Gay Marriage Is New

(close your tags)So, here’s one in a series of thoughts about how someone can not be in favor of interracial marriage in December 1948 but not be homophobic.It’s a new idea. I’m not going to defend Rick Warren’s ’500 years of tradition’ statement. Someone who knows history better than I do may point out historical precedent but I will say this – I’m 43 years old and I don’t remember interracial marriage even being an issue until a few years ago. I went to my brother-in-law’s Canadian wedding about fifteen years ago (so in 1930s) and that was a brand new thing.And when my younger kids first heard about interracial marriage they said “Huuuh?” and we’re very honest and straightforward with them about sex. The idea struck them as odd because it’s nothing they have experience with.Smart, non-religious people considered miscegenation a mental disorder in my lifetime. So, realize that the idea that interracial marriage is a right isn’t something that some people have caught up with yet. Every poll I’ve seen indicated the younger generation has very different views on this then their grandparents.

First off, point me to the edition of DSM that said interracial marriage is a mental disorder. I’m open to new things.Second – yes, there’s a difference between someone 70 years ago thinking interracial marriage is weird and someone today thinking the same thing. A lot of people’s grandparents probably still think it’s weird.This is called progress.

>>Second – yes, there’s a difference between someone 70 years ago thinking interracial marriage is weird and someone today thinking the same thingYou seem to have missed the point. I wasn’t comparing attitudes about race mixing today vs. 60 years ago (for us division doing math majors).

I don’t know what you were doing. What I know is that when an idea is new, it takes people time to accept it.

So let’s endorse and embrace their ignorance?Awesome.

Let’s understand it and not incorrectly diagnose it.Fucking awesomer.

That wasn’t nice, Travis.And, I don’t agree with you, Lee. The “newness” of the issue is why we have ridiculously inappropriate legal structures (marriage as a government sanctioned event in the first place) but not why people oppose the concept.Fundamentally, people believe that homosexual acts are wrong. They aren’t looking to sanction them with something as sacred as marriage.A less inflammatory example. I am so very opposed to drugs, including alcohol, that I am FAR, far, far outside the mainstream. I’m one of those people who thinks that prohibition could have worked if the government hadn’t caved so early on. I’m one of those people who will support any and all legislation that hinders everyone’s ability to do any kind of drugs that aren’t medicinally prescribed. Left to my own devices, I’d be rather tyrannical on the subject. This has nothing to do with anything but a confluence of my personal experiences and religious beliefs. No amount of dialogue about harmless crimes is going to move me even a little bit. If someone offers me to vote to legalize marijuana, I vote NO. Every time you ask. And if you offered me an opportunity to ban the sale of alcohol on Sundays, I vote YES, even though Sunday has no especial meaning in my religious faith. I vote yes because one day less of alcohol sales is one day better than we’ve got.Sometimes people’s convictions are what they are, and no amount of popularization of a thing will change it. So how DO you dialogue with people like that? You start by respecting where they are coming from, understanding it as much as you possibly can, and then trying to frame the discussion in a way that doesn’t invoke their instant “NO” reaction.Rev. Warren, as a Christian evangelical, is going to argue till the cows come home,that marriage is between husbands and wives. That’s his job, as he understands it, and it’s hard enough, frankly, to get men and women to respond appropriately to the rights and responsibilities of marriage without now having to deal with all sorts of alternative definitions of marriage. When Warren argues against gay marriage and then sails right into talking about marrying cousins and young children, and multiple spouses, if you don’t kneejerk to “OH, he called gays pedophiles” you can see where his head is at. He wants marriage to only mean one thing, and he can imagine marriage meaning a bunch of things. He’s not saying gays are equivalent. He’s saying – all of that isn’t marriage. You can disagree to the extent that you do (lots of Mormons will argue that polygamy IS marriage. Lots of non-religious polyamorous types will argue the same. So let’s not pretend that he’s saying gays are pedophiles. That’s a disingenuous argument.).The core reason why evangelicals in particular are SO hard to deal with on this subject is because of their perceived stewardship of the morality of the nation. Evangelicals see themselves as the faithful few who keep damnation away from America by being faithful. They see themselves as having a moral obligation to push for the moral standing of the nation. They don’t see their individual faith as sufficient – they believe they must impact the world around them.Talking with evangelicals on an issue as difficult as gay marriage isn’t going to be easy, and I don’t know if befriending Rick Warren and elevating him on the national stage will help. But I do think it can’t hurt.QT

Understanding it is one thing, rewarding it is another. “Being gay is like kid fucking”. If you think this, there is something wrong with you. Why is that so hard for you to grasp.Lee, are you trying to come out to us blog readers as being against gay relationships? Or would you just prefer gay people stay out of sight and out of mind?Is this a keen-on-jesus thing, mehaps? Is it a boner for the “sanctity of marriage” (see also: Edwards fixation)?Help us understand your angle on this.

