A different group has sided against gay marriage before the Supreme Court: gay men who are married to women. This is not at all unusual, that homosexual individuals enter into a marriage contract with heterosexuals, and in fact it’s actually what the right-wing wants to promote, by compelling people to only have heterosexual relationships. As is always the case when one group wants to deny rights to another, though, their arguments are sad and petty. The gay-men-married-to-straight-women have to actually argue that allowing gay-men-married-to-gay-men would somehow mean their relationships would be excluded. It always boils down to some group claiming that removing a restriction from another group is exactly the same as adding constraints on them.
The gay couples suing their states for recognition argue that gay marriage bans “disfavor and demean their very identities and existence” by excluding them from marriage. But “that could only be true if the marriages of [gay men and straight women] are fakes and shams”—which, these men assert, is simply not the case. To prove it, the brief provides the personal testimonies of 10 gay men who are now happily married to straight women. Each of these men found women eager to marry them. In one testimony, a straight woman realizes she loves her gay husband “not in spite of his attractions, but because of them.” In another, a gay men explains that admitting his continued “same-sex attractions” to his wife of 10 years actually brought “renewed closeness” to their relationship. He and his wife now have four children.
These testimonies are designed to disprove the notion that gay people can only have fulfilled marriages by wedding someone of the same sex.
I think it’s kind of sweet, if true, that these men have formed solid, lasting relationships with other human beings in the absence of sexual desire, or more likely, that they have sexual desire for each other but also for other people. There is more to marriage than reliably regular boinking, or exclusivity, so more power to ’em.
But no one is arguing that all gay men must marry gay men, or they’ll be miserable. No one is arguing that gay men must get married, either — there are substantial numbers of gay and straight people who have no interest in marriage at all. If gays and lesbians can get married as they desire, it will not mean that straight marriages are dissolved or threatened, or that there will be tests to determine whether the couples in a relationship are sufficiently sexually aroused by each other, and in particular, there won’t be a policy of denying men and women marriage licenses because the guy looks too gay.
I think it’s another amazing example of projection. “I want to prevent those people from marrying, therefore they must want to destroy my marriage, too!”
Fucking logic, how does it work?
QFFT!
Unless they are in a marriage blanc – which is possible in some cases, but by no means all – the men in question are not exclusively gay. There are also women in the same situation. Nigel Nicholson wrote an interesting book – Portrait of a Marriage – about his parents’ long and generally happy marriage. The fact that both were predominantly gay made no difference.
Why people marry is no concern of the state. Given the complications of human psychology and prejudices, perhaps the best solution would be to make marriage a purely religious or social institution with no legal standing. The things currently subsumed in “marriage” – division of property, childcare pensions etc – could be dealt with without raising the question of marriage.
The pushback against multiculturalism qua multiculturalism couldn’t be clearer.
No, thank you.
Actually, on second thought: Fuck off.
Certainly one of the more bizarre arguments against Same Sex Marriage, but then again they are all rather weird.
The most coherent argument against SSM I have ever heard is the religious one – “God doesn’t want gays to get married.” In fact, if they could prove that God really does exist, and that He really does hate the idea of two men or two women loving each other, then it would be tretty convincing, but since they can’t provide evidence for the first assumption, then the argument is a non-starter.
All the rest boil down to ‘I find the idea of two men together yucky’ or ‘they’re different to me so I despise them’.
If they really have no intelligent argument, then they shouldn’t be wasting people’s time like this.
Hmm, I think I catch their drift. Surely many of those men struggles with their homo- or bisexuality and I guess there was a lot of guilt and sacrifice involved. If marriage equality comes, they probably will feel like something has been taken from them, their sacrafices have been in vain.
That’s of course no reason to oppose marriage equality.
PZ says:
Maybe it is the weather, or all the drama-llama-blogging by the Wankers and all, but my cynical view is that Gay men married to Heterosexual women do not want gays because the married gay men to heterosexual women are upset that other Gay men may actually marry their loved ones in a more emotional and sexual fulfilling relationship. The gay men married to other gay men means that they can live a life out in open without stigma; while gay men who married women because that is how it “is supposed to be” do not want other gay men the opportunity that they chose not to peruse.
