James Kirchick writes:

-- As someone who can't get married (unless I return to my home state of Massachusetts, which isn't in the cards right now), I find heterosexuals complaining that marriage is a series of "ists" to be incredibly myopic.

Uh, no. California has no residence requirement for marriage. As to the rest of the blog what more need be said but "yawn."

That's right, Jamie.  Avoiding marriage all together as a protest just seems trite.  The real gay solution would be to perform a subversive breeder wedding, maybe something where all of the best men and bridesmades are trannies and bull dykes, where the DJ/band blasts gay anthems such as "Dancing Queen" or "William, It Was Really Nothing", or where the DJ is Stephen Merritt, or where half of the wedding ROI money is donated to gay causes, etc, etc, etc.  

I must admit, my dhughter is of the same opinion as Ms. Martin. Of course, she's a 23-year-old artist and doesn't pretend to be a social/political analyst.

The "Kirchick Threshold" is the number of words it takes for the average reader to become cognizant that the blog post they are reading was not written by a normal, well adjusted tnrer but the only damn brazen truth teller equipped to expose liberal hypocrisies and pc screeds.  

The KT for this post is 4.  

Cause, like, " far left feminist and "queer" activists" are the sum total of "liberals" in the US.  Purely as a matter of intellectual curiosity, do you lisp or hiss when you sneer?  Because only a truepink tutuwearing queer would have so much bitchiness toward fellow fags.  Just wondering.

I don't like how everyone always bandwagons posts of yours that aren't offensive or even bothersome. But I think you missed some things here.

First of all, you're confusing a number of issues and making a lot of assumptions about why people are arguing what they're arguing. I know a good number of straight people, for instance, who use "partner" not out of politically-correct concern for us gays, but because they aren't married but are committed and serious beyond the point where "boyfriend" or "girlfriend" adequately conveys the relationship. Would you have two people in their 40s who've been together for 20 years refer to each other as boyfriend and girlfriend? It's not queer theory to suggest that those terms, in addition to labeling a relationship status, connote youth and, I would argue, frivolity. My partner and I (though both male) wouldn't get married at the moment even if we were allowed to, but are also not really "boyfriends" or "dating."

This gets at my feelings about why marriage is important (despite it's religious connotations and difficult history): until we have a viable label for serious, no-end-in-sight relationships, secular society still has differing expectations for married and unmarried couples. For those couples who want, in addition to legal rights, an easily-established aura of permanence and seriousness, marriage is the only available option. Thus, it's something I want access to, in spite of the fact that I have little interest in the tradition, and disagree with your comment that marriage is inherently a "vital social institution." It's only vital because of the present situation. It's not like a society lacking marriage in favor of some other, non-ritualized way of connoting commitment would necessarily break down.

OK, ndmack, but even if there's nothing new here, this is both a substantively sound and stylistically competent post from Jamie. Bravo! As usual, I don't entirely agree with Jamie on substance, but this piece is reasonably well argued and nicely presented, with a relative minimum (for this author) of preening ad hominemism.

Well, OK, there's way too much name-calling, especially for someone who lacks the life experience to justify calling anyone names. But at some point one has to resign oneself to the reality that a certain author is just a name-calling jerk, much like certain other authors are in love with their thesauruses, say, or think the world cares what they think about the sport of baseball. We all have our faults; you accept it as a tic and move on. And so in this case, overlooking the silly little schoolboy insults, this piece maintains a credible rhetorical arc with a minimum of digressions. The paragraphs are short, the sentences reasonably tight, and the adverbs and adjectives kept to a blog-appropriate level. For all the crap we give Jamie when he presents us with poorly argued, badly written dreck, it's worth taking a moment to praise him when he turns in quality work.

On substance, surely one can muster a little sympathy for people who, when excluded from an important institution, opt to trash the institution. I know a few older Jews who said to hell with golf in the 1960s because of "restrictive" membership policies at golf clubs. I know, golf is trivial compared to marriage, but that only raises the stakes and thus the resentment against marriage that naturally results from excluding people from it. If you tell enough people that they can't get married, some of them are just going to walk away and say to hell with marriage.

OK - I have a proposal:

Given that all of our entreaties to have Jamie exiled to Patagonia, without internet or computer, has falled on deaf ears, I have another proposal.

Jamie's posts are SO incredibly relevant, cogent, well-argued and well-written that they deserve their OWN separate section in the TNR.  You can call it "The Sphincter", given that that is what follows at the end tail end of "The Spine".  For my part, I promise to visit it once a day to justify its existence.

Truly

A genuinely interested subscriber  

I wish Jonathan Swift were alive to skewer the entire "gay marriage" fantasy.  As absurd a notion as foolish mortals ever promulgated.  

I'm sure in the Land of Houyhnhm this institution would have fit in very well since it was an entire population of horse's asses.

I agree with James and Dylan.

One of the strongest arguments (in my opinion) for gay marriage is that for the two people who get married, it's not a political act, but it's a personal one.  The true sanctity of marriage is the sacred act of two people loving each other enough to publicly pledge their lives to each other for all to see.  If straight proponents of gay marriage don't marry because of political reasons, then they are acknowledging that, in the gay-marriage-is-good mind, the political takes precedence over the personal.  Besides being incorrect on the point of marriage, taking this view makes getting converts to your side difficult.

benberger:

I love your concept of the Kirchik Threshhold.  It should be used early and often.

However, I disagree with your conclusion in this instance.  By the time I read "Liberal Silliness...", I already knew it was JK's.  I humbly offer that the KT in this case is, in fact, two.

