'Traditional Marriage' Threatened? Nonsense!
In their hysteria to deny all things gay, opponents of marriage equality for same-sex couples make ever more outlandish claims about how we, the gays and lesbians–who in some arguments number so ridiculously few that it's not worth granting the two or three of us equality–are so menacing and all-powerful that we will crush Western civilization and finally manage to wipe all opposing religions off the face of the earth. Away with you! We are the homos! Resistance is futile!
I like to believe–it may even be true–that each addition to the ridiculous list of "reasons" why same-sex couples should be denied any legal legitimacy in their unions, shouted through bullhorns wielded by apoplectic homophobes whose faces have gone from red to purple with their "concern", convinces yet another right-thinking person that those "protectors of [so-called] traditional marriage" are, indeed, off their God-fearing rocker and that the nice boys next door should get married because you know the reception would be just fabulous. Remember Uncle Stanley and Uncle Ronald.
Anyway, this excerpt from an opinion piece sounds to me exactly like such a right-thinking person who, before now, hadn't thought all that much about marriage equality for same-sex couples but is now exasperated beyond measure by the irritating, reactionary hysteria. And so he writes with some heat about getting over it and getting on with life and the business of being America.
And the arguments against gay marriage are eroding. While critics say it destroys the institution of marriage, there's no evidence of that. Massachusetts sanctioned gay marriages four years ago, and there have been no reported incidents of straight couples splitting because of it; indeed, the initial furor has died down as people realize this doesn't threaten anyone.
Far more insidious is the 50 percent divorce rate in the U.S. and that a third of all children are born to a single mother; that's three times the rate of four decades ago.
Moreover, the notion that gay marriage steps on the prerogatives of religion is nonsense. No court ruling or proposed statute would require any church, synagogue or temple to perform, or even recognize, such unions.
The charge that it creates a separate right for gays and lesbians is no more convincing than a similar claim in 1948, when a previous California high court knocked down a ban on interracial marriage; 19 years later, the U.S. Supreme Court followed suit.
[excerpt from Albert R. Hunt, "Gay-Marriage Opponents Divorced From Reality", bloomberg.com, 2 June 2008.]
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I welcome comments -- even dissent -- but I will delete without notice irrelevant, rude, psychotic, or incomprehensible comments, particularly those that I deem homophobic, unless they are amusing. The same goes for commercial comments and trackbacks. Sorry, but it's my blog and my decisions are final.
on Friday, 6 June 2008 at 00.17
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That's a good piece of exposition.
I've somehow missed the separate-right charge; I don't get it. Seems to me what gays and lesbians want is enjoy the same right.
I also have yet to see any rational, coherent argument spelling out how and why same-sex marriages threaten heterosexual marriages. There's no there there.