You cannot be opposed to gay marriage and not be homophobic. Just like you can’t be opposed to interracial marriage and not be a racist. I’m not saying that opposition to either puts you at the David Duke and Fred Phelps end of the spectrum, but it certainly would taint you with their brand of hatred.There is no rational reason to attempt to prevent a marriage between consenting adults. There are, however, many irrational reasons, most of which are rooted in homophobia.I haven’t seen Rich Warren out campaigning for any propositions to ban divorce, which he claims is a bigger “problem” than gay marriage. I haven’t seen a single fundamentalist Christian out and about with their anti-divorce petitions. These people are picking and choosing their battles based entirely on a personally-held bias, and defending that bias puts you in the trenches with the homophobes.BONUS: When the tenants of Scientology are discussed, almost every rational person on the planet goes “Huuuuh?”. But we’re not all up-in-arms, trying to have this new, unfamiliar religion banned. And if there is anyone trying to ban Scientology, he or she is acting out of an irrational fear (Scientologophobia?).

>>And if there is anyone trying to ban Scientology, he or she is acting out of an irrational fear (Scientologophobia?).Waiiiiit a minute. Is this serious?

I fail to see any major differences from any other religion compared to Scientology, except how long they’ve been in society.

>>I fail to see any major differences from any other religion compared to Scientology, except how long they’ve been in society.Hahaha oh wow.I missed the part of Catholic Mass where they insist you cut a check for $250 if you’d like to hear more.

Just for the record, gay marriage is not new. It was around during the Roman Empire and in medieval France.

I never said that Scientology was any more wrong or weird than the other religions — only that it was, to most, new and unfamiliar.That being said, the Scientology reference was merely an analogy. Lee is basically saying that it’s alright to be scared of something because it’s new and unfamiliar. We can discuss the moral implications of that statement, if it is true, at another time. But the fact that some people are scared of the “new” gay marriage phenomenon does make them homophobic.

I missed the part of Catholic Mass where they insist you cut a check for $250 if you’d like to hear more.

Really, Travis? I don’t know if you’re Catholic or not, but if you are and are registered at your local parish, you mean to say you don’t get a little booklet with weekly stubs and envelopes to which you can insert your cash to throw in the collection plate every week?

I’ve been to mass, but I’m not practicing. If parishes do that, that’s weak, but on the other hand there’s nothing stopping me from obtaining a Bible and learning everything about Christianity on my own. Meanwhile to learn the full story of Scientology you have to be a long established paying member.See also, to a degree, Mormonism.

Carl – that’s really specious, wouldn’t you say? You don’t stop getting the blessings of the church if you can’t fill in the little envelopes. You also don’t stop being able to go to confession. Or am I wrong about that?I used to get envelopes in the Methodist church. I remember being proud to have finally gotten old enough (12) to get my own. And every year, I turned in about 1/3rd of the envelopes, mostly from being forgetful, and sometimes from stealing most of the offering for candy, and opting to put the rest in the basket unmarked so my mother wouldn’t find out. LOL!More apt analogy would be prosperity doctrines which don’t overtly coerce you to buy stuff, but subtly do, along with tithes and such. And yet, even those are not secretive, cultlike, or threatening to outsiders, and you can get the basic gist of the teachings without paying a dime.QT

>>If parishes do that, that’s weakOf course they do that – most churches do. Parishioners pledge & then get envelopes for their weekly donations. That’s how they budget. It’s also how the pledger gets a tax deduction.

So how many payments do you make before you find out who killed Jesus?

Scientology has just as much likelihood as the other religions of being true. But that wasn’t the point of the analogy. Sorry it took the discussion off course.Point is: if something is new and alien to you, and you have a primitive mindset, you will probably have a xenophobic response to it. Opponents of gay marriage have an irrational fear (a phobia, if you will) of gay marriage. That is, by definition, homophobia.

