marilynn:Woah 2 points for Mont D
Wicked slam. Stings. This was a fun one.
If so, he missed his target and stung an ally instead. Marilynn, I’ve been doing this for too long to be stung by one-liners. Now if my skin was that thin, and if I were as prone to misreading what people say as others here have been (whether deliberate or not) I would accuse Mont D. of saying that I wanted to lynch gay people, but that would be a misreading. As for family formation, well, I’ve covered that in the paragraph above.
Anyway, if you guys really believe that long-term cultural debate and questions are totally irrelevant, then we’re talking past each other
RK, why would you assume that Christopher feels the cultural debate is meaningless, when within the same comment, he explained himself thusly:
That debate and those perceptions will always exist and yes they will probably lessen overtime. They have lessened. But that will happen whether marriage equality is legal or not. About 75% of Americans favor marriage equality or civil unions now. Only about 20% favor neither. Some people will always think I am a pervert or a faggot or disordered (that’s the official RC Church teaching that only about 15% of American Catholics agree with)
That, there will always, always be people who have a problem with him, but at the same time the cultural debate has already reduced the numbers of those people to a distinct minority. The cultural debate has already created the standard background of live-and-let-live; it is the law that is lagging behind.
And face it—a strong part of that majority acceptance is the result of the success of what you call “neutered marriage” for heterosexuals—that is, marriage in which both parties stand on equal ground. There are no longer strict gender roles for men and women; the standard is that both husband and wife will work full-time jobs, and share household duties without a gendered division of labor. That’s the norm now. And since it works so well (egalitarian marriages are the ones surviving and thriving; authoritarian marriages with the strict division of men’s and women’s roles are the ones failing), it stands to reason that it can work the same way for gay and lesbian marriages.
Marriage has changed a great deal in human history, and will continue to change to meet the needs of human beings (it is a human-created notion, after all). It won’t stop existing (although it can become less formal, if the formal structures present more barriers than advantages).
I am interested in hearing you develop this statement:
One thing I do get from this is that the rapidity of the changes made by post-Enlightenment, post-technological man present a historical anomaly, a blip on the time screen, that could go off in who knows how many directions, most of them likely leading to collapse (simply because extinction really has been the rule). That’s why I have to advise caution in cultural as well as environmental changes.
It seems to me that you have some ideas on the possibility of legally-recognized SSM leading to cultural collapse or even human extinction. Can you explain to me how that might occur (even if you think it is a remote possibility rather than a likely one)?
I would also like to hear of other instances where you advise the same caution, or perhaps where you see that failure to institute the same caution caused more societal damage than stability or growth.
RK – of course the cultural argument is important, but as I am legally burdened I’m ways that can only be resolved in the law, the legal arguments are paramount for me. Those arguments will always exist, living my life honestly and being as generous as possible is about all I can do to influence the larger debate. It does drive me crazy that while a huge legal burden is insisted on my family to save marriage, childbearing, and even according to you, the American religious infrastructure (that’s really a new one, I’ve never heard from anyone that gay people would bring down the churches if we get civil marriage licenses) and yet dement absolutely nothing to that end from your fellow straight people. No legal burden at all. And as I pointed out above I will have to accept the degradation from some of the faithful. It has always been with us and always will be. And yet I have faith, my church which you attack with an RC screed on our declining memberships, (the RC Church always fails to point out that while overall indentification as RC is flat, only about 20% of those people attend mass on a regular basis, and fewer and fewer accept the Church’s teaching on divorce, gayness, sex before marriage, birth control, etc, (it’s becoming religious/ethnic identity like being Jewish), on the other hand a place of refuge and there are many like us and we are much stronger for it.
And of course we are talking past each other, you don’t regard me as an equal. How else could that conversation work? Thanks for the “compassion”, I usually reserve that word for people who are down on their luck, or ill. If you thought of me as an equal, you wouldn’t express compassion. And the truth is I don’t care what you think of me, that’s a lost cause. What is important is how my family and I are treated in the law. You have no power over me, but the law does.
La Lubu, you’re a honey pumpkin. Thank you for the very able defense.
Cheers to you as well, Christopher.
I’m skeptical of Roman Catholic numbers on membership; the standard practice is that unless you formally renounce the faith, you’re still listed as a member.
Yes, I suspect my husband is still counted as Catholic. He was a lay delegate for his parish to the diocesan convention (Episcopal church) last weekend, so not so much Catholic anymore.
(At which convention two resolutions passed in support of blessing same-sex marriages. Despite our crappy weather, I do enjoy living in Massachusetts sometimes).
RK when you say “an exception from the rules of marriage” by rules do you mean the requirements for entering a contract to marry as described by the family code in your state? Or do you mean rules written down somewhere else?
When you say “rules” you mean more than the one rule they/we want changed;specifically family code requirement for spouses to be of opposite genders. What other rules or requirements would you be exempting them from having to comply with?