BTW, Jamie, I'm still waiting for you to name one specific high profile Obama supporter that publicly referred to McCain as "unhinged".  I suspect I'll be waiting a long time on that one.

mac, no this is a rarity, a Kirchick posting I don't hate, maybe it has something to do with it being something genuinely personal (as opposed to his fits of pique against people he reads but the content of the article has little bearing on his life). What can I say, I agree that straight people boycotting marriage as a kind of political statement is idiotic. This is akin to me of every white southern progressive not voting in response to blacks not being able to vote. Far better to agitate, agitate, agitate but to do it with patience and kindness.

I used to be against gay marriage, I thought it was not about equal rights but about gays wanting equal status. I was wrong, it is about equal rights. I am Catholic, it might be a sin but let God sort that out, I see no reason why I should impose my religious morality on this issue since gay people are free agents and there getting married in no way effects me or harms anyone (besides, theoretically gay peoples souls)

Kind of you, Chan, to stop by and give those of us who might otherwise be inclined to go after Kirchick another target.  But, having long since tired of trying to have a conversation with you about this particular subject, I will pass up both opportunities.  (Your depiction of gay marriage proponents as horses' asses is a charming touch, however.  Stay classy, big guy!)

Channy um the Houyhnhm were Swift's vision of the best of humanity (ok, they were horses which shows how likely he viewed the possibility of the best of humanity). It is a compliment to say that in a society that the best had to offer would have gay marriage. (and of course the worst would only view it as a bunch of horses asses)

The topic of gay marriage came up recently when one of my elderly relatives was visiting and she said: "Look, I have no problem with men who want to go to bed with other men. We live in a free country." On one hand, I was pleasantly surprised by her statement of tolerance, but I couldn't help noticing that a judgmental attitude seemed to lurk just below the surface of her words.

Kirchick writes: "Look, I have no problem with people who don't want to get married. We live in a free country."

Maybe the subtle judgmentalism of this kind of statement is part of why some people are skeptical about marriage as a legal institution. When the state incentivizes marriage, it reinforces a norm that already powerfully shapes our culture and society:  the single best way to live a life -- the most responsible and honorable and fulfilling way to live a life -- is to be married, to stay married, and to raise children. As with all norms, it indirectly stigmatizes those who choose (or who fail) to conform to it. This stigmatizing effect doesn't necessarily make the norm or the institution bad, of course -- not if the goods it secures for society are real and sufficiently important. But for some people, that's an open question.

Brent, don't hold your breath when challenging Kirchick on facts. I'm still waiting for him to cite even a single bit of evidence supporting his many implicit claims that the Army actually has enough brigades to maintain 100,000-plus troops in Iraq into calendar 2010. The data on brigade readiness is publicly available; why hasn't Kirchick cited it to support his recent claims about military policy and "betrayal" on the part of Democrats?

And yes, the Kirchick threshold here was in fact 2. I was actually pretty sure it was a Kirchick post after the first word of the headline, but the second word clinched it. It was still a reasonably good post, even with that exceptionally low Kirchick threshold.

(The Kirchick threshold reminds me of the concept of the milihelen, which is defined as a force sufficeient to launch a single ship.)

Come on Jamie, these people are just a bit sad, stop callilng them "leftwing".

Benberger -- I can usually tell just by the title. This one was no exception. I've given up even trying to read his posts. I don't have the energy anymore. Why a man capable of serious journalism does this mystifies me.

Hemlock, you make marriage seem so... morose.  That is why there is a need for *gay* marriage.

As Chris Rock said about gay marriage, "Gay people have the right to be just as misreable as everyone else."

I found out recently on another blog that James Kirchick gets a bonus from TNR based on the number of comments his posts provoke.

Or not! Maybe williamyard is making it up as he goes along!

Now what? As Clint noted, "You've got to ask yourself one question: do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?"

[williamyard rubs sawdust from palms]

Well, my work here is done. Time to schlep my can of Pixels-B-Gon over to the Stump and give the critters over there a few well-earned squirts...

drdannyu, sophisticated homosexuals-- most particularly Gore Vidal-- see this whole thing for what it is.  An absurd aping of an institution intended for the raising of children by people who have no need of said institution.

If it weren't for health benefits and other such that have evolved in modern times precisely for the protection of procreating families, homosexuals would not have coveted this.

Vidal lived quite happily and loyally with his partner for 40 years without ever donning a veil or going before priest.

Dear TNR,

Fire Jamie Kirchick.  Nobody likes him.

Kirchick's point is well taken and I share his sense of annoyance at the attitudes expressed by Ms. Martin, as it trivializes the arguments in favor of marriage equality.

[As for Kirchick himself, I'm not sure I understand the level of hostility he seems to draw. Agree or disagree with him as you see fit, but the vast majority of comments that shadow his posts tend towards the surly and irrational. C'mon folks -- can't we all handle a little dissent from the TNR line now and again?]

dylanposer: True.  :-)

Chan, first of all, it is hard to pretend that we are two gentleman having a polite conversation when one of us has been characterized by the other as being a horse's ass, even if not specifically.

Secondly, I do not style myself as being so sophisticated as Gore Vidal.  My birth and education being lower, doubtless I do not enjoy the wisdom his sophistication brought.  Sadly, being just another gay guy who'd really like to enjoy the same legal protections as straight couples, I feel the need to be married.  (Or, if you'd prefer, we can chuck the whole idea of civil marriage, returning it to the realm of religion where it belongs.  Everyone can get civil unions, and people who choose marriage can find a church or temple in concert with their desires and beliefs.  How very tidy that would be.)  Since, of the two of us, I am the one who has had to sit down with a lawyer and hash out the various documents necessary to secure the rights that would have seemlessly accrued to my husband (dare I use that word?) and me had we been married, I may have insight into the issue that you lack.  

