| Monday, February 9, 2004 |
18:23 - To the shrillest go the spoils
http://coldfury.com/reason/comments.php?id=P1558_0_1_0
|
(top)  |
Hmm. I might be misreading him here, but I think what Arthur Silber is trying to say is that he is in favor of same-sex marriage.
Wow. I just love it when libertarians can't find a right to privacy in the Constitution -- but they can find states' rights there.
Is everyone in the whole damned world a statist, and a lover of government power? Or do they all just really, really, really hate faggots?
This is exactly what I'm talking about when I mention how the shrill gay Left, and judiciaries like the Massachusetts one, are going to end up making gay marriage a far more divisive issue in this country than it ever otherwise would have been. We're on our way to codified SSM whether people like Silber shriek about it or not-- but on our current path, we're going to make it a repeat of Roe vs. Wade (which still has violent repercussions today) rather than a repeat of the flag-burning amendment (a politicized abuse of the amendment process, as the FMA will be if invoked this early).
What I find so distressing is simply this: most of the Left has convinced itself that gay marriage is such a foregone conclusion, such an inarguable matter of equal rights long overdue, that they simply can't comprehend that anybody can object to it without being a hateful, discriminatory bigot. I've seen it happen over and over, and more so lately: people on the Left shake their heads in horror over Bush pledging support for the FMA if it comes to the floor of Congress, concluding automatically that he's acting out of religious zealotry, stupidity, and personal loathing of gay people. Yet arguing with these people that maybe conservatives by and large have a different reason, maybe even a rational reason, for opposing same-sex marriage is a futile exercise; they've convinced themselves of the axiomatic evil of the Other Side, and there is no explaining it outside ascribing it to a deep, dark Mordor-cloud of hatred and bigotry flowing out of Texas or the White House.
I'm thinking of coining a witticism: Presuming your opponent to be irrational, is irrational.
I tried writing on this subject a few days ago, but few people seem to be echoing its sentiments independently. Or, I should say, few gays seem to be echoing it. I've run across precious few gays who see value in waiting for public opinion to shift further behind same-sex marriage, as it's already on course to do; I've seen few gays who look at the fact that poll numbers show such a huge increase in popular support for SSM in just the past decade and conclude that if we give it five or ten years more, support will be nigh-universal-- rather than claiming that Now is Our Hour to Strike! Most gays, on the contrary, look at developments like the Canadian codification of SSM and Massachusetts' judicial decision and take them to be the big go signal, and now there's no stopping them-- they've got to go for the gold now, evidently seeing the collapse of America into a religio-fascist Nazi-esque state bent on the extermination of all sexual deviants lurking right around the corner.
But that's not the feedback I've been getting from conservatives, though. What I've been hearing, from numerous people writing me in e-mail, is to the following effect: Thank you, thank you, thank you for finally showing that there are gay people out there capable of reason, understanding, and compromise-- and who grasp the concept that Middle America's opposition to gay marriage has nothing to do with hatred of gays, but rather with a reluctance to redefine and dilute such a cherished institution as marriage, particularly before we're all ready to do so. I'm now actually more willing to support same-sex marriage now that I know that my objections have at least been received and correctly understood, instead of misrepresented and demonized. What I guessed, and seemingly accurately, is that most Americans-- even quite conservative ones-- have no problem at all with gay people; they're just not wild about the idea of having to explain to their kids that "Well, Junior[/Princess], when you grow up, you can get married to a girl[/boy] and have kids of your own, or else you might choose to marry a boy[/girl] and just live together, because you might like to kiss-- uh, well, you know how girls[/boys] have cooties? Well, one day you might... you know what? Screw it. Here's my credit card, go check out some porn sites and get it over with."
Yeah, yeah, I know heterosexual marriage is a joke these days, what with our Britney Spearses and our trophy wives and our Janet Jackson boobs and everything. But believe it or not, most of this country still holds on to some very traditional values, and while hatred and bigotry are not among them just like the bumper stickers all say, Americans like the idea of the groom in the tux and the bride in the long white gown, where nobody in the congregation (yes, I said congregation) has to think about the two of them having sex in order to comprehend why they're standing in front of the altar. It's an understanding that's deeply ingrained into our culture-- and not just ours, all of Western society (and pretty much the rest of the world). This is not an accident. There isn't some huge global conspiracy that's held sway for the last twelve thousand years fooling humans in all cultures into thinking that men marry women, and that's only just now losing its grip. If there is one, it's called nature, and our imminent redefinition of one of humanity's oldest pillars of civilized social behavior is as much a denial of our natural understanding of how the world works as it is an expression of liberation and equality. Can we please acknowledge that opponents of gay marriage might, just might be motivated by something other than that ineffable Republican need to burn crosses on people's lawns?
For those people who would so dearly love to paint same-sex marriage as the next big battle in the unending Equal Rights war, I'd like to note that in the early 60s, we still had Klan lynchings happening on a fairly regular basis. What's the analog today? Matthew Shepard was such an exceptional case that he became national news and stayed there for months. Gays are better integrated into today's society than even black people are, and in the case of the gays who aren't, it's as often as not a point of pride (because hey, everybody's gotta be different). Can we not express an understanding that a man wishing to marry another man under State auspices is conceptually just a bit different from trying to get black and white kids to attend the same public schools?
In other words, I think the Massachusetts judges are off their rockers. This isn't a case of "separate but equal", and pretending that it is is a gross minimization of the scale of the original Civil Rights-era meaning of the expression. This is a case, instead, of a society having to confront a kind of lifestyle that only in the past forty years or so has really even shown its face in public, and we're trying to decide where its natural boundaries lie, and indeed whether we're even allowed to set societal limits on any kind of behavior anymore without being labeled "bigots". In other words, marriage is a privilege, a state benefit that we as a society choose to extend to a couple who exchange certain vows, with the ostensible purpose of providing a healthy and natural family unit for raising children. It's not inherently obvious that we must extend those same benefits to couples who wish to get married in a way and for a purpose that would have been unthinkable fifty years ago.
When you think about it, gay rights have come so far, so fast, that it's a wonder there hasn't been a more tumultuous revolution in this country. For that we can thank two things: 1) Post-Civil-Rights, Americans are terrified to look any social group in the face and say "no"; and 2) the revolution has been a comparatively steady and "underground" one, infiltrating popular media and the younger subculture bit by bit until "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" has become a prime-time chart-topper. (Imagine describing the premise of the show to someone in the 80s.)
Some worry that the anti-gay religious Right has smelled blood in the water, and is rising to the attack. And that may be a valid worry, particularly in light of the FMA. (Mike Silverman has recognized that the battle is joined, whether either side was ready for it or not, and the tactical situation isn't good for anybody-- though a lack of defense on either side won't prevent an attack.) But I'm equally worried at the quickening of the pace that I'm seeing from the Left, as though now is the time to pounce, with not a moment to lose. I'm worried that if we insist on pushing this thing faster than it naturally wants to go, it'll meet a whole lot more resistance-- and stir up a whole lot more animosity-- and leave a whole lot more ugly, unhealed scar tissue once it's over-- than it otherwise would have.
An excellent first step would be for the gay Left to recognize that the other side just might be acting out of a human conscience. This isn't a battle of the Forces of Righteousness and Liberty against the Hordes of Jackbooted Brownshirted Bible-Waving Death Robots. But if we insist on casting it in those terms, that's exactly what it will become.
|
|
Brian Tiemann
