On the gay-marriage meme and a response to it

[avevale_intelligencer]

Choking back the immediate response to a post by catalana, because angry as I am I don't want to get into a fight with her about it if I can avoid it (been there, done that, painful for both sides), I bring it back here, because here she has the option to ignore my BS, but I need to get it out of my system. I would take it to my other journal that nobody knows about tee em, but I think I want feedback from someone on whether my reactions are valid. Here's the post, line by line, and quoted in full to make sure no-one can accuse me of taking things out of context.

"...I'm not sure how useful preaching to the choir is. Telling each other that you support things that most of your friends already know you support doesn't strike me as that useful. But if it makes people feel happy, go forth and post."

We who participated in the pro-gay-marriage meme are portrayed as "preaching to the choir," the implication being that we waste time repeating our shibboleths to each other for, what, mutual reassurance I suppose. This is, of course, not why we posted the meme: if it were, the posts would be friendslocked, and while I'm not going to go back and check every iteration, I'm willing to bet that most of them weren't. As for most of our friends knowing we support it anyway, well, yes, maybe that's true in some cases--I have remarked on how opinions seem to come in packages, such that you can't seem to support A without opposing B--but in fact, this particular issue strikes across political boundaries, and I've been encouraged to see people post this meme with whom I have disagreed quite strongly on other issues. I see this kind of thing as outer-directed, like standing up and saying "I'm Spartacus!", joining a chorus for the rest of the world to hear. it's kind of like, you know, voting. I don't know if anyone who isn't on my flist reads me, but if they do, then they now know how I feel on that issue. As for the indulgent "if it makes people feel happy, go forth and post," that particularly irritates, because there is nothing to feel "happy" about here, and I don't frightfully care for being patronised.

Moving on.

"I just decline to participate because I don't think soundbites (or memes like this) can represent a nuanced position on any topic. And pretty much all rights-based or political topics are nuanced. Or at least should be, if we actually treated them seriously."

Ummm, actually I don't think they are, or should be, and I am as serious about them as anyone, and again with the patronising. There are no nuances about this one. Some people are saying that certain relationships between adult humans are Good and other relationships between adult humans are Not Good. Those who oppose are saying that both types of relationship are Good. Where is there room for "nuances"? You agree or you do not agree. This is not about any other issue. This is about whether gay people can be "married" in the same way that het people are "married." Clearly some of them want to be. Clearly those who oppose them want them not to be. You either think they should be able to have what they want, or think they shouldn't. If you think they shouldn't, but are uncomfortable about it, then maybe you really think you should change your mind.

There are no nuances about racism. There are no nuances about sexism. There are no nuances about torture. There are no nuances about exploitation of workers, or child abuse, or conditions in the slums, or any of these rights=based or political issues. What there are--what there are in abundance--is excuses. Codicils. Qualifications. Riders, exceptions, supposedly mitigating circumstances, the whole gee-officer-Krupke routine. All to blur the issue, muddy the waters, and obscure the fundamental, simple, un-nuanced truth that We Should All Be Equal Under The Law. Whatever we do. Whoever we are. Whomever we love. Nothing complex about it. Pretty much all rights-based topics actually come back to this: either you believe that all human beings should be equal under the law, or you don't. And that is treating them as seriously as possible; not making an academic game out of them, or assuming a position of detachment so as to study these quaint human customs from the outside. That is not serious, because nothing depends on it.

"Of course, if we treated them seriously, we probably wouldn't let politicians mess with them.*grin*"

Politicians, to give them some credit, are perhaps the only people who do treat these issues seriously, because they engage with them on a daily basis as part of their job. They take a position, rightly or wrongly, honestly or dishonestly, and act accordingly. Sometimes that position is equivocal when it should not be, and then they too talk about "nuances." But too many of my friends are politicians of good conscience and strong conviction for me to disparage them as a class. Even in fun.

I am, of course, going to get stamped on for this, because how dare I presume to be able to tell a darker shade of grey from a lighter shade of grey and all the rest of the rubbish. All I can say is, look at the icon, and if you seriously want a piece of me on this, then bring it.

EDIT: further thoughts. To say that the issue is complex because marriage is a religious thing and should not be the basis on which government and society grant legal rights and protections is, I think, avoiding the issue rather than explicating it. Marriage is, at the moment, a point where religion and society coincide, and as an institution is a lot older and more widespread than many of those secular and religious institutions who now feel competent to decide what it is or should be: it's not an exclusively Christian or even Judeo-Islamo-Christian thing, even though we talk about it as though it were. But whether we should sweep away the old "religious" institution and put in its place something like "domestic partnership" or "civil partnership" or "significant otherhood" or whatever is not the subject under discussion here. (Personally, I don't think we should. Rather we should accept that "marriage" is the generic name for a union of loving people with shared finances, domicile and washing-up duties, and broaden it out beyond the narrow restrictions of religious proscription, and this is what the meme and other things people do in support of same-sex marriage is trying to achieve. But, as I say, that's irrelevant for the moment.)