Travis:All of the major religions have hidden esoterica, available only to select seekers. In Judaism (pre-Madonna) there is Quaballah, which requires the adherent to be versed in both Torah and Talmud, show an aptitude for numbers, and be at least 50 years old.The catholic church’s canon on things like demonology, exorcism, and other topics are largely restricted, or at least kept “occult” to the priests. Catholic arms like Opus Dei (which really exist apart from the retarded DA VINCI CODE book) have “hidden” teachings and rules that must be earned.It is just always easier to see the intrinsic silliness in traditions one did not grow up being taught from an impressionable age are important and demand a kind of reverence for.Like for me, the medieval idea of a Ransomer-Diety, a scapegoat sacrificed for collective gain, is laughable at best and creepy at worst. I wasn’t raised with it all around me, so coming to it as an adult, it seems just as crazy as an Angel named Maroni burying secret gold plates.This is not something I go around pushing in my christian friends faces (Hey! I think your belief system is a pathology! Is this spinach dip?)But again, to the point: It is new and people fear change is not an excuse to allow others to suffer while they get over their fear.School integration was new, too. Sitting in the front of the bus was new.I can understand their fear or how it might shake their world-view, to see that the scope of human interaction is larger than the box they’ve constructed to live in.But how do you ask people to wait patiently for others to eventually accept that they are not monsters? “Don’t worry– the kids of today are better; another 20 years or so, and you’ll be recognized as human! Sorry, but you’ve got to understand, considering you as fully human is NEW to a lot of people.”The act of LEARNING itself is a constant exploration, by definition, of things which are new. When people talk of “signal to noise ratio,” the “signal” part is NEW information. Information is new.Fear of information is no excuse for bigotry and certainly no consolation for people hurt by bigots.But this all touches a larger point that I think needs to get defined, as I see it happen a lot in these type of discussions.You seem to bridle at the labeling of Person X as ‘BEING a racist” or “BEING a homophobe.”There’s a kind of odd reverse syllogism that goes on here, where people say, “Wait.. Klansmen are racists. I am not a Klansman. Therefore I am not a racist.”Racism (sexism, homo-bigotry/phobia) is not so much a problem because of those few who gleefully self-identify as ISTS of that particular ISM.Those people are easy to spot and generally marginalized.The problem is that people who are not, as a matter of personal identity, RACISTS or HOMOPHOBES or SEXISTS can (and do!) engage in thoughts or actions at times that are racist thoughts, homophobic thoughts, or sexists thoughts.This happened recently with Clinton, after SC. He made statements that were objectively race-baiting.When called on these, he bridled, with the basic reaction of “I cannot BE a racist, look at my record, look at my previous actions!”BEING is not the issue. DOING is the issue. Very few people are dedicated, 24 hour racists. Very many people engage in momentary acts of racism.If I get up from my desk and jump up and down, you can clearly say, at that moment in time, I was “a jumper.”While I’m engaging in TV watching, driving, or walking, you wouldn’t look at me and say, “Hey! Jumper!” because at those moments, I was not jumping. Jumping is a matter of circumstance more than identity.You had previously cited Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Obama’s position on same-sex “marriage” as an example, asking if all of them WERE homophobes. They ARE homophobes no more than I AM a jumper while sitting here typing, you know?But yes, in that moment, they were expressing a homophobic thought.It constantly amazes me that people see matters of identity as so immutable… I mean, you said you’ve worked with animation programs before, right? I tend to think that once you’re familiar with the idea of instances along a timeline, the idea of immutable identity becomes more and more outmoded. Objects ARE. Instances of those objects have attributes IN THOSE MOMENTS along the timeline.But it extends to other things as well. Someone acts heroically in a given instance. This makes them, at that moment, a “hero.”But then we have difficulty if there comes a time later on, in a different set of circumstances, that person acts in a manner that we find reprehensible. You see this happen in discussions about Jefferson a lot, with the question of “Well, what WAS he, then? A very liberal progressive visionary, or a flawed hypocrite and selfish, petty man?”John McCain– the guy, in no uncertain terms, acted heroically while in captivity. Nothing changes that instance along the timeline. But it does not necessarily then equate that all of his actions afterward must therefore be defined as the acts of a hero, since he IS a hero, isn’t he?They tried that a lot during the campaign; to use his wartime acts as proof against charges of cowardice or dishonor.I think a large part of this problem is ontological, because we are so used to using the verb TO BE without thinking, that it becomes a little magical to us and we don’t realize that states of being are fluid.”Josh IS a jumper” is a true statement when I am jumping and not true when I am not jumping. If I jumped all the time and talked about jumping and practiced jumping and had, like, a jumping blog, using the term as a label of identity would make more sense.In that respect, Warren IS a homophobe and a bigot.

Josh is a jumper! Josh is a jumper!Sorry. Wrong thread.