When you say you’d give Gay people “an exception” to the rules does that mean you would not alter the requirement in the code or whatever book your referring to but you’d establish som kind of formal process by which gay people could apply for something akin to the Building Department granting a variance for an Alternate Method of Compliance? Which would be similar to the $5000 Papel Dispensation that allowed my Dad to marry my Mom (a non-Catholic, bleach blond Playboy centerfold starlet with a 7 year old boy and a 7 day old Reno-divorce) during Lent on a Sunday when Catholics are not allowed to get married. Would gay people have to pay a fee for each rule they were exempted from having to comply with?
When you say “without changing the understanding of marriage without changing the understanding of marriage for the whole culture. Is the whole cultures understanding of marriage in the same code or rule book as the rules that your going to exempt them from having to comply with or is the whole cultures understanding of marriage written down elsewhere in addition to the rules that you refer to.
Is it possible that the cultural understanding of marriage that you refer to is similar to the cultural understanding of marriage held other religions whose marital rules are not required to be married in the civil sense? Like fidelity, polygamy,etc?
How would the government go about enforcing a rule like not being able to marry the person you left a spouse for? Would people have to proove they were not having an affair with who ever they applied to get married to? Or would the law have to prove you were having an affair with whoever you were going to get married to? Or would your ex spouse be able to object to the marriage and submit testimony? Would they need like a video or photographic evidence? Would there have to be a law that said it was illegal to cheat on a spouse in order for this new law of yours to be enforceable?
I know my partner and I are both still counted as RCs. All my siblings are though none of them are still RC. And my parents parish still today lists my parents as members though my mother hadn’t gone to mass at all or given a dime since Reagan was president (my father not since the 50s I think) and they have both been dead for several years. I’m very happy about the liturgy to bless marriages that is being developed now, it will be wonderful when it is approved at General Convention next year and included in the next edition of the Book of Common Prayer.
R.K.: I would be willing to find a way to give gay couples an exception from the rules of marriage without changing the understanding of marriage for the whole culture.
You insist on holding gay couples to a higher standard than the standard to which we hold straight couples.
Forty years ago, straight couples who wanted easy divorce and remarriage changed the understanding of marriage for the whole culture.
R.K.
First of all, the term “neutered marriage” is not commonly used by anyone outside of the Opine Editorial blog, so for clarity’s sake it would be helpful if you just said “gay marriage” or “same sex marriage” like almost everyone else in the world.
Second of all, it doesn’t seem wise to use one’s real name in a letter to the editor in which one expresses viewpoints that one does not actually believe.
Most importantly to your argument, I think it’s obvious that more people would support a letter opposing same-sex marriage than would support a letter advocating making adultery, or marrying one’s mistress/manstress, illegal. The latter is not a debate we’re having in the U.S. It’s obvious that the latter is unconstitutional. One might not be called a “bigot” for genuinely having this belief, but they would not be taken as seriously as anyone on the anti-SSM side.
Barry, would it be safe to say that the above quoted argument is another example of the kind of intellectualized sophistry that you did not encounter in the real world, talking to everyday voters?
Been out all day, some interesting responses, which I’ll get to later.
First, though, let me address this:
And of course we are talking past each other, you don’t regard me as an equal.
False. You and I are equals in the only way that counts, as human beings, whether black, red, white, male, female, straight, gay, rich, poor, Democrat, Republican, adult, child, elderly, or all the others not listed.
Thanks for the “compassion”, I usually reserve that word for people who are down on their luck, or ill. If you thought of me as an equal, you wouldn’t express compassion.
Whoa! You didn’t mean to write that, did you? Look at what you just said:
I usually reserve that word for people who are down on their luck, or ill.
Then, in the very next sentence:
If you thought of me as an equal, you wouldn’t express compassion.
Did you just say that people who are ill are not your equals? That people who are down on their luck are not your equals?
Of course you didn’t mean to say that. Even though that’s how it reads, I know you didn’t mean that. Now, if I wanted to adopt the method I’ve often seen you adopt here, I could run with what you wrote and claim that you believe that people who are ill, or down on their luck, are not your equals—that they’re lesser people. But I won’t because I’m sure that’s not what you meant.
Just like I don’t think you mean that a person who for whatever reason is denied a bank loan is therefore not equal to one who is. Or that the person who denied them the loan regards them as less equal in the only way that counts, their humanity.
By the way, I did not mean that I have compassion (or whatever word you think is more respectable) for you because you’re gay. I have it for you because of what you have gone through because of being gay, much of which you have shared with us here.
I’d rather use a different word myself, but I did not know that compassion implied inferiority for the person it’s directed at, even if it’s too often used condescendingly and at other times as an attack tool to badger people for their alleged lack of it. But I’ll be sure to remember your definition next time I hear a politician attacking his opponent with cries of “where’s your compassion”?
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