People in general, I think, don't necessarily (although I'm sure some do) buy plastic furniture because they enjoy the sensual touch of it, or admire the play of light on the moulding lines, or love the smell of newly coagulated polyethylene: they buy it because it's cheap and available. What they'd prefer, in many cases, is the option of cheap, available, good quality wooden furniture. In the same way, people who want to commit to a loving relationship and share their lives don't necessarily (although I'm sure some do) want to be "civil partners" or "spousal units" or some other circumlocutory modern buzzphrase coined by someone with no ear. They want the option to be husbands, and wives, whether they're one of each or two the same or three or four or more. They don't want to move into the modern block of flats: they want the old house to be extended in keeping to have room for them.

Expanding "marriage" to include gay marriages is that option. It's wanted, and there is no good reason to deny it. It doesn't have to be put off till the new block of flats is built. We can do it now. The meme says "Let's." And (FURTHER EDIT: while I support anyone's right not to participate in it without being regarded as opposed,) I see no good reason for actually objecting to it, unless you don't think it should happen.

Comments

[eoforyth.livejournal.com]

I'll start by saying that I haven't posted the piece - not because I'm against the idea, but simply because my tuit is square. My bad, I'll go knock the corners off.

My opinion on this is that if we agree with something and there is a threat to it, simply standing up and saying 'I support this' (whether wholly or partly) takes us out of the realm of Silent Majority, and lends support to others that can and will stand up and make our voices heard above the rantings of the Vocal Minority. Nuances be damned, the core issue is clear enough.

There, rounded my tuit, I shall go post something on my LJ now

[dickgloucester.livejournal.com]

I owe you another pint. All well said.

I haven't posted the meme because I have other things on my mind, but I'll go and stand up and be counted. Thanks for saying this.

[maddoxa.livejournal.com]

The only nuance I can think of for gay marriage is courthouse vs church. I'm firmly with the Germans and French on this one - 'The state' should not recognize private religious ceremonies.
Everyone should have a civil ceremony/contract signing at the courthouse, and church ceremonies are up to the couple and the church. It's the contract that the state recognizes, not any religious significance.

And if someone's marriage is shaky enough that my marriage can affect it in value or quality, then they've got serious problems.

[earth-wizard.livejournal.com]

Ok, I start my point from as an Atheist, who sees all (hu)man made institutions as socially contructed and culturally evolving, not as eternal verities or nature bound, nor as given by some 'g(G)od' of Natural Law and Rights.

The fact of the matter is, however, the current Western notion of marriage as being only between a single male and a single female is culturally and historically conditioned - there is nothing very necessary or obvious about it. Other types of marriage can be just as stable, just as productive, and just as loving. There is no reason to eliminate them from the category "marriage" except, perhaps, as a means to promote religious or cultural bigotry.

Having said that I believe strongly that gay marriage should become a part of the legal system just as atheists, who fought so hard for the laws to be changed. This is a fight over the legal status rather than a religious or non-religious battle, and should be battled in the higher courts, or on a state by state level.

Obviously in the American system lobbies from the religious Right are working hard to circumvent Atheists, Gays, Women's Rights, etc... from being able to change the system, but that is why we need a populist grass roots effort, one that turns the system against itself, brings back the social protest movements that actually did rock this nation in the 60's and was able to change public opinion.

As long as a minority view of life continues to dictate its ethical rules and regulation through subterfuge and legalese we will never truly have a completed democracy. Whitman, Lincoln, King, and many myriad of individuals have never seen democracy as finished or completed, but as a dream toward which we are all striving....

As for the comment:

"...I'm not sure how useful preaching to the choir is. Telling each other that you support things that most of your friends already know you support doesn't strike me as that useful. But if it makes people feel happy, go forth and post."

It is this sort of retrograde nihilism and relatavistic pessimism that permeates those who are passive and cynical rather than activist oriented. It's this sort of non-participatory attitude that undermines a democratic stance, and supports aquiescing to the immoral drift of governments on our planet. It's this type of attitude that allows inaction and genocidal acceptance in places like Rwanda and the Congo...

I for one am a believer in 'conversation', in the old Socratic need for dialogue and participation as citizens in the public sphere, for protest and active participation in the democratic process. If we sit idly by and let our governments have their way without a word we are no better than the militant Right or Left who would lead us into tyranny. And being a Radical Democrat who has struggled since the sixties against this sort of passive torpitude I say to this person: if we cannot converse with our friends about such things, how much less will you converse with your enemies?