Finally, unsophisticated fool that I am, I have sought the blessing of God, my friends and my family, and so felt the need to go before a priest.  (Several, actually.  I am friends with a great many priests.)  While I find it curious that you would suggest that a veil might have been involved (it wasn't), I will pass this by and merely ask you why you would care at all?  Knowing your feelings on the matter, I would probably not have invited you, thus sparing you the trouble of declining.  What is it to you if I, in my foolishness, should seek said blessings in the company of my similarly benighted loved ones?

I'm a bitter divorcee, not bitter towards the ex - that's amicable - but bitter towards the institution of marriage, or at least the p.r. it has vs. the reality. So I sympathize with all haters, but I agree with Chris Rock - it's their turn to stop looking at the greener grass over the fence, and stand right on it and see how brown it is. Absolutely. Have at it.

And as for a protest move, I don't think not-getting-married is it, because the message is just lost on its intended targets, to name only one thing. They'll somehow blame my lack of marriage on the gays too, believe it. No, the thing to do is for straight people to get civil-unioned. YEAH! Am I right or am I right? Here we are, a committed couple, love, bluebirds of happiness, etc. and we're getting a civil union because it's just as good!

Chan Chan Chan,

Gore VIdal is too sophisticated to even have a digestive tract, but he and you make the mistake of imputing that sophistication to all the homos, which is pretty unsophisticated of you. Some of those squares even want kids!

As enough pixels have already been spilled here about the actual issue at hand, let me exercise my English-major muscles with a comment on Swift.

Though traditionally the Houyhnhms were read as exemplary creatures and evidence of Swift's misanthropy, more recent scholarship has begun to consider the possibility that the Houyhnhms in fact demonstrate the absurdity of cold logic carried through to its limits. This is not to suggest that the Yahoos are in fact Swift's model for humanity, but rather that he was lampooning both extremes.

[/literary criticism]

Rhubarbs Rhubarbs Rhubarbs... how could you quote one of my favorite pieces of nerdism and then flub the key word? A millihelen is of course the amount of BEAUTY required to launch a single ship.

Yes, these people are silly. They're also straw men. Poorly constructed straw men engaging in graduate-student type mental masturbation. And yet, we are to believe that they are representative of "feminists and queer activists" aimed at upsetting a social institution?

I don't even disagree with this post as much as I find its snotty, know-it-all style to be off-putting -- sometimes even bordering on unintelligible because of the author's need to direct constant insults at the people he is analyzing. What this post really reads like is a desperate attempt by James to separate himself from the "other" gays -- or at least who he perceives the other gays to be. God help this young man if he should ever attend a pride parade.

"Queer activists" is one of those weasel terms that the self-loathing Log Cabiners, between furious attempts scanning Craigslist for sex, throw out in order to explain that while they might be gay in terms of sex, or maybe even love, they're not really gay, certainly they're better/different that the gays who think about such things. It's good to see that Roy Cohn is alive and well.

I'm all about being gay in your own way; I know I am. And it is important to challenge normative perceptions and behaviors if that is what you want to do. But don't deride every one else who is fighting the good fight as some kind of "other" who is really just trying to destroy social institutions. And certainly don't impeach us based on the fringe intellectual ravings in the American Prospect.

My Kirchick threshhold for this entry was two words.

Chan, you don't like gays, we get it. Or at least, you like the gays that you choose to deem "sophisticated." That's fine, I don't like unsophisticated straight bigots, or gay ones.

If this post were cut down to this:

"Martin isn't helping the cause by reinforcing the notion, held by many people on the other side of this issue who need the utmost convincing, that what some on the Left really want isn't "equality" for gays but the dismantling of marriage altogether."

it would have said all it needed to, and made a valid point, sans all the name-calling and libural-baiting...

Channy:

Evidently you have forgotten the little blue pills again.  If you insist on JWL-type name-calling, you are not looking for reasoned discussion - and the rest of us may be permitted to hurl Jamie-like sneers and ad hominems at you ...

But, between horses  asses and apes, and without getting into the economics and politics of the absurd institution of marriage, just so that you can actually understand what is at issue: some of us were raised in conservative societies and families and inculcated with a certain code of values.  At the same time, God or Dog or Nature or Nurture or the Fates have combined to misalign the sexual impetus/attraction with certain of society's more archaic rules and rituals.  Some ditch their values in rebellion, a very very small minority succumb to the rituals (and then, in parks and toilets and on the internet, to their Nature), but most try to make sense of both.

You cannot raise children with "marriage" as a value, and then piss all over them when they grow up and ask for it - regardless of the gender of their partner.  The institution is absurd, not the "aping"; and if insist on having it, and of privileging it, then even "people who have no need of said institution" will want to have access to it, because that is what we have been raised to believe in.

Absolutely, drdannyu,

The whole "problem" of gay marriage arises because of the inappropriate entanglement of state and religion.  For the civil status and benefits that marriage affords, there should be only civil union.  Then, gay civil union is unambiguously a matter of equal rights and gays and straights have exactly the same interest, or lack of interest, in this particular extended from of contractual relationship.  The state has an identical interest, regardless or the sexual orientation, in providing a framework for stable households and for a potentially very long-term and uniquely intimate relationship that is not well served by a purely arms-length, mutual-bargain-for-exchange contractual model.

Marriage ought to be purely a matter of religion, sanctification of a relationship in the eyes of one's faith and fellow congregants.  It is none of chanrobt's goddamned business if my faith wants to sanctify homosexual relationships with marriage.  And none of my goddamned business if his faith doesn't.  And no goddamned business of the state in either case.  If a couple getting married wants to have a civil union, they would have to get a license and, as a convenience, we should certainly allow someone authorized by a religious faith to perform a marriage to solemnize the civil union at the same time.  If they want to get married without it constituting a civil union, that should mean absolutely nothing to the state or to non-believers, any more than a baptism or a bar mitzvah does.

