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Gay Marriage: What's at Stake? 

11/5/2012

2 Comments

 
By next week this time we should have a better idea whether gay rights will make a big step forward or we will be forced to shuffle.  I am referring to the US election taking place this Tuesday, November 6th.  We will see if Barack Obama or Mitt Romney will be in the US White House in January and whether the US Congress will be in Democrat or Republican control.  Obama and the Democrats will try to promote gay rights (to some extent) but Romney and the Republicans have promised to thwart such things as same-sex marriages.

There is no direct or necessary correlation between what happens in the USA and other countries.  But we will be affected anyway.  Events in Washington DC are more than mere portents.  A big set-back for gay rights in the USA will encourage anti-gay partisans everywhere.

I take it that the right to get married is the current barometer measuring the pressure for the whole range of LGBT rights.  Apparently the opponents think so, too.  It would be difficult to account for the force of their opposition otherwise.  They must think that if gay marriages are allowed to be normal, then gay civil rights in other areas will follow, and soon gay people will be normalized rather than stigmatized, ostracized and otherized.  Their rhetoric is panicky and exaggerated, implying that allowing us into the mainstream will undermine stable society and imperil civilization.  We retort that we are already everywhere and social order is not crumbling, so just give us a fair slice of the benefits.

I wonder if we aren’t understating the stakes in the gay-marriage movement as much as the hysterical opponents are overstating it.

2 Comments
Adam
11/5/2012 08:02:26 am

Dr. Ken-

Great post! I have been thinking quite a bit about what's at stake for gay people in this election. Keep up the good work!

I leave you with this excerpt from Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning playwright Doug Wright's recent post on his Facebook page:

I wish my moderate Republican friends would simply be honest. They all say they're voting for Romney because of his economic policies (tenuous and ill-formed as they are), and that they disagree with him on gay rights. Fine. Then look me in the eye, speak with a level clear voice, and say, "My taxes and take-home pay mean more than your fundamental civil rights, the sanctity of your marriage, your right to visit an ailing spouse in the hospital, your dignity as a citizen of this country, your healthcare, your right to inherit, the mental welfare and emotional well-being of your youth, and your very personhood." It's like voting for George Wallace during the Civil Rights movements, and apologizing for his racism. You're still complicit. You're still perpetuating anti-gay legislation and cultural homophobia. You don't get to walk away clean, because you say you 'disagree' with your candidate on these issues.

For more on this issue, I suggest this thought-provoking piece entitled The Big Lie: 'I Love My Gay Friends, but I'm Voting for Romney Anyway'

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-hennessy/the-big-lie-i-love-my-gay-friends-but-im-voting-for-romney-anyway_b_2030629.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false

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Don P link
11/5/2012 02:35:40 pm

As a pro-LGBT rights straight white guy, I have thought about my experience of divorce. I have thought it unfortunate that as you say 'the right to get married is the current barometer measuring the pressure for the whole range of LGBT rights.'

I have said 'unfortunate' not because I am against equality, but that I have felt that state licensing of marriage to be a vestige of a previous era of social control that is no longer appropriate. It is none of the business of the state to know the sexual relationship or economic ties of people we live with. It is not a hospital's right to say to one couple that the partner has visiting rights and to another that the partner does not. It is not the State Department's right to prohibit a declared partner entry to the United States for a family visit or to prohibit gainful employment. All of that is a contrived and arbitrary assertion of control over free people for no good end and is therefore morally wrong.

That having been said, the LGBT leadership has already taken us in that direction and have decided that marriage rights will be the keystone of it's policy proposals. There we have it.

Meanwhile in Thailand, LGBT is huge and with less stringent rules (positive OR negative). Do you think that perhaps beliefs will play the larger role in shaping families and social networks.

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