I am always amazed that there are people in this world who care what other people are doing with their genitals. Sex is such an incredible, intimate thing, yet it occupies so much of our attention. In this particular case, I’m talking about Oregon’s Measure 36, which seeks to ban gay marriage. Both sides of this issue have a whole lot to say about it, but it really comes down to one simple issue: just how important is it that we all screw in a majority-approved manner?
The Left likes to support the rights of gay people, equating the struggle for gay marriage to the struggle for interracial marriage a generation ago. Government has no right to dictate whom you can marry. Homosexuality is an ingrained, natural characteristic like race. Marriage conveys hundreds of civil rights to heterosexuals that are denied to homosexuals.
The Right likes to support the sanctity of straight marriage, equating the struggle for gay marriage to the moral decay of our society. Government has no right to advance the homosexual agenda. Homosexuality is a learned behavior disorder unlike race. Marriage conveys the blessing of the state to conceive and raise children in the most supportive atmosphere possible.
I think the Left makes a mistake by basing an argument on the nature of homosexuality, despite the vast amount of scientific study that shows there is homosexuality abundant in nature, even in the animal kingdom. That argument is never going to play with the conservatives; they will bring up other studies that show a great deal of influence of nurture in homosexual development. The next thing you know we’re bogged down in a debate of nature versus nurture while we ignore the elephant in the room: in a free society, do we not have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in a manner we see fit, so long as we do not harm another?
Really, what difference does it make if homosexuality is chosen or ingrained? Why does government have the right to tell me whom I can choose to love and to whom I can dedicate my life? I am a straight man who’s been happily married for four years, but if I suddenly decided to get divorced, move to San Francisco, and shack up with an interior decorator named Bruce, why can’t I marry him? Why does government think it’s OK for me to dedicate my life to a girl from Boise but not a boy from the Bay Area? Whom would my new gay marriage harm? (Aside, perhaps, from my shocked ex-wife.)
The Right will give me all sorts of reasons why I can’t marry Bruce, but when you break down their arguments, it boils down to “we think a boy touching other boys’ pee-pees is grody!” When they rail on about how homosexuality is unnatural, they’re not talking about the love one person may feel for a member of the same sex. They’re thinking of the sex. They call it sodomy. Well, if they’re going to cast aspersions on people committing unbiblical sex acts, I’m certain many straight, god-fearing married couples need to be mindful of that log in their own eye.
Some of the pro-36 supporter’s arguments slide right into silliness. I’ve heard them say that if we allow gay marriage, why, what’s to stop polygamy, incest, and (gasp!) bestiality! This alone proves my point that their side just thinks gay sex is icky. For them, one girl touching another girl “down there” is equivalent to a man screwing a sheep. (I’m not sure why God endorses a straight man’s fingers on a woman’s hoo-hoo, but a lesbian’s fingers are an abomination.) I’m also not sure why proponents of polygamy need gay marriage to be legal in order to argue for multiple marriages. I fail to see how allowing two unrelated gay people to marry induces us to allow two related people to marry. Moreover, it’s incomprehensible how government sanction of men screwing men leads to sanction of men screwing sheep.
The other silly pro-36 arguments always come down to “what’s best for the children.” Children do best when a mother and a father raise them. Two daddies can never be as effective teaching their daughter about her period. Two mommies can never understand how to teach their son to be a man. What a bunch of irrelevant misdirection that is! Should we then continue to allow the single moms and dads in the country to continue raising their kids? Half of those kids aren’t getting the benefit of a same-sex parent, either, and they suffer more from having only one loving parent to raise them. Or is this an argument to limit gay adoptions only to children of the same sex as the gay couple?
Then there’s the procreation argument: government sanctions marriage between straights to provide support for families and to beget new little taxpayers. Wrong – marriage is a complex civil contract between two people that outlines mutual responsibility and support. Marriage began as a contract regarding the transaction of a father’s property (his daughter) to a husband’s property (his wife). Marriages used to be arranged, marriage was polygamous at times (read your Bible), but has changed over time as we became more enlightened. Besides, if you argue the procreation angle, then what about infertile couples, senior citizen couples, or people like my wife and I who just don’t want children – why are we allowed to marry, but not the gay couple?
No, folks, it really just comes down to the loathing of gay sex. In this Sunday’s Oregonian there was a typical fear-mongering op-ed piece stating that if we defeat Measure 36, we’ll have to allow our schools to push the gay agenda on our innocent school kids. The writer brings up a lesbian teacher who keeps a picture of her life-partner and their children on her desk and posts gay tolerance and equality signs in her classroom. Horrors! Can we really sit by idly while out schools teach our children that they should be proud of who they love, honor their family, and treat all people with respect?
The writer also motivates his base by warning that the kids will then ask questions about gay relationships and gay sex. We’ll have to entertain the kids’ questions on whether lesbians can have vaginal sex and it will spiral into a discussion of dildos. (Public school was never this fun when I attended.) Will our schools really turn into a Penthouse Forum letter? Why is it that allowing gay marriage brings up the subject of dildos when it is straight women that purchase and use most dildos, alone or with their mate? Really, what question could a kid bring up about gay sex that couldn’t already be brought up about straight sex?
Again, it all comes down to whether you believe gay is OK. I ask the proponents of Measure 36, what happens after you pass it? Do the gay people go away? Do your kids stop asking about the gay people? Do some of your kids not turn gay? Do the gay couples stop shacking up together? Do the lesbians stop getting sperm donors and bearing children? Do the gay men stop showing up in sitcoms and makeover shows?
No. If Measure 36 passes, all we do is legislate that the only acceptable form of love and sex involves one penis and one vagina. We declare that government will afford special benefits to people who schtupp someone of the opposite sex. We proclaim that the only normal sort of relationship is between a man and a woman. We assert that a teenage boy who might have a crush on the quarterback is a freak of nature. We affirm that a teenage girl who has eyes for the prom queen can never hope for that lovely white wedding dress and a house with a white picket fence.
Even worse, if Measure 36 passes, we give an implicit endorsement to the base homophobic element that likes to act on their belief that gays are an abomination unto God. While most compassionate conservative homophobes are content to simmer quietly in their own stew of hatred for those who are different, there are a few nuts out there that take their hatred into action and leave a “faggot” tied to a fencepost to die. Gee, if only their public school teachers had shown Matthew Shepard’s murderers that it’s OK to respect people of different sexuality…
So folks, let’s cast aside the arguments about the nature of homosexuality. Forget about whether you think gay sex is disgusting. Never mind for the moment what may or may not be best for the children. Discard the fact that there are gay animals and there are gay people; there always have been and always will be. Let’s boil the Measure 36 argument down to its core: does government have the obligation to deny two people their rights because they screw differently than the majority?