Not only tidy, but the end of the issue which should not be an issue at all.

I agree that I don't really understand opposing marriage as racist or sexist or anti-gay-rights (except to the extent it unjustifiably excludes gays).  I don't agree, however, that you have to be "pro-marriage" to be "genuinely pro-gay-marriage."  To me, the issue seems to be a pretty straightforward one of discrimination.  You can be strongly opposed to such discrimination without holding any view on the institution of marriage.

I view marriage as a personal thing that is neither right for everyone -- and certainly not every couple -- nor wrong for everyone.  I don't really understand what business it is of anyone else whether someone wants to get married or not.

Nor do I judge "breeders" who are not married.  I find that to be pretty gross.  So many evnironmental factors influence how a child turns out -- more than we can possibly know, probably -- that to obsess over one generic factor that is grossly overinclusive (many children of an unmarried parent will turn out just fine) and underinclusive (many children of a married couple will not turn out so well) smacks of ugly and unrealistic cultural orthodoxy.  Historically, what such orthodoxies have done is make people (and, potentially, their kids) unhappy as they fail to live up to a twisted and pointless standard.  Incidentally, it's gratuitously insulting.

So, no, James, marriage may not be "good for you."  It may be the worst mistake you make in your life.  It all depends.  People should feel free culturally, and certainly politically, to come to their own decision in the circumstances.  Commentators such as yourself, who have never been in any marriage, much less an unahppy one, have no business loitering in the vicinity ready to bestow approval or disapproval.

There was a time when I thought the state's involvement in marriage was pointless.  Why not let people get married in private and/or religious ceremonies if they want?  Why involve the state at all?  Most people's first response is to bring up children's welfare, but your marital status has no effect on your legal duties of support and care for your child.  The real reason for the state's continuing involvement is to set up an easy mechanism to recognize the nature of the marital relationship and reflect the parties' expectations in a variety of legal settings.  These include property rights -- especially the thorny and recurring issue of the distribution of marital property on dissolution as well as intestate inheritance and electing against a will that disinherits you -- medical decisions, rights to certain civil causes of action, rights to privileged communications, and rights to receive countless tax and other government and employment benefits that recognize that there is a family unit in which the parties provide long-term mutual support.

So, I do think that the married couple continues to have legal relevance, justifying the state's involvement.  But that doesn't mean the state needs to be a *moral cheerleader* when it comes to marriage.  There was a time when most marriage laws made it difficult to get divorced if one spouse didn't want one and allowed a "blameless" spouse to hold the other hostage.  Divorce courts were subject to rampant perjury and illegal schemes to bypass divorce laws.  New York, amazingly, still has an antiquated divorce law that is based on fault, which is why you shouldn't get married in New York.  It is the *only* state that doesn't have no-fault divorce.  Most states recognize that the state shouldn't really be in the business of binding people together who don't want to be bound.  I prefer that attitude.  And, guess who agrees with me?  The country's  first no-fault divorce law was signed into law by the Governor of California in 1970, Ronald Reagan.

Oh my GAWD! Milihelen = my new favorite word.

I'm kinda reminded of Martin Donovan's line in "The Opposite of Sex" (one of the funniest ever movies I have seen - Christina Ritchie is Goddes):

"Listen to me, you little grunge faggot. I survived my family, my schoolyard, every Republican, every other Democrat, Anita Bryant, the Pope, the fucking Christian Coalition, not to mention a real son of a bitch of a virus, in case you haven't noticed. In all that time since Paul Lynde and Truman Capote were the only fairies in America, I've been busting my ass so that you'd be able to do what you wanted with yours! So I don't just want your obedience right now [] but I want your fucking gratitude, right fucking now ...".

prnoonan wins.

again, Kirchick takes a reasonable position and buries it under a welter of Youthful Know It Allism and a false sane v liberal insane framing.

How this guy can step all over his own d--k on almost every issue is truly startling...

Yes, Barnacle, Log Cabin-types are gay only by virtue of sex.  But it's more than that--their Log Cabin-identity is central to the sex that they want.  I have insider information (pool party) that Log Cabin gays are very very kinky, a fact that led me to theorize that the repression-of-the-repressed sensibility is the basis around which a very masochistic and ravenous form of lust can be generated.

It's not about taxes--it's about role play.  

I find Chan's line of reasoning more or less persuasive:

"If it weren't for health benefits and other such that have evolved in modern times precisely for the protection of procreating families, homosexuals would not have coveted this."

In my view, however, it's the other great, near universally dreaded (with reason) but to the greater extent complied with (for one reason) ancient institution, namely taxation, that I would want to have the right to marry my partner of 32 years. Except that we have no children. Other than that, I'd be 100% in favor of instituting gay marriage as coequal with heterosexual marriage.

As I understand it, throughout history marriage customs and laws have varied all over the place, with "input" from the State and Church. read if you dare http://tinyurl.com/ykjhpu for an excellent discussion of marriage through the ages - in the West.

What I would prefer for the moment would be to abolish the joint tax category, as it's hugely inequitable. Instead grant any couple, gay, straight, transy, homophobic or homophilic, a tax credit to offset certain expenses (such as education) incurred and associated with raising a child. Other than that,  nada, no change other than to permit any couple to marry or unionize as and when they see fit, if they pay the fee for a civil license. Sorry, churches and churchgoers, charities, etc., it's the only fair thing to do. I.M.O.

