Cicero in Rants

Happy Monday, my pretties.

Having kissed Harper on the lips in my last post, in this one let me throw a brick at his head. I'm going to self indulgently rant about gay marriage. Is it trite? Has it been done to death? Is the issue settled in Canada now?! YES, Dear Reader. But its my blog and everyone else got to do it, so why not me? I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it house cats like me.

Here is my thesis. My position. The way I want to be remembered years from now. The thing I've been ranting privately for years. I will say it loud. I will say it proud: There is no good argument opposing gay marriage. Now while this is FINALLY settled in Canada, its still an issue in the good old USA. Want to know who has the same position on gay marriage as not only Stephen Harper, but also Stockwell Day when he was Canadian Alliance Leader (and the Liberal Party of Canada less than five years ago): Barack Obama.

The fact is that large scale opposition to gay marriage comes from only three places:

1) Bigotry against gays and lesbians and
2) the desire to manipulate or curry favor with groups of people who possess bigotry against gays (voters/doners).
3) Slippery Slopers. I'll get to them.

Look, Its all a numbers game. There are far less gay people than there are old people. Acceptance of gays and lesbians is really brand new in our society. People beating the crap out of people because they have an internal physical revulsive reaction to same-sex affection, I'm afraid, is as old as the hills. So it shouldn't surprise anyone to find Leviticus calling such acts an abomination. And it shouldn't come as any surprise that clever populists will call out "tradition!" in order to get people to vote and write out $500 donations.

And if you oppose gay marriage and think being called a bigot is grossly inflammatory I understand but I respectfully disagree. Look, all of us deal with our own internal bigotry. Its a natural part of being human. It doesn't mean you are pure evil. But you have a responsibility to rise above base impulses. Thats part of being human too. I'm just tired of people pretending that this argument is about something other than our society's emotional discomfort with homosexual activity. And I'm just not having it.

So lets break down the arguments.

Pro:

First: Why is gay marriage important?

Its important because its a symbol of societal acceptance of gays and lesbians. A diplomatic gesture. A message to our hillbillies not to gay bash anymore. Its about an end to them feeling like there is something wrong with them even though no one on earth is being harmed by their existence. But the symbol argument can go both ways. Its basically cancelled out by the "tradition" argument on the other side. Its a value judgement. I value this side of the argument much more and don't buy the other side of the arguments at all, but the traditionalists value the symbol of the family unit and think this sends a signal that encourages the society to engage in all sorts of sex-disease and crime causing debauchery. So gay marriage won't win on this alone. What about the policy though? That leads us to number two:

Second: It is concretely about family laws relating to divorce. Yes, gay marriage is really about gay divorce. When people co-habit, they co-mingle assets. When they stop cohabitation they need to split those assets between them. They have real problems that require real laws. There is no good moral reason to preclude same sex-couples from access to those rules. In fact morality requires that we do allow them such access. The first gay divorce that happened wasn't an argument against gay marriage. It was the main reason we should have it.

Third: It hurts absolutely no one else. It infringes on noone else's right to do anything. It certainly infringes on a bigot's right to be free from offense, but without a better policy reason to back that up, I speak for all tolerant people when I say "this is me playing the world's tiniest violin for you."

And the Arguments against it:

1) Tradition:

Tradition is no argument for anything. A tradition gets to persist, like any policy, when the good it does outweighs the harm. Like pretty much everyone reading this, I'm very happy to see the tradition of celebrating Christmas traditions making a comeback against the fools of political correctness. But this tradition doesn't pass the same test. No heterosexual marriages are adversely affected.

In fact, this is the first good thing to happen to the tradition of marriage in years. Some Gay males, who have generally been castigated by their bigot opponents for being promiscuous disease spreading debaucherers, want to settle down to a life of monogamous love. Why would so-cons want to oppose that? My goodness, They want to demonstrate their commitment to each other with a binding contract. They want a firm symbol of devotion. They want marriage. Praise the good lord Jesus brothers and sisters! Honestly, in 32 years this is the first pro-marriage advancement Ive seen. Mostly I see divorce rates at 40% to 50%, common-law marriages, and a growth in the number of single moms appearing on the Maury Povitch show in a desperate attempt to find out who the daddy be.

2) The bible says so

Mister, do we need to go through all the abominations listed in Leviticus? You and I both know that you are cherry picking so that you can excite the flock and thereby fill your coffers or your voting box. We also both know that by doing it you are engaging in patently immoral minority bashing. To those of you who actually do believe that this is part of christianity, you have to accept that it is a VERY peripheral part of a religion whose central tenets are tolerance, forgiveness, peace and love. Otherwise, I want to see how your life measures up to the Leviticus dictates. There'll be a test on Friday.

I have no problem with churches refusing to marry gays and lesbians in the church. I think it's disappointing that any church is still giving credence to such ancient commandments of hate based on the dictates of the Invisible Mister God, but Church marriage is different than state marriage. If your church wants to maintain marriage as solely between a man and a woman than that's your prerogative, and I will fight to maintain your right to refuse to perform or acknowledge such marriages. But opposing the recognition by the state is well outside your jurisdiction

3) Being gay is a choice

No. Being gay is not a choice. Engaging in gay sexual activity is a choice. I always want to ask people that purport to believe this, how often they pray to God to stop them from indulging their homosexual urges. I'm heterosexual. I don't get homosexual urges. I'm not in denial. I just don't have them. I'm betting most so-cons don't either. (yes, I am aware of the conspicuous outed exceptions). I think so-cons and gay rights activists have always been talking past each other on this point, with the so-cons meaning gay actions and the gay rights people meaning gay urges. Either way, though, there is no harm here. If the Good Lord above has a problem with gays and lesbians then that is an issue between them and their maker. The government doesn't need to intervene.

4) Marriage is about procreation

No. It really isn't. Most married couples procreate. Some do not. They are under no obligation to procreate or adopt within a certain period or have their marriage annulled.

4) The Slippery Slope:

This is the only almost good argument of the bunch. That doesn't mean I agree with it. I just mean its the least despicable. I mean, at least it contemplates actual harm to the society.

On the one hand, they fear a rise in polygamy. On the other, they fear a rise in general moral decay. But slippery slope is not a good enough moral reason to deny important rights to individuals who are behaving responsibly. If there is a debate to be had against polygamy or against the marriage of two roommates who prefer the tax implications, or against some wider moral decay, than those are policy debates that need to happen based on their own merits. Don't go complicating the lives of gays and lesbians over the spectre of problems in another policy area. Its not fair. The answer to the "slippery slope" question of "where does it end" is always the same: it ends when the harm outweighs the good.

The reason gay marriage is arriving, and will eventually win everywhere, is because it is so manifestly and clearly the right thing to do. Social conservatives should like it because its responsible and anti-promiscuous (generally), libertarians should like it because it does no harm. The truth is that conservatives should all back gay marriage or at the very least find something positive and helpful to do with their time and leave this issue alone. Honestly, you folks are embarassing yourselves. Its also the reason I stopped calling myself a conservative. I was a conservative when it meant pro-NAFTA, and pro-good fiscal policy. I refuse to be painted with the brush of narrow-minded bigotry.

And mark my words to those of you who think what I just wrote is all wrong: You are on the wrong side of morality and of history and are the Strom Thurmonds of the future. Find a new soap box. Quickly. You don't want this coming back to haunt you later.

As always, thanks for stopping by.