At least, that is my cynical side regarding “fakes and shams”
This is seriously fucked up. I think sc_gobbledy is fundamentally correct, Marriage (as far as the state is concerned) is essentially a civil contract, whatever emotional, religious, or cultural baggage is hung off of it. I wouldn’t go as far as ze recommends because of established law and precedent but …
The gay couples suing their states for recognition argue that gay marriage bans “disfavor and demean their very identities and existence” by excluding them from marriage.
I strongly suspect that what these people really feel is that they were forced to conform to an ironclad rule, so a) it’s not fair to let others change or disregard that rule; and b) if others fight the status quo and get away with it, that invalidates the experiences of everyone who caved and accepted it.
When you cave to a bigoted status quo and tell yourself that this is the best “deal” you could get, and then the next generation fights the status-quo and wins, that’s likely to make you feel like something of a chump — and that’s not likely to endear you to the people who rose up and got a better result than you did.
I think it’s more a matter of “i’m misserable, why the fuck should others get to be happy?”.
@OP – Does this type of fallacy already have a name?
@johnlee #5 – Even if God exists and disapproves of same sex marriage, so what? Why should we care about His opinions?
“Interracial marriage is an attempt to destroy the integrity of my marriage! Sure, I may have loved a woman of a different race when I was younger, and I was not allowed to marry. But now I am in a happy and fulfilled marriage with someone of the same race. And she hears about my impossible interracial romance of the past and knows I still feel that way and it just makes her love me more. How dare you try to legalize interracial marriage and undermine my identity! And de-legitimize my marriage! Have you no empathy!? Have you no shame!?”
If the disapproving God exists and is known to manifest that disapproval in the ways often attributed by Christians to the Christian God, then there is a prudential argument (but not a moral argument) for caring about that God’s opinions, just as there’s a prudential argument for caring about the opinions of any powerful, well-armed psychopath that you happen to be trapped in a room with.
But there isn’t. So we shouldn’t.
@leerudolph #13 – Excellent reply, though I disagree with one little detail:
Fuck prudence. I’d rather rot in Hell.
This argument is a variation on the meme that gays can change, being gay is a choice, so gays shouldn’t have legal equality.
But even if that were true, how does the conclusion follow from the premise? It seems to me the whole point of America is that people have the right to make choices, even if other people find those choices repulsive. Being religious is a choice, but we protect religious freedom.
Right wing Christian God has real continuity problems. Some stories claim he’s all powerful, yet others claim he can’t do anything to prevent things like gay marriage without human aid, other than have a violent tantrum. I think his whole series needs a reboot, with a consistent writing team and far better editing. Just don’t let the guys who edited DC after Crisis on Infinite Earths do it, they really screwed up the continuity of a lot of characters, like Wonder Girl.
Crisis in Infinite Heavens!!!
Christ.
What is so hard about ‘two people who are considered able to freely give informed consent’? No caveats whatsoever, whether based on gender, sexuality or anything else. The state has no moral right or need to decide who may or not marry, except in cases where free and informed consent is absent.
“Testimonies.” Sounds so very mormon in both concept and tone.
Also sounds like, “My religion/religious culture forced me to marry a woman. Now you have to marry a woman a too. Nobody is getting something that has been denied to me!”
Excellent self-justification skills, I must say.
Here’s a comment from an ex-mormon posting as “dydimus”:
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1544088,1544263#msg-1544263
I think that one of the things that turned me off religionists the most is represented by this issue and their struggle to remain in control of it. If this god was real and the story was all true, he took a more hands off stance after the fall and sent a savior and all the rest of it. The thing we are supposed to do is seek our salvation through his religion, they say that all the fucking time. The churches and those who control them are not content with that however. They are actively engaged in enforcing their beliefs with the force of law and there by denying the exercising the freedom to chose that the god grants as described in the stories. Any act by someone else or belief by someone else has no effect on anyone else’s salvation or belief and should be a none issue as regards to the god. The believers and their leaders insist on making everyone’s belief and behavior the issue. So much so that they will pursue that goal all the way to death of “sinners” to enforce their beliefs through law, crusades and inquisitions.