Converstaion strengthens our resolve, hones the metaphoric and metonymic power of our rhetoric, gives us the mental fortitude to fight the good fight, to struggle in solidarity against the darkness that reigns supreme in the halls of government around the world. If we give up our right to converse with each other in the public sphere, sit idly by and do nothing what kind of world will we leave our children? So I say.... not only speak to the choir, get that choir roused up, sing, sing, sing to them, awaken them from their lethargic complacency and activate their desires for a different world, a world where Gays, Atheists, and, yes... even the religious all have the same rights to Marriage and well-being...

Am I preaching to the Choir? Am I not most of all conversing with my fellow humans, raising doubts, challenging them, empowering and facilitating them to take action, move them to change the laws that bind us to worn out institutions of a bygone age?

[howeird]

When someone points the J'accuse finger and says "patronizing" over something in writing, I cringe. Just my opinion, but I don't think text carries enough inflection to know patronizing from pedantic from awkwardly saying you see the other point of view.

There are no nuances about this one
There are so many nuances it hurts my brain to consider them. Were men and women biologically equal, there would be no nuances. But we aren't. Just one example: Men who marry each other and wish to have child and women who marry each other and wish to have a child have a different set of nuances from a man and a woman who marry each other and wish to have a child. There are ways to reconcile the nuances, but to deny they exist?

Should we really all be equal under the law? I wonder. My neighborhood passed a law which required all the street corners to be modified to have ramps, so people in wheel chairs could safely cross the street. One could argue that this treats people in wheel chairs as equal because it provides equal access, or one could argue that it gives special treatment to people in wheel chairs. I'm for giving special treatment to people if it provides them with equal access. But I don't think that's treating them equally under the law.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

You say there are nuances, but you don't actually say what they are. Having and raising children is (a) not a nuance but a huge separate issue, and (b) irrelevant to the question, which is should gay people of either sex be allowed to be married in the same social and legal sense that heterosexual people are allowed to be married. The answer, for my money, is a simple un-nuanced "yes." What happens about children is entirely unrelated, though I expect it would similarly reduce to a set of simple questions with simple answers. Most questions of human rights do.

And yes, we should really all be equal under the law, and (as another separate issue) every public place and thoroughfare should have ramps for people in wheelchairs. I don't see why there is even any possibility of argument about this.

And finally, sorry to make you cringe, but I'm quite certain that if I were so minded I could write you a passage of text you would have to be blind not to see as patronising. Words are wonderful things, and in the right hands can convey a wealth of inflection without any assistance whatsoever. And catalana is too good at using them to give the wrong impression by accident.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Making it possible for someone to cross the street is hardly "special treatment." Good grief. Correcting design mistakes is sometimes expensive, but that's just a fact of life. Fortunately, correcting the design mistake that up to now has forbidden gays to marry is comparatively simple and cheap.

There are plenty of nuances about how people in individual marriages will choose to order their lives. There are plenty of nuances in straight marriages too. There's *nothing* about that that warrants forbidding people to marry. And so there are no nuances about forbidding people to marry.

[howeird]

Spending millions of dollars to make life easier for a select few is special treatment. Sometimes that special treatment is honorable, sometimes (think $700 billion bail-out) it is not.

For those people, who are a majority in California, who were raised in Old Testament teachings about marriage, the "design flaw" is allowing same-sex marriage. Prop 8 corrects that flaw. One person's meat is another person's poison.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I repeat, being able to cross the street like anyone else is not special treatment. And people who mistake it for special treatment are somehow always people who have been able to cross the street all along.

Being able to get married like everyone else isn't special treatment either. And people who mistake it for special treatment are somehow people who have been able to get married all along.

The Old Testament teachings you refer to arose in a time period when Jews were terrified that their young people were going to abandon them for a richer more vibrant, more attractive culture living all around them. Specific prohibitions, for example in Deuteronomy, against meat cooked in milk, against clothing of more than one fiber, against homosexual sex, were intended to keep Jews from mixing with that richer culture by forbidding things assoicated with that culture. For Christians to use them now as an excuse to oppress gay people is to take them completely out of context (though I admit it may also arise from a fear of losing their young people to a richer, more vibrant, more attractive culture.) A design flaw indulged in for religious reasons is still a design flaw, and it speaks ill of that religion that it should so readily be used as an excuse to oppress a minority group.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Personally, despite being in favour of anyone marrying anyone, I have not done this meme - because it excludes me. I am not in an heterosexual relationship, nor do I expect to be in one. I am not in a homosexual relationship, nor do I expect to be in one.

I am in a long-term and very happy non-sexual relationship. So there.