Couldn't you have made this post longer, Jim? I mean, why disappoint your fans? For one thing, you completely neglected the Iranian bomb angle.

Just to put my own preference out there for all to see, I would like to be married to my partner. I like the sound of it, and it would be less befuddling...in some ways.

What I really like about Gulliver is that it lays bare the near universal pre-occupation of human beings to wipe *somebody else* from the face of the earth. Not nice, can be horrific, but in certain cases I have to admit...

Cookie:  Agreed.

ackyri writes, "...more recent scholarship has begun to consider the possibility that the Houyhnhms in fact demonstrate the absurdity of cold logic carried through to its limits. "

Thanks for this, ackyri.  Because happily, to my own thesis, gay marriage, like many modern legalistic concepts essentially is logic carried to its ridiculous extreme.

Marriage was not designed for the happiness and bliss of lovers.  But to protect the inheritance rights of and guarantee  responsibility be taken for the issue of actual marriage, i.e. children.

Without such issue being the natural result of a coupling, "marriage" as a concept is on its face, absurd.  Only a society as ridiculous as the post 1968 Western ones would ever have seen it otherwise.

We are a foolish people, indeed.  

tomeg writes, "...What I would prefer for the moment would be to abolish the joint tax category, as it's hugely inequitable."

tomeg, certain privileges have been granted to the married to encourage families.  Families are to be encouraged, not for the benefit of the married couple per se,  but for the benefit that healthy marriages bring to children.

Children are expensive to raise.  Most if not all herterosexual couple create children.  Therefor, certain financial privileges or advantages were conferred upon families.

That is how these tax advantages as well as corporate benefits to families evolved.

Our contemporaries have lost all connection between cause and effect since the invention of the birth control pill.  Which has had the unintended consequence of undoing all sorts of beneficial discipline in our society.

Barnacle, I like gays just fine-- some of my best friends (as well as favorite relatives, come to think of it) and all that stuff.  So what you think you get, you get wrong.

But, I am also interested in the health of my civilization.  And gay marriage, along with myriad other contemporary follies (serial divorce, for instance) need to be opposed.

Chan,

Marriage is in the eye of the beholder, cutie.

"Marriage was... designed...  to protect the inheritance rights of and guarantee  responsibility be taken for the issue of actual marriage, i.e. children. Without such issue being the natural result of a coupling, "marriage" as a concept is on its face, absurd."

ChanRobt: By this "logic", the state should protect marriage from becoming absurd by withholding marriage licenses from couples who are past child-bearing age or who are infertile for other reasons.

icarsur...

The Opposite of Sex was such a great movie and one of Ricci's better roles. I really hated her character to say the least. But that quote from the movie reminded me of the Pet Shop Boys' lyrics for their song Young Offender.

"You may be broke now, and you may be bored

Call you delinquent or leave you ignored

You'll get what you want

Drive to distraction, crash on the way

Watch your reaction, wait 'til you say

You'll get what you want

It hurts if you can't

Young offender, what's your defense?

You're younger than me, obviously

Young offender, why the pretense?

You don't agree, I know, I know

I'll do what you want if you want me enough

I'll put down my book and start falling in love

Or isn't that done?

How graceful your movements, how bitter your scorn

I've been a teenager since before you were born

And I'm younger than some

I've only begun

Young offender, what's your defense?

You're younger than me, obviously

When I get in your way, or open your eyes?

Who will give whom the bigger surprise?

Is there fire in your eyes, or the glow of machines?

Watch how your fingers thumb over the keys

So sure what you do

I haven't a clue

Young offender, what's your defense?

You're younger than me, obviously

Young offender, how you resent

The lovers you need, it hurts when they bleed

Young offender, why the pretense?

You don't agree, I know, I know"

dylanposer wrote:

"It's not about taxes--it's about role play."

Putting aside its provocative, succinct application to the discussion at hand, I think I'll steal dylanposer's line and send it in to the New Yorker next week for their cartoon caption contest. It likely will have nothing to do with the cartoonist's image, but with luck it will confuse and irritate one or more editors.

Ever since some guys played the "no soap, radio" joke on me when I was a kid, I've been waiting to get my revenge. The opportunity is now at hand.

"If you insist on JWL-type name-calling, you are not looking for reasoned discussion - and the rest of us may be permitted to hurl Jamie-like sneers and ad hominems at you ..."

icarusr I can consider a concept to be asinine without considering everyone who believes it to be an ass.  

And, it is the concept of gay "marriage"  that I am attacking as I consider it to be worse than silly, but ultimately extremely destructive to cohesive and healthy society.

Perfectly intelligent and reasonable friends of mine believe in this very foolish concept.  they are not, by any means fools.  But, they are dangerously misguided.  As are many millions of others.

There are a lot of ideas and opinions that people have that if carried out will create inconvenience for others.  But, that is all.  Gay marriage, because it undermines powerfully important concepts like the sanctity of family and child-raising, threatens the fabric of civilization.

And if you bring up the evil of very common heterosexual divorce, I'll agree with you.  Easy divorce has been very destructive in the west.  Just as the old fogies warned it would be back 40 years or so when it became so widespread.

Adding little to the gay marriage debate, I'd just say that Chan's assertion that marriage is for raising children is another sign of the last gasp utterances of the anti-gay marriage folks. As someone who's also a divorcee I've come to the conclusion that marriage is as much a state of mind as it is a place of heart. Will I get married again? Yes. But I also understand that marriage doesn't guarantee eternal happiness or ensure the raising of children. What it does do is codify in a symbolic manner the dedication and love that you have for a person. This of course does not necessarily apply to the marriages throughout history that were and are a result of unplanned pregnancies, shotgun weddings or arranged marriages which are done only out of the illogical reasoning that marriage actually does ensure a fruitful place for raising of children.