For me all their actions as in this issue just re-enforce the unreality of their belief. It exposes it as a lie.
uncle frogy
I first heard this theory when some one told it to me as a joke. Not a particularly funny joke, but a joke none the less. Now it is being used as a legal argument. Wow.
eeyore, think you nailed it.
@sc_770d159609e0f8deaa72849e3731a29d #3: You would not believe the pushback that one gets from pro-gay-marriage* groups for advocating such a position. While some people ultimately do think the state should stay out of family arrangements entirely, most of the pro-gay-marriage activists I’ve talked to explicitly and very much want to establish a system of privilege that advantages them – or, more accurately, they want access to an existing from of legal and institutional privilege that has excluded (and continues to exclude as same-legal-sex marriage becomes legal) around half the population. Beyond their self-interested buy-in, many pro-gay-marriage activists dislike the optics of opposing legal marriage entirely, as that does lend validity to the charge that someone is trying to destroy straight marriages; I certainly do want to end (legal recognition of) straight marriages, becasue they’re (unjustifiably) discriminatory public policy, but gay marriage advocates have had much better luck reassuring the already-privileged that they’re not trying to strip them of their marital privileges but instead just expand the group of people who enjoy such privileges slightly (though they don’t really phrase it that way; realistically, allowing same sex marriage directly impacts maybe). The neoliberal shift from queer radicalism and gay liberation to gay rights (under the same kyriarchical institutions as always) is following the same sad path as the suppression of Black liberation by civil rights, women’s liberation by women’s rights, and socialism by neoliberal capitalism.
*”Marriage equality” is an oxymoron: having a legal construction of marriage necessarily sets up differential legal classes on the basis of marriage, which is definitionally not equal. Ironically, whenever I’ve pointed this out to pro-gay-marriage activists, they nearly always fall back on a claim very similar to one used by many anti-gay-marriage activists, that the system of legal privilege they wish to establish is actually equality becasue anyone can get married (versus the nearly-identical claim that it’s already true that anyone can get married, just to someone of a different legal gender, which is exactly what the subjects of the OP are arguing – the two most prominent sides of this issue are almost entirely in agreement simply by supporting legal marriage at all, they just disagree about precisely where to draw the line). This conveniently ignores poly people, single people (whether single by choice or not – it’s not even close to true that anyone who wishes to get married can do so, because marriage requires the consent of two different people), sibling households, multi-generational households, etc.
Ugh, forgot to delete part of an extraneous parenthetical comment in my post #24.
Here is some coverage in the Salt Lake Tribune on the approach taken by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS, mormons):
As someone in the Lounge thread pointed out earlier, it’s ironic that mormons are harping on the issue of redefining marriage when it was their cult that redefined marriage as polygamous in the 1800s. Mormons were still practicing polygamy in the early 1900s to such an extent that Congressional hearings forced mormon leaders to issue a second manifesto against the practice in 1904. Polygamy is still a big issue in the morridor (mormon corridor).
Mormons have been encouraging gay members to enter into heterosexual marriages throughout their history.
Is that really an amicus brief, or just a group proposal for a “reality” tv show?
Re Marcus and SC.
The thing you’re talking about is civil unions. These got a bad name because the anti-gay crowd offered them up as something less than marriage that, supposedly, had the same advantage.
It is my opinion that there really should be a distinction between civil union and marriage, with only the former sanctioned by the state. Marriage should be nothing more than a celebration and circumstance defined by the parties involved, and of no legal consequence at all.
I do not think this is at all difficult to implement. All existing marriages could be defined as civil unions by law. No new marriage licenses would be issued by the state, at all. The state, however, would issue civil union licenses, the requirements for which would be a basic understanding of the laws, and the responsibilities and duties of the parties (child support, division of propery, taxes, etc.). Having that union “solemnized” by some religious authority should be purely discretionary… And have no legal consequences whatsoever. (Somebody who so hates the thought that gays can get unionize, can forego the legal status, but won’t be able to visit ther loved one in the hospital. Ha!).
But these civil unions would only be marriages by another name – and thus humans, being the custom-loving creatures that they are – would continue to call them “marriages”.
I am all for going for civil unions only… in fact, my country only acknowledges civil marriages. Note: civil marriages (Zivilehe in german)
So while the secular only approach would and does work very well, it woulnd’t keep the religious folks from lamenting the loss of their marriages “sacredness”.
