Thursday, October 15, 2009

R-71.

There's a referendum in Washington State right now about whether to extend "everything but marriage" rights to same-sex partners; they'd get all the benefits, but it wouldn't be called marriage, because we as a culture are six years old. I'm mature enough not to get all worked up about magic words, though, so I'm still in favor of it.

And in a way, I'm sort of gobsmacked that anybody is against it. This seems like one of those things we should've gone through in the 80s maybe--it seems a rather obvious extension of human rights to gay humans. Yeah, yeah, of course they can marry, weird that it has to be a whole separate law from the one for straight people, let's pass this thing and move on.

But no, there are serious-acting grown-ups spending actual money to oppose this. Their talking points are... weird.

Senate Bill 5688 will redefine terms such as "husband" and "wife" to be interpreted as gender neutral.
And if husbands and wives were treated differently under the law, that would mean something! (Something bad. We would have to fix it.)

Marriage is between husbands and wives so children can have fathers and mothers. Thousands of studies show that children raised in a family with both a mother and a father are healthier emotionally and physically than those raised in a non-traditional family.
This one upsets me because it's a deliberate lie. The "non-traditional family" here contrasted is a single-parent family! Children raised with two parents of any gender do quite comparably.

And on another level, who gives a shit about the statistics? What if kids raised by gay parents did do worse on average? It still wouldn't affect the human rights of the parents. Children of poor parents definitely do worse--let's ban poor marriage!

Criminalization of free speech and "anti-bullying" laws follow the legalization of same-sex "marriage". In a few short months after legalizing same-sex "marriage" in Canada, activists there successfully passed C-250, a bill criminalizing public statements against homosexuality, punishable by up to two years in prison!
Yeah, we should vote against that law if it comes up. But let's vote on the issue that's actually on the ballot right now, kay?

If same-sex marriage becomes the law in Washington, public schools K-12 will likely be forced to teach that same-sex "marriage" and homosexuality are perfectly normal.
Oh noes. We can't have that! This is one of those statements I just want to unpack on so many levels. Legalizing marriage doesn't mean schools will teach it; but even if schools taught it it wouldn't make kids gay; but if it did make kids gay then mazel tov for them.

It always weirds me out when people talk as if gayness ("homosexual" seems like almost a hate word at this point) were not just a decision, but a really tempting decision. Like they can see the appeal of the carefree and pleasurable gay lifestyle, but they chose to shoulder the responsibilities of heterosexuality. Like being gay was a mistake anyone could make.

And it further weirds me out that the same people could have stereotypes of gay people. How can you associate gayness with being lisping, limp-wristed, faaaabulous, etc, if you think a gay man is nothing but a straight man taking the easy way out?

Homosexuals have the right to live as they choose. They do not have a right to redefine marriage for all of us. Marriage is not a special interest!
Damn skippy it's not. And this bill doesn't change straight marriage one iota.

Hey, I can understand why bigots are against gay marriage--they're idiots, they hate everything that's not them, they're not thinking through the logic anyway, some people are just subclinical sociopaths and that's that. But it's hard for me to understand why a statistically significant number of seemingly reasonable adults would agree.

I suspect it's got a lot to do with buttsex being icky.

15 comments:

  1. My parents are opposed to gay marriage, and I've yet to figure out why. I think they're okay with "civil unions," but the farthest I've gotten in a conversation about it is to establish that "marriage" is a spacial magic super word that requires a cock and a cunt. They're not especially religious, and deny that it has anything to do with ceding control of a religious practice to secular authorities -- which I had thought would explain a lot of opposition.

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  2. Bruno - ceding control of a religious practice to secular authorities

    This is my problem with straight marriage, actually. I think that a contract between two people agreeing to share child custody and financial resources should be separate from a marriage ceremony, and the terms of that contract should not be dictated by the state.

    So in the long run I'm actually against gay civil marriage, but since we don't live in my libertarian utopia I'd like to at least have things be equally weird for everyone.

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  3. "I suspect it's got a lot to do with buttsex being icky."

    Which is itself an unwarranted stereotype. Some gay men don't have anal sex ever, or try it once or twice and decide they don't like it. Some straight men have anal sex with their female partners, and a small but significant number take it up the rear with a dildo or strap-on.

    If this is really a major part of the issue, then the real problems are the assumptions that straights only ever engage in penis-in-vagina sex, that gay men have no personal lives outside of constant "buttsex", and that lesbians don't actually exist.

