On Marriage
Wouldn't it be nice to see my sister and her partner kiss or show some affection while in the company of my parents? I mean my brother can with his wife and my sister can with her husband. But do they? Well, no actually they don't. That's a different story I suppose. That probably has more to do with an uneasiness about showing affection (and openness about sexuality in general) than whether or not it occurs between people of the same sex. I shall not be naive and think these two things are unrelated however. They are closely related and probably based in the same morality, the very morality that speaks out against homosexuality. Please don't misunderstand me. My family is very accepting of my sister and her partner but there's a line, and just as there are so many lines in our human behaviour, this one can rarely be seen. When the line can't be seen, it can more easily be moved in either direction without offending anyone, except of course those that are contained by the line.
I have been married before. I was 23 and I remember not only feeling that it was the happiest time of my life but also that being married was in some way an achievement of a goal. Whose goal it was isn't so clear. To a degree, it was obviously my goal but it wasn't a goal that I had at age 3. I recall at 8 a goal of mine was to adopt a child. Yes, I wanted to adopt a child and not get married because I wasn't sure I was capable of loving two people at the same time (ironically, this is still a challenge for me). At the time, I think had many goals that didn't necessarily originate within me the way I think goals should...as an extension of values. Values? Well, what's to say if these goals were not my own that the values were? Again, I think many values I had at age 23 were ingrained in me by the environment I grew up in. Stop. This is how values are born, isn't it? This is why we have parents, why we have community, why we have family, friends, etc. This could all very well be true IF one of the values was the knowledge of what it means to value something rather than an automatic importance in certain ideals. A couple years ago, I came across a Bible (maybe my first, I can be certain) and in the front cover, I had referenced Leviticus 20:13 (If a man has relations with another man, they have done a disgusting thing, and both shall be put to death. They are responsible for their own death) with "About Gay People." Two things are important here: 1) About gay people; the verse doesn't say anything about gay people, it says how they should be dealt with and more importantly, 2) At this point in my life, the Bible had become an automatic importance to me in how I valued homosexuality. How deeply this was true, that the Bible was a foundation for my values, is difficult to surmise. But the process by which it was so was more troubling than the effect. The process did not ever, to my knowledge, allow for questioning why the Bible was important. It just was. This is another unseen line. If the importance of the Bible is seen as all encompassing, I am accepted into a clan of believers. If the importance of the Bible is limited, I am seen as a non-believer. There are positions in the middle that have relative acceptance.
Mixed in with the values I didn't necessarily see as being initiated by me was the raw, spontaneous, effervescent, boiling over, nascent and unbridled love I had for my wife. This is the saddest part of all...and at the same time, the happiest. It was the happiest in that it was potentially the only goal which was naturally mine, the happiness I received from someone else and the happiness I wanted so desperately to give to another person. It was the saddest because it never had a chance to survive the cultural values I couldn't separate myself from. I do not place responsibility for this with anyone other than myself but those cultural values had a lot more momentum than the ones I naturally possess if for no other reason than my failure to celebrate and know what I value most in this world. Marriage is a beautiful thing. Marriage can be a beautiful thing. Marriage ought to be a beautiful thing. Marriage is, can and ought to be a challenging thing. Should it be so rewarded in our culture though? Can marriage, in its own right, really be a model of what is successful for all? There is perhaps more evidence that it cannot. There are plenty of marriages that I witness where this model is validated. There are plenty more that leave me sad for the people involved.
If the rewards of marriage above those yielded in its natural love are to be financially and health based, there is absolutely no reason to disallow this to people of the same sex. These are the rewards offered to a society and as such, should not be restricted to only a portion of the society. Are the people opposed to same sex marriage really intent on keeping people from seeing each other when one is dying? I do not think so. Are the people opposed to same sex marriage really intent on some people not being entitled to health benefits and tax breaks? Probably but this has less to do with the marriage than their own greed. Are the people opposed to same sex marriage worried that the sanctity of their religious beliefs will be threatened? Probably but surely they are aware that there currently exists no universality among different religions concerning marriage. To the best of my knowledge, a marriage in Islam is not considered a Christian marriage. Does this threaten Christian marriage? No more than two people of the same sex getting married. And the marriage between two people of the same sex doesn't lead to the potential for a human marrying an animal or child any more than a Christian marriage does in the eyes of the Hindu. This is the product of blurred cultural norms. If the norm is that a child shall not be married because the child cannot decide such a thing until a certain age, allowing people of the same sex to marry does nothing to change that norm. Are the people opposed to same sex marriage owners of the word altogether? It wouldn't appear that way. It would appear rather that the state also owns the word to some degree. Many people get married without a religious ceremony at all.