I’ll remind the person quoted by the OP, that his argument can be worked AGAINST him. That is, the fact that gay men engage in faux marriage to a woman, and enjoys it, demonstrates: ‘ gay-ness is a simple choice that can be altered by marrying a woman. Therefore, “Same sex marriage” will abandon the gays who could have been turned back onto the God-ordained hetero path.’
I.E.:
—
[to reiterate:] WTF is wrong with defining marriage as “a union of two (consenting) PEOPLE”? To identify a marriage as “straight” or “gay”, is superfluous. Marriage is a union of two PEOPLE who Love each other. {full stop}.
“Redefining” sigh…
Our government redefined the maximum speed on highways a few years ago. I heard no bigot complain back then.
I am wondering if there is a bit of “buyers remorse” going on here.
‘ I bought into an institution which was the only option open to me at the time. Now that option has been widened and if it had been available to me at the time I may have made a different decision.’
I know this goes against the professed testimonials that the marriages have been good but I am gonna be cynical and say methinks they doth protest too much.
@27 Pierce R. Butler
It’s both. At least 1 of the signers of the amicus brief appeared on the TLC reality show “My Husband’s Not Gay”. The show had 3-4 Mormon couples where the husband “suffered” from “same sex attraction”. While the couples did appear to have some level of affection for each other, all of the men pretty much admitted they were gay and felt forced into marrying women because of their religion and culture (bisexuality wasn’t even mentioned).
Overall it was a pretty depressing show. I felt bad for the men, who were forced by their religion to suppress their true identities, and for the women, who in some cases were stuck in marriages with men they acknowledged didn’t love them completely. And I felt most bad for the children, who would grow up in families where their parents didn’t completely love one another and with warped ideas of sexual identity.
The show was pretty much 1 hour of seeing how Mormonism was ruining people’s lives.
Um…. no.
First off, the “disfavor and demean” argument is only one argument made by some and not the defining factor of the same-sex marriage position. That one person gives an argument you dislike is not a valid reason to reject a position. I personally do not think denying anybody the right to marry disfavors or demeans anyone’s existence, everyone can live a healthy happy life alone just as everyone can life a healthy happy life without ever owning a home, or a car, or earning a college degree, so I dislike that argument. But that argument does not define the position.
But more importantly, for those who do buy the “disfavor and demean” argument, it simply does not come at the expense that the gay-man/straight-woman marriage is a “sham”. It denies a choice and control of one’s marriage (which is seen as “disfavoring and demeaning”) and has no implications to the value of the gay/straight couple’s choice whatsoever. If I were forced to major in rowboat dynamics but my passion was dentistry I’d find that debilitating. But the fact that I’m unhappy with rowboat dynamics in no way reflects and those others who may feel sublime passion at the prospect.
*sheesh*
I just don’t understand the mindset involved. If a gay person of any gender wants to marry a straight person of any gender, awesome, I wish them all happiness. If two straight people of any gender gender want to get married, cool, no skin off my nose. Again, all happiness. I just don’t understand how two gay people of the same gender getting married somehow throws a wrench into all that. I understand that people DO seem to think this, but it’s so utterly nonsensical to me how they come to that position.
@28, eoraptor:
“It is my opinion that there really should be a distinction between civil union and marriage, with only the former sanctioned by the state. Marriage should be nothing more than a celebration and circumstance defined by the parties involved, and of no legal consequence at all.
“I do not think this is at all difficult to implement.”
On the contrary, this would be outrageously difficult to implement. There are over a 1000 federal laws that refer to “marriage.” Then you add in the laws of all the states, all the territories, all the municipal laws, too, all the contracts that have already been made regarding “marriage” not to mention the international treaties we have with other countries regarding “marriage.”
It is not possible to simply say, “All existing marriages could be defined as civil unions by law.” They actually can’t. Marriage isn’t managed by the federal system but by the states. Your marriage license comes from the state and thus, the states will be the ones who decide what the contract is. That’s why the last time we had this debate, we didn’t come up with a “civil union” to allow interracial couples to get married. We simply used the contract that already existed: Marriage. That’s what’s on the license. That’s what all the laws refer to. That’s the relationship that everybody understands already. There is absolutely no reason to try and reinvent the wheel.