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  4. Not Me - "Buttsex" is shorthand for all the things people do in bed that aren't aesthetically pleasing to me. It's not just buttsex but two hairy men smooching or a butch lesbian acting all manly in bed or basically any sexuality that doesn't turn on me specifically.

    Reacting to a sexuality that's not fun for you with "well, glad you like it, have fun now" rather than "ewwww!" seems to be a learned (or unlearned, really) skill.

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  5. I fibd it fascinating that we're still discussing whether marriage is a religious practice or not. Egyptian royalty started the whole thing some thousands of years ago to help clarify ascent to the throne of Pharoah. The Romans got involved when significant assets were at stake. Religion got involved somewhere in the middle ages, and yet this is somehow a religious practice? Please!

    Anyway, I suspect you're right about the "buttsex" part...

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  6. I think you're probably right with the "buttsex" thing (not actually buttsex but the "ewww that's icky" response)

    But sometimes I wonder if being gay does look like the easy way out to them. Maybe being soft and limp wristed sometimes sounds really nice. Instead of being the striaght Manly Man of Manliness. But they must... resist...

    Or maybe they just see that as ewww-y too... I dunno.

    It just sounds like some of the things i tohught in my "I will not be a masochist" phase before I realized that not everyone thought that way and was just resisting it better than me.

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  7. I'm a married atheist, and I don't want to have to add the word "traditional" as a descriptor. Call 'em civil unions, call 'em whatever. Words have meaning, and I don't want that meaning changed.

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  8. Most of what I would have said has already been said better.

    So I'll just take it in the direction that really confuses me. I really have met people that are open about it being all about the buttsex, and act like you just brought up the price of chickens in China if you even mention lesbians, like they couldn't possibly be relevant to anything. They argue normal humans are just revolted by the practice and it's only liberal brainwashing that's convinced us that these PEOPLE who do it are anything but vastly sick perverts.

    So how come it seems like you have to get something that caters to some kind of special fetish to get straight porn WITHOUT buttsex?

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  9. Anonymous - People's rights to things like insurance and healthcare decisions and child custody seem a lot more important to me than the (imaginary anyway) hardship of having to add an extra word.

    Marriage does mean something--a long-term commitment based on love. No one's changing that.

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  10. Voted for it ... even though I would rather see ALL state sanctioned partnerships ( including traditional marriage ) go away.


    Exchange letters of attorney, sign a contract, and get a religious ceremony if that turns you on.

    Don't need the government sticking its claws in this.

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  11. It could be worse, Labrat.

    A few decades from now, it might be impossible to get porn that does NOT include furries.

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  12. LabRat: Even worse, it seems to be nearly impossible to find straight anal sex porn that does not involve the woman in question taking the cock in question out of her ass and sticking it in her mouth. Ew! Buzzkill!

    As far as the whole "gay marriage" thing goes, I think that it's the responsibility of the state to treat all of its citizens equally before the law. If it's going to let heterosexual citizens marry their partners of choice and grant them special privileges based on it, it has to do the same for homosexual citizens as well.

    And before anyone tries the remarkably stupid "it is equal, gay men can marry gay women just like straight men can marry straight women, hyuk" argument, I'll point out that that stance is roughly equivalent to the state respecting the right of Protestants, Mormons, Buddhists, andCatholics to all participate in the Catholic Mass.

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  13. Ohwow. I haven't heard anything this stupid in my ENTIRE LIFE.

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  14. Obnoxiously, one of the radio ads I heard opposing the law says "in the middle of a recession, our lawmakers should be focusing on the important issues like creating jobs etc etc," accusing the state legislature of wasting precious time in extending equal rights to gay couples. I'm like "you guys, the law was passed, it was signed by the governor, it's done! You're the ones wasting time by bringing it to a referendum! If you think there are more important issues than gay rights, then by all means, please focus on those!" It's just so fucking disingenuous. And this just shows that even when they pretend it's not about hating gays, it's about "changing a centuries-old definition of marriage", they're lying, because this law specifically states that it does not change the definition of marriage from 1man+1woman.
    I'm a little nervous because when you google "R71 Washington" the anti-equality website is the first hit.
    Interesting point that not everyone may be aware of with R71- the law also extends domestic partner benefits to opposite-sex couples if one party is over 62 (e.g. for widows/widowers who would lose a deceased spouse's pension or benefits if they remarried, but who want to enter some sort of legal relationship with a new boyfriend/girlfriend). So ask the bigots, why do y'all want to pull the plug on grandma?

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  15. Brits/Canadians have a different conception of freedom of expression than we do.

    So that whole Canadian thing? Irrelevant, therefore bullshit.

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