This is a prejudiced meme.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

I agree that it excludes a lot of us (your first paragraph I match totally, not the second because I am in no sort of relationship at all). However, I disagree that it is prejudiced. It just doesn't apply. Neither of us can say how it affects our marriage, because we don't have a marriage. The most we could accurately say is something like "If I were to be married, the probability of which is so close to zero as to be meaningless, then I believe that what other people are also permitted to be married would not affect my marriage", which is so weak a statement that there's no point in saying it.

It's like saying that a meme about how one feels as a driver is prejudiced against non-drivers, or one about the extension of pub drinking hours if one is not a drinker. They simply don't apply, and there is no reason for them to apply. If you have an opinion on the subject, state it freely, but you can't state it as being from something you're not. I couldn't say "as a golfer, I'm against the closure of golf courses" because I'm not a golfer.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

"I think I want feedback from someone on whether my reactions are valid."

For where I'm standing: Your reaction is understandable (no one likes to feel patronised), but excessive. The above post roams well beyond any critique of anything catalana actually said, and along the way maligns the motives of anyone who happens to think the issue *does* have a tad more to it than just "equality=good; inequality=bad". So cheers for that. =:o\

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

The post attacks a general position derived from what catalana said. I agree that I went too far in maligning people's motives, and for that I apologise...but in fact I don't know of any benign motive for maintaining that everyone should not be equal under the law, and really, however long I think about it, I can't see any more to this specific issue than that specific question: should gay people have the same rights as straight people when it comes to forming and maintaining relationships?

Answers like "well, it's not as simple as that" or "we need time to consider the implications" or "leave it with us, we'll let you know" need to be followed up fairly quickly with specific reasons why it is not a good idea to make the desired changes, why the problem is more complex than it seems, why the people concerned can't sit at the front of the bus or go to the same schools or get married in the same places as other people. Otherwise hot heads like me leap to the conclusion that temporising is the only response we'll get.

catalana has explained that she wants our whole system of religio-political rights and responsibilities overhauled, but that in the meantime she supports gay marriage, which is fine but then why bother to post objecting to the meme? I really can't see any purpose other than to make the people who posted it feel small, stupid and useless, and I object to that. There was probably some residual resentment as well from the last time she and I bumped heads over this kind of thing.

madfilkentist objected to it on the grounds that it was just repeating other people's words, which is in my opinion a trivial and pointless objection, but one I can at least see the reasoning behind. He then linked to an excellent article in support of the cause.

keristor and others have been all on their dignity about the fact that the wording of the meme excludes them, which is a valid reaction, I suppose. I did come up with an even more inclusive version, but I'm not going to bother going back for it now.

You and billroper and howeird and others have all supported the statement that the problem is more complex or nuanced or whatever by saying "yes it is" but haven't said in what way, apart from howeird bringing in the separate issue of children. I'm ready to believe if shown that there is a good reason why one lot of humans has to have a lower status and fewer rights than another lot. I'm imaginative. I can conceive of a lot of things. But I need some straw to make the bricks with.

If the objection is religious, then I can deal with it. You know I'm not blindly opposed to religion, even when I don't agree with it. But there has to be some reason for saying that these people are not clearly and presently entitled to this right--that we have the right to keep it from them while we deliberate the nuances and contemplate the complexities. I don't think we do. I don't think we ever did. And I haven't yet been shown a reason to believe otherwise.

Again, I'm sorry for maligning your motives and everyone else's. I'm just a little lost here.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

I have not been "all on [my] dignity about the fact that the wording of the meme excludes [me]". I have stated, several times, that the meme simply DOES NOT APPLY to me and others, and that there is no reason why it should. There are dozens of memes which I have not posted because they do not apply to me -- the difference with this one is that it has the implication that if one doesn't post it then one is disagreeing with it, therefore failing to post it needs a reason for not doing it.

I would be interested to see what your more inclusive version would be. The only other version I have seen was also not including me and some others, because it simply added "or have an expectation of getting married" or equivalent. I can say "I believe that all families should have an equal right to protection under the law, regardless of their race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or how many people there are participating in the family[1]", but that's not what the meme says.

[1] and you can add any number of other things which are irrelevant, but I picked the main ones; no one is yet discriminating on height or preference in reading material as far as I know.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

For the record: I agree that all families should have an equal right to protection under the law. :-) I assure all concerned that my participation in the gay marriage meme was not intended to shut multi-partner families out.

[mbumby.livejournal.com]

Well said... (However, I'm not going, at this time, to post your (Cat's) sentences into my journal.)

For Z, I think it _is_ likely, as you suggested, that your reaction was colored by prior contact. That said, I don't think your reaction was out of line.