This is not leading to the idea that a new religion should be formed, the religion of homosexuality. It is instead leading to the idea that marriage should not be utilised by and controlled by the government nor should it be utilised or controlled by the church solely when control by either produces results that prohibit adults from marrying the one person he or she wants to marry. If civil union provided the exact same benefits as marriage, would it be acceptable to someone who is gay? I can't answer the question because I'm not gay.
I have been married before. I was 23 and I remember not only feeling that it was the happiest time of my life but also that being married was in some way an achievement of a goal. Whose goal it was isn't so clear. To a degree, it was obviously my goal but it wasn't a goal that I had at age 3. I recall at 8 a goal of mine was to adopt a child. Yes, I wanted to adopt a child and not get married because I wasn't sure I was capable of loving two people at the same time (ironically, this is still a challenge for me). At the time, I think had many goals that didn't necessarily originate within me the way I think goals should...as an extension of values. Values? Well, what's to say if these goals were not my own that the values were? Again, I think many values I had at age 23 were ingrained in me by the environment I grew up in. Stop. This is how values are born, isn't it? This is why we have parents, why we have community, why we have family, friends, etc. This could all very well be true IF one of the values was the knowledge of what it means to value something rather than an automatic importance in certain ideals. A couple years ago, I came across a Bible (maybe my first, I can be certain) and in the front cover, I had referenced Leviticus 20:13 (If a man has relations with another man, they have done a disgusting thing, and both shall be put to death. They are responsible for their own death) with "About Gay People." Two things are important here: 1) About gay people; the verse doesn't say anything about gay people, it says how they should be dealt with and more importantly, 2) At this point in my life, the Bible had become an automatic importance to me in how I valued homosexuality. How deeply this was true, that the Bible was a foundation for my values, is difficult to surmise. But the process by which it was so was more troubling than the effect. The process did not ever, to my knowledge, allow for questioning why the Bible was important. It just was. This is another unseen line. If the importance of the Bible is seen as all encompassing, I am accepted into a clan of believers. If the importance of the Bible is limited, I am seen as a non-believer. There are positions in the middle that have relative acceptance.
Mixed in with the values I didn't necessarily see as being initiated by me was the raw, spontaneous, effervescent, boiling over, nascent and unbridled love I had for my wife. This is the saddest part of all...and at the same time, the happiest. It was the happiest in that it was potentially the only goal which was naturally mine, the happiness I received from someone else and the happiness I wanted so desperately to give to another person. It was the saddest because it never had a chance to survive the cultural values I couldn't separate myself from. I do not place responsibility for this with anyone other than myself but those cultural values had a lot more momentum than the ones I naturally possess if for no other reason than my failure to celebrate and know what I value most in this world. Marriage is a beautiful thing. Marriage can be a beautiful thing. Marriage ought to be a beautiful thing. Marriage is, can and ought to be a challenging thing. Should it be so rewarded in our culture though? Can marriage, in its own right, really be a model of what is successful for all? There is perhaps more evidence that it cannot. There are plenty of marriages that I witness where this model is validated. There are plenty more that leave me sad for the people involved.
If the rewards of marriage above those yielded in its natural love are to be financially and health based, there is absolutely no reason to disallow this to people of the same sex. These are the rewards offered to a society and as such, should not be restricted to only a portion of the society. Are the people opposed to same sex marriage really intent on keeping people from seeing each other when one is dying? I do not think so. Are the people opposed to same sex marriage really intent on some people not being entitled to health benefits and tax breaks? Probably but this has less to do with the marriage than their own greed. Are the people opposed to same sex marriage worried that the sanctity of their religious beliefs will be threatened? Probably but surely they are aware that there currently exists no universality among different religions concerning marriage. To the best of my knowledge, a marriage in Islam is not considered a Christian marriage. Does this threaten Christian marriage? No more than two people of the same sex getting married. And the marriage between two people of the same sex doesn't lead to the potential for a human marrying an animal or child any more than a Christian marriage does in the eyes of the Hindu. This is the product of blurred cultural norms. If the norm is that a child shall not be married because the child cannot decide such a thing until a certain age, allowing people of the same sex to marry does nothing to change that norm. Are the people opposed to same sex marriage owners of the word altogether? It wouldn't appear that way. It would appear rather that the state also owns the word to some degree. Many people get married without a religious ceremony at all.
This is not leading to the idea that a new religion should be formed, the religion of homosexuality. It is instead leading to the idea that marriage should not be utilised by and controlled by the government nor should it be utilised or controlled by the church solely when control by either produces results that prohibit adults from marrying the one person he or she wants to marry. If civil union provided the exact same benefits as marriage, would it be acceptable to someone who is gay? I can't answer the question because I'm not gay.
posted by Mox at 7:31 AM
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