If this is truly a question of semantics, then those who feel that their special friendship is violated by somebody getting married that they don’t approve of, then it is their responsibility to come up with a term to refer to their special friendship. Hmm…”Holy matrimony.” That’ll do. Everybody already knows of it, it makes reference to their religious ritual rather than using a legal term, and nobody has to bother about anything.
Here’s an excerpt from their brief:
“Underlying petitioners’ appeal is this premise: the right of same-sex attracted men and women to marry a member of the opposite sex is meaningless. That premise underlies petitioners’ equal-protection arguments that man-woman marriage laws prohibit gay men and lesbians from marrying. Man-woman definitions of marriage can prohibit, foreclose, disqualify, and exclude gay men and lesbians from marriage only if it is impossible or entirely undesirable — that is, meaningless—for same-sex attracted men and women to marry members of the opposite sex. Petitioners do not argue that only some, or even many, gay men and lesbians are prohibited from marrying; they insist, and their arguments depend on their proving, that marriage is foreclosed for all same-sex attracted men and women.”
They’re basically arguing that because gay people can marry someone of the opposite sex, there is no discrimination. That the argument that gay people can’t get married is false because, indeed, there are gay people who do…to someone of the opposite sex.
Let’s rewrite that, shall we?
Underlying petitioner’s appeal is this premise: The right of other-race attracted men and women to marry a member of the same race is meaningless. That premise underlies petitioners’ equal-protection arguments that same-race marriage laws prohibit men and women of different races from marrying. Same-race definitions of marriage can prohibit, foreclose, disqualify, and exclude mixed-race couples from marriage only if it is impossible or entirely undesirable – that is, meaningless – for other-race attracted men and women to marry members of the same race. Petitioners do not argue that only some, or even many, mixed-race couples are prohibited from marrying; they insist, and their arguments depend on their proving, that marriage is foreclosed for all other-race attraced men and women.”
Yeah, sounds awfully racist. And that argument was done away with in Loving v. Virginia: The claim that preventing black people from marrying white people was not discriminatory because black people could marry black people is to miss the point. It puts a restriction on marriage that cannot be justified given an understanding of fundamental rights that transcend race.
Thus, as I so often point out to people who try to deny marriage to gay people: If it’s a bogus argument when applied to race, why does it suddenly gain legitimacy when applied to sexual orientation?
eoraptor @28:
A civil union does not offer the same benefits as a marriage. That’s why this gay man does not accept civil unions. That’s separate but equal horseshit.
Well, it’s not legitimate of course, but I wonder how much these people are also against interracial marriages. I doubt most would admit it openly, because it would not appeal to those in the muddled middle they’re trying to convince.
But just like there’s crank magnetism, there’s also a sort of bigot magnetism. (The difference is pretty subtle. Both of them, it’s worth noting, have something to do with a pronounced and systematic ignorance of and resistance to certain subjects.) The point is just the obvious one that racists also tend to be homophobes, misogynists, etc. So, most likely, they don’t think it’s a bogus argument or that there’s a sudden transformation when you change the terms in the argument. They just won’t say so (usually) because they know well enough that it will set back their cause.
#3 sc_770d159609e0f8deaa72849e3731a29d
No. Orientation does not equal action, it is attraction. A gay man can have sex with a woman and still be gay. An asexual person may choose to have sex and still be asexual. So yes, the men in question are still “exclusively gay”(unless they are simply lying about their orientation).
This attitude drives a distressing amount of political beliefs in America.
I’m certainly no expert, but I feel like it can’t possibly be normal to submit an amicus brief and only cite three cases (and not even cite the circuit court case that came out against marriage equality). I know they’re trying to focus on the one specific issue of whether marriage inequality blocks a class of people from exercising a protected right, but I feel like there’s just no way you could make a sound form of that argument without citing more case law.
The solo practitioner repping them is licensed and I’m not, so he probably knows better than me but still…
re “civil union” vs “marriage”:
“marriage is such a *sacred* ceremony that every priest, at the conclusion of the ceremony, is required to say “…by the power invested in me by the state of _______, I declare thee man and wife” {that last bit in italics has subtle variabilities}
The point I’m trying to make is that marriage is a LEGAL construction that the church adopted and “stole” as the Church’s sacrament that the State adopted.