Historically marriage had less to do with love or commitment or even successfully raising a family but instead was predicated on the ideas of ensuring family blood-lines passed on, political families maintained power or social standing was maintained. Children were considered a necessity to continue these goals not as THE goal.

The modern ideals of marriage are more 19th and 20th century romantics that marriage is about love and dedication to the person you are marrying and a future commitment to raising a family. I prefer the modern iteration of marriage versus the historical iteration. This is why excluding gays from marriage is as classless and baseless as excluding any two people who love and are committed to a lifetime together is an ethical denial of modern man.

I agree with Rhubarbs that this is a pretty good post once you get past the unnecessary name-calling.  As opposed to the standard Kirchick, this one doesn't attempt to use name-calling in *place* of substantive arguments; the substance is there, with the insults just tacked on as ornamentation.

I could not even finish Jamie's dreary godawful post.

I'll proudly call myself both a silly liberal and a horses ass in this one (takes one to know one Channy).

I deeply admire people who are willing to walk the walk for their beliefs, you know - sacrifice (all conservatives can now run for the hills now that such a collectivist horror of a concept has been mentioned) their own comfort to show solidarity with people they love who are victims of institutionalized bigotry.  

I wish I'd had he courage to do that 13 years ago when I got married.  I did not.  My best friend, other friends as well as family members who are gay and would love to marry do not mind, but I often have over the years.  I feel guilty for not walking the walk, sitting over here on this side of the privilege fence while my loved ones look back from their side.  I should be over there with them and I don't give the first shit what anyone thinks of me for this belief.

It reminds me of the story of HD Thoreau, sitting in jail for refusing to pay taxes to a government that allowed slavery, when a friend came to see him.  "Henry, what on earth are you doing in here?"

"What on earth are you doing out there?"

Chan,

A few points.  First, arguments about the historical purposes of marriage are largely beside the point with respect to whether our *current* institution should be extended to gay couples.  Second, the "marriage as encouragement for having and raising kids" argument, taken to its logical conclusion, would suggest that people who are sterile for one reason or another should also be barred from marriage.  And there is no reason whatever that gay couples raising children should not enjoy the same privileges.  Finally, you still have yet to articulate exactly *how* gay marriage would harm the health of our civilization.  Please explain.

Channy,

This is the second time you pass an insult and then hide behind "idiotic concept".  It won't work this time and I won't let you off as easily as the last time.  This is what you said:

"I'm sure in the Land of Houyhnhm this institution would have fit in very well since it was an entire population of horse's asses."

You referred to the population; population is about people (or horses) and not about concepts.  And very clearly, others read your line in the same way as I did (see DrDan's comment above).  So, while I hold your ideas to be dangerously misguided and, in some respects, even repugnant, I am willing to engage in a discussion if you are willing to discuss, rather than insult.  I'll accept your non-retraction, but please: it's one thing if you agree with Jamie, but don't sink to his stylistic level.

Single: many thanks for the PSB reminder - brought back great memories from university days!

Dylanposer: Fucking awesome line.

William,

Thank you very much for your indulgence.  Now that the shotgun wedding as been invoked, I will leave you with a line taken my favorite sign at SF Pride this year--becuase it would be wrong of me to not relay it:

"West Ver-ginny Shotgun Weddin'!  Bun = Gun: Run, Run, Run!"

Wandreycer1: My first ever Letter to the Editor (as soon as I left the Iranian theocracy, I started using this wonderful, precious gift of freedom of expression - man, I can still feel the sensation of writing what I wanted, sending it off and seeing it in print,without fearing Cell 8 - Iran's Room 101.), referring to the shappy treatment of some marginal group by the Catholic Archdiocese in Toronto, concluded with these words, "When the priest, the hand of God at his side, has no compassion, I'd rather be among the hated few."  So I know full well your sentiment.

But then, sometimes it is also possible to do good without walking in the shoes of those suffering.

Alan: Everytime I hear a conservative guy talking about "the health of our civilisation", I am reminded of Cato the Elder, who in the third century BCE was decrying the morals of the Romans and lamenting the end of the Roman civilisation ... lo and behold, Roman civilisation reached its Zenith three hundred years later under a Roman Emperor who made his young gay lover into a God ;-) ... As you walk into the Rotunda of the Vatican Museum, look to the right, where you see the 18' figure of this God, along side that of his Emperor-Lover.  Just one of many small ironies of history ...

Civilisation will end not because two men marry to share a life, but because we forget what the hell our civilisation is all about any way.

Chan, it's for the very argument you raise - "certain privileges have been granted to the married to encourage families.  Families are to be encouraged, not for the benefit of the married couple per se,  but for the benefit that healthy marriages bring to children" - that I would prefer the joint filing to be abolished; because the tax grant is unwarranted in the majority of marriages, if healthy families and good environment for children are the criteria for awarding the benefit. I'm sick of having nominally, and legally, married couples which have no children, or children they fail to raise with  a sense of civic responsibility (like voting, supporting highest quality education in their homes and communities, etc.; and have such little regard for the child's need for good parenting, an emotionally and morally stable environment, and readily divorce without considering the child's (or children's) needs to grow up healthy and contributing to the common good, etc.) rewarded with the tax exemption. Like I said, if two (or more) people resolve to carry the burden of raising children, where they actually do so they should be compensated by the state and taxpayers. Otherwise, the whole marriage sanctity argument is a sick joke.

Also, couples applying for marriage licenses should be made to watch a couple of selected episodes of Judge Judy. There.

icarusr...PSB reminds me of my undergrad days. The roommates and I spent a summer listening to Behavior for weeks on end. Needless to say I had to wait many years to see them live in Denver.

