But as I said in the comments at Vox Nova and their piece The Difficult Position of Same-Sex Marriage Opponents:
The problem is not there are no rational argument against Same Sex Marriage. The problem is no one has been able to figure out how to make those arguments fit into a thirty second soundbite in a five minute segment of a cable talking head TV show. (slightly edited for misspelling )
It was nice that Jeff commented and he has a nice PDF file showing some of those arguments here .
We could have easily argued against it in 1810. The equivalent bumper sticker might have read.
ReplyDelete"If you have to have sex with someone other than your partner to have kids it ain't marriage"
Everyone and their brother understood that heterosexual sex led to kids and since having sex required consent to that possible outcome everyone knew that the definition of marriage was defined by the agreement to raise a family together. Marriage implied family and if you read the vows in the Church today it still points that out.
The problem is that our society already divided procreation from marriage when they accepted contraception hook line and sinker. Then marriage became more about the couple and less about the survival of the race. Children became more like pets or icons of the status of "able to afford". When that division occurred we only have mutual affection left. I don't want to say that we have lost the battle but the gist of the argument comes from ideals that most gay marriage opponents don't hold to. That is why they cannot make a case.
And of course what makes matters worse is that the basis of opposition apart from the marriage = functional building block of society is dislike or hatred of gays. It is a tough tough sell.
ReplyDeleteYo are so right. I think you nailed it
ReplyDeleteYou could have made that argument as recently as 1930. Dang Anglicans! :)
ReplyDelete