All the controv about “gay” marriage are the legal ramifications of disallowing marriage. Civil unions allow joint tax returns, but little else; particularly, emergency health related issues. So I still do NOT understand the “redefinition” issue. All the opposition is all “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. God said so in the most holy of books.” And the state claims to not be a theocracy? I see a slippery slope…
Kind of disappointed in the local NPR station this morning when they chose to give airtime to the anti gay marriage side by letting some fuckbrained bigot explain why he is against some adult humans being able to tick the “married, filing jointly” box.
re @44
oh yes, the old – two men want to cheat the feds of their tax monies by checking that “married filing jointly”, box there on their 1040.
yeah, NPR, we’ve heard THAT before. Falsehoods don’t become true be repeating it over and over…
Oh, I should clarify my #44. The guy was really just talking about gay marriage.
That tax form part was just me mocking how problematic bigots find the idea of two men being able to file jointly. Their problem can’t be gay relationships because those are happening on a daily basis without marriage anyway. So it must be things like being able to file jointly (which require the marriage part).
slithey tove @ 45
And my response to such an idea is “so what?” Why can’t I have a legally recognized relationship with my mother and sister as we pool our resources and property together and jointly raise children and file taxes? Why does “are these people having sex and having sex in the appropriate way?” matter? Families aren’t actually based solely on sex and romance.
Let straight people of any genders marry one another. Let gay people of any genders marry one another. Let any consenting adults of any genders and orientations marry one another.
Who cares if they’re fucking appropriately or not?
re 47:
Mellow: YES. I failed to imply that the whole tax structure WRT married and single is PART of that “slippery slope” I spied. I agree, it is incomprehensible that the gubmint cares about who loves who and how. I can understand giving a tax break for children as a form of investment in future returns when that child becomes an adult. But that is all completely irrelevant to Married Taxes.
@eeyore, anteprepro: I don’t think this argument has anything to do with whether gays choose to be gay or not.
Gay men who married straight women did so because marriage has status beyond contract, and they wanted that status. Now that it’s becoming possible for gay men to enjoy the status of marriage with each other, gay men who married women are saying that it’s unfair, and that every gay person should have to make a similar sacrifice or compromise as they did to enjoy the same status of marriage.
It’s like how some legally documented immigrants are often the loudest voices against rights for undocumented immigrants. “I had to pay a personal price for my status, so don’t you dare give its benefits to cheaters for free.”
QFT and seconded. The only problem I see with “holy matrimony” is that there are a lot of people who want the special status of a “marriage++” without calling it “holy”. “Matrimony” might do. It has the right etymology.
Whoa, wait a minute here! One of the mormon couples included in the U.S. Supreme Court case filing have objected to being included. Looks like some mormon lawyers included the couple without their permission or knowledge.
Josh and Lolly Weed want their names removed from the “friend of the court” brief.
The mormon attorney who filed the brief is Darrin Johns from American Fork, Utah. It’s mostly mormons all the way. Furthermore, it is mormons connected to North Star, one of the heinous reparative therapy organizations run by mormons.
The one non-mormon in the group is a catholic, Doug Mainwaring. He is also a founding member of the National Capital Tea Party Patriot group.
http://www.sltrib.com/home/2400859-155/mormon-couple-object-to-inclusion-in
A few excerpts from the readers’ comments associated with the Salt Lake Tribune article (link in #50):
Here’s a bit more background on pray-and-hug-the-gay-away organizations like Evergreen and North Star. Yes, they are mormon organizations.
More backup for the claim that mormon policy did indeed steer gay men into heterosexual marriage. This info comes from LDS church insiders:
I agree, it is incomprehensible that the gubmint cares about who loves who and how.
No, it is completely comprehensible, when you realize that marriage is not about ‘who loves who’. It is about social and legal rights AND OBLIGATIONS. Who inherits property when you die? If I run off with the pool boy, what rights (if any) does my SO have to a share of our jointly accumulated income? And so on. The idea that marriage is just about a special piece of paper is, bluntly, ignorant, and I hope that anyone married who spouts such nonsense gets themselves very quickly to a source of information about their legal rights and obligations.