And a tip of the hat for keeping Channy on his proverbial toes. I sometimes wonder if he posts these views to be contrarian but then his level of consistency leaves me to believe he truly believes that gay marriage would be the death knell of Western civilization as we know it. I find that line of reasoning to anachronistic to the contemporary world we're living in this century. One wonders if he'd be more content dressed in Edwardian clothing pining for the proper place of women in society as well.

icarusr, I was missing Swift.  We really, really need him these days.  His horses, as another poster pointed out, are a metaphor for a kind of logic taken to its absurd extreme.  

In any event, I played the "horse's asses" riff because it had some pleasing irony to it.  

But, if all sorts of people took that to mean, you, sir are a horses' ass and I'm looking at you, well, that's unfortunate.  I hold most of the regulars here in a sort of cyber-affection.  But, I think you are disingenuously choosing to take rhetoric personally when I know you (and Dr. Danny) are too smart to know better.  So, Chan, no apology necessary.

Meanwhile, singlespeed writes, "...Historically marriage had less to do with love or commitment or even successfully raising a family but instead was predicated on the ideas of ensuring family blood-lines passed on, political families maintained power or social standing was maintained. Children were considered a necessity to continue these goals not as THE goal."

That's fine by me, singlespeed.  I'm not making a sentimental argument here. about cute little babies.  Those goals you enumerate reinforce what I'm saying.  Marriage is designed to serve a societal good, which includes cohesive families, and children who know their last names.  It's not about hearts and flowers, 19th Century notwithstanding.

AlanSP writes,  "...the "marriage as encouragement for having and raising kids" argument, taken to its logical conclusion, would suggest that people who are sterile for one reason or another should also be barred from marriage.  And there is no reason whatever that gay couples raising children should not enjoy the same privileges."

the marriage of a man and a woman who could not produce children because of age or any other reason has never been proscribed because it was not a radical act.

Gay marriage, whatever opinions here that might prevail, is a radical act that is at least partly meant to challenge and undermine traditional marriage, not strengthen it.  It is clearly a revolutionary act, and not so sanguine as you all might think or pretend to think.  Let us not forget that gay marriage is still oppsed by a good majority of the population and by every major politician.  Including the beloved Obama.

singlespeed, though the Edwardians had their charms, the last decent century was the 18th.  People with some brains actually ran things in certain nations, the United States most prominently.

I promise you, no political documents as intelligent, elegant, and well constructed as The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution would ever emanate from the America of 2008.  

A Constitutional Convention held today would be a disaster of moronic ideas which would most definitely bring our civilization to a halt.

"The health of civilization?"

ChannyBoy, when you want to repeat any more arguments from 1950s segregationists or people who opposd the Civil War or letting women work, please be my guest.

I'd say that the intellectual opposition to gay marriage is in its last throes, but that would presume that there ever was a legitimate, non-prejudiced reason to deny marriage to consenting same-sex adults.

CORRECTO:

I know you (and Dr. Danny) are too smart to not to know better.

Chan...

I think you conflate the idea of "raising a family" as being equal to reproduction. As you point out and I reaffirmed...the historical idea of marriage wasn't necessarily done so for purely the purpose of raising a family. Most were in fact done out of political necessity not because the primary goal was to have a family. Most certainly this was the case of Feudal Europe whereby marriages were done for purposes of political and military stability between warring factions or further the political power as in the case of Renaissance Italy. The children were a means to an end.

If gays get married and then proceed to adopt or through artificial means biologically have children, this in no way devalues or negates the "ideal" of marriage. Looking at it in a contemporary manner, of which I think we should, marriage is a symbol of commitment to the person one marries with the final intent of raising/having children. The means by which one raises or has children matters not. As there are many heterosexual couples who for personal reasons never marry and have children and raise them successfully there as many homosexual couples, while denied the symbolic act of marriage, must make do and go on to raise successful marriages.

If my gay friends and cousin were to marry tomorrow it would not affect the state of the world one iota. It wouldn't cause the collapse of moral fibre any more than the damage done by all the straight married people in the world have. It wouldn't cause children to become more or less gay. It wouldn't affect my desires to remarry and ultimately have kids as well. As much as I am a traditionalist in that I think children born and/or raised by happily married couples is the best way to ensure children succeed in life, I recognize that heterosexuals do not have and should not a monopoly on what constitutes a happy marriage nor what constitutes a functioning family. If two people, regardless of sexual orientation, chose to marry and raise a family then more power to them. I would rather they do so within the sanctity of marriage because they choose and desire too but also because they, as a married couple, will do so as a family.

For someone whose whole premise relies upon the argument of raising children within the confines of marriage, I would expect you to understand that if gays were allowed to marry, the family unit in which children of gay parents are currently raised would be that much stronger, that much better and that much more in line with the traditional idea that marriage and family are cohesive units. As it stands, your position ensures the children raised by gay couples are considered second class for having been raised by a couple that is not "married" and either parent can simply walk away from the obligations they've chosen(!) without the confines of marriage. Don't you see? Their commitment to raising children and having a family is inherently stronger because they've chosen to do so even without the blessings, sanctity and symbolism of marriage.

A few points, Chan.

1)  I don't care if Obama opposes gay marriage.  My sun doesn't rise and set with him.  I don't care if gay marriage is opposed by every single personal hero I ever hope to have (of which, no matter how much I may admire him, Obama is not one) opposes it.    Gay people have put up with majority disapproval for a very long time, but it hasn't made us any more straight or any less genuine in our pursuit of happiness.

2)  Perhaps you didn't mean the horse's ass comment to be as insulting as it was.  Just as you think I am too smart to take it so literally, I think you are too smart to play so innocent.  But, let us call it bygone.

3)  Finally, you say "Gay marriage, whatever opinions here that might prevail, is a radical act that is at least partly meant to challenge and undermine traditional marriage, not strengthen it."  I have no idea what you mean by that.  True, it is a "radical" departure from the previous norm.  So, what?  How does it follow that, by taking my vows, I mean to subvert yours?  Please explain, rather than merely assert,

Really Chan you believe the last great century in America was the 18th century?

I suspect you mean politically only. I dare say I don't think the medical breakthroughs of lancing and bleeding your illnesses away back then can out-do the medical understanding of say...penicillin or MRIs.

I don't know that the Constitution and Declaration of Independence would be less intelligent if it were hashed out today. It would certainly take much, much longer to do so and I certainly think the Bill of Rights and Amendments would be far more substantial in what rights would be included outright. The Founders, finding themselves in a singular moment in man's history, were able to construct those two documents upon which the last two centuries have been built upon. But I also think they were not without their own contradictions and complexities of which were borne out during the congresses to get the documents close to right (for their time). But then, if you only let landowning white males do all the talking then of course you limit the realm of discourse to a select few. That doesn't mean that select few were or are always the best.

good lord O'Channy....the last great century was the 18th!  My mind reels at the absurdity of that comment.

and I hardly think that anyone wanting to get married, either gay or straight, is committing a radical act. Marriage is a rather conventional institution that in my mind, will be strengthen by allowing commited adults to get married. Lord knows that we straights have trashed the institution and we can hardly claim an elevated moral perspective when it comes to the sanctity of marriage.

And I predict that come November, CA will vote down the initiative opposing gay marriage. I know, I know that Californians voted down gay marriage 6 or 8 years ago, in fact, I voted against gay marriage last time. Not this time: I have changed and so has CA.

Chan wrote: "Gay marriage... is a radical act..."

So was the demand for female suffrage. And the abolition of slavery. And the refusal by Rosa Parks to give up her seat on the bus. If gay marriage is, as you say, meant to challenge traditional marriage, that's only because traditional marriage is exclusionary and unjust.

And you haven't answered the most important question that people are asking you here: how the hell does gay marriage "undermine" the marriages of straight couples? When Carl and Sandra, my married neighbors, look out their window on Saturday afternoons and see Jennie and Fiona, our lesbian neighbors, washing their car in the driveway, or mowing their lawn and gardening, how the hell does that weaken or undermine their marriage?????

I should clarify: Jennie and Fiona are also married. (I live in Canada, where all the heterosexual marriages I know of seem to be doing just fine, despite the fact that same-sex marriage is also a legal reality.)

Chan is nostalgia for a century in which he didn't live, in a place that never was. I wonder if he would really be willing to give up the modern conveneinces and sceintific acheivements of the 20th and 21st century for a chancve to live in the 19th century. me thinks not.

Technically (i.e., from a non-anthrocentric perspective), the greatest century was the 14th, when the plague wiped out as many as one third of the human beings on the planet.

Given that us just plain folks are unapologetic entropy machines bent on breaking every carbon bond within reach like some suicidal, crank-smoking high school dropout dismembering his younger brother's Tinkertoy construction on Christmas morning, any century jump-starting that level of pandemic buzzkill can't be all bad.

The 14th Century better not rest on its laurels, however, seeing as the 22nd is just around the geologic timescale corner, during which Ma Nature will awaken from her recent hibernation (thanks to our handy global warming alarm clock) and back-hand humanity across our collective face, claw side out, like a mama grizzly bear seriously hung over from gorging on overripe berries and in no mood for her idiotic cubs' whiny crack-of-dawn bullshit.

tomeg: Regarding your points: Yeah.

In my forthcoming novel about boxing (working title: "seconds out") i'm devoting a chapter to gay marriage.

My feelings on the subject mirrors pretty much my whole philosophy on life, which comes down to everybody's got a right to be happy.

I had an uncle (my fathers brother) who was gay. He's since passed on, and though he left our hometown at an early age, i had a very high regard for him, more so than i did my other aunts and uncles, i can now admit. We kept in touch during those times, and he always asked me how my training was going. (I was already deep into boxing by then.) The truth was, his siblings, including my dad, considered him an outcast, though i believe my old man was starting to change his mind as the years went by. His other brothers and sisters never did, as far as i know. He spent his adult life in the education field, and i've never known a better man. When my wife and i got married, my uncle gene was present. He traveled some distance (my father was deceased by then) and it meant a lot to both of us for him to be there.

billyYard, wunnerful.  Yer right.  

Here's to the wonderful 14th Century.

Then the 18th.

the 22nd will probably be great, too.  Every 400 years.

Now, yard, there's no call to get sentimental...

My father, G-d rest his soul, would applaud your every word. "Thomas, human beings are a blight on the planet. We're overrun the habitat wherever we go, leaving our garbage behind. You couldn't invent a worse malady. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with humanity, it's people I can't stand, they're no damn good, I tell you, Thomas."

I don't exactly know why discussions about marriage put me in such a foul, sardonic mood. It's something I need to work through with my therapist. But there it is.

I admit have been to some lovely weddings, and I am close with several number of married couples, straight and gay, and I love kids, even when they're impossible most times. I don't believe I am a misanthrope. I do believe in G-d, and good, generosity, forgiveness, love, charity, etc., but I have seen too few personal, cultural, and societal, beneficial outcomes resulting from marriage, compared to the misery and devastation unwise and unsupported marriages produce. I wholeheartedly support healthy marriages and families when and wherever they come - gay and straight - and I think anybody who d