Separate But Equal?
On a proposal for only non-gender based civil unions being considered by the state, but still allowing churches to only marry heterosexual couples:
I agree with you that this would be an acceptable solution, at least if we lived in a country free from religion – BUT –
You still end up at the issue of discrimination, especially when it comes to religion.
Should a church be able to refuse to marry a gay couple? Should they be able to refuse a black couple? An interracial couple? A couple who doesn’t want children? A couple too old to have children? A disabled couple? A couple with a large age difference? This is where it becomes very problematic.
If a church can refuse to marry a gay couple, can they refuse them “membership?” Can a restaurant refuse to host a gay wedding?
Can they turn away gay patrons? Can they turn away a specific race or religion from entering? Does this “right to exclude” apply to any institution? This is a dangerous path.
When does “freedom of religion” stop?
If it doesn’t stop at discrimination against others, where does it?
At ritual sacrifice? Child abuse?
If you want to suggest that in a “completely free” society, any individual or organization can choose who they provide their services to, whether it’s a coffee shop that won’t serve black people or a church that won’t marry lesbians or a moving company that won’t move handicap people, that is consistent logic, but I don’t think you would suggest something so inhumane.
If you do think that as part of a society, and members of a state, we should protect people from being discriminated against, than why is religion exempt from that?
This is the ongoing battle in Judeo-Christian-Islamic countries.
Does religious freedom trump human rights?
If Muslims believe that women are inferior, and should not be educated, should we respect their treatment of women in Muslim countries as acceptable? If they don’t allow women into mosques, is this acceptable under the banner of religious freedom?
If Hindus believe that certain people, including children, are “untouchable” and should be left to die, should we find this acceptable?
If Christians in the United States want to refuse to marry gay couples, should we allow this under the guise of respecting their religion?
If I am an extremist and want believe I have to kill others to reach heaven, should I escape trial?
This really is the argument about gay marriage (and abortion, and women’s rights, and minority rights, and economic disparity, etc.)
It’s about individual freedom and collective wellbeing.
What is problematic for me is that I don’t think the “individual freedom” argument is consistent.
I can consistently say that no person, organization, institution or business should be allowed to discriminate against anyone on any basis in regard to the selling of their services or good, or in regard to their hiring practices.
I don’t think anyone with a religious argument can consistently say the opposite. You might agree that a café shouldn’t be allowed to refuse to serve black people, or force them to use a separate water fountain. You might agree that a company (or a lender, or a landlord) shouldn’t be allowed to exclusively sell to or rent to or provide funds for men, refusing any women. You might agree that a restaurant shouldn’t be allowed to not seat handicap people. But you would still argue that a religious institute has the RIGHT to refuse to marry gay people. That is inconsistent.
If I am wrong, and you think people and businesses should be able to discriminate as they please under the guise of “freedom…”
Well, just think about that.
That’s not the America I want to live it.
On why, as an atheist/Buddhist, I care about whether churches discriminate:
Believe me, I have no interest in going anywhere near a pedophile protecting, money laundering, homophobic, misogynist, hate mongering Catholic church.
But! I am not everyone. Nearly 3/4 of Catholics support gay marriage, and I know some (unfortunate) gay and lesbian people who are devout Catholics and think that gay marriage is just one of those things that the church still has wrong… You know, like plenary indulgences, the crusades and the inquisition. They want to be married in their church with their supportive Catholic families. And to deny them that because they are gay or lesbian is unjust, unethical and uncivilized.
You are proposing a teleological suspension of the ethical – that is, that your religious beliefs and religious freedom trump basic ethics and human rights and dignity. That’s a philosophy adopted by Jihadists, neo Nazis, Jim Jones, and that crazy lady who heard god tell her to drown her children in the bathtub. If that’s the company you want to be in, be my guest.
Most reasonable people, even Catholics, see that to deny a gay person a service you would provide to a straight person is discrimination, something that is wrong and un-American. If we allow “churches” that receive funding and tax breaks to discriminate, given that those “churches” could not exist otherwise, we are promoting discrimination and hate as a nation.
How does being discriminated against fit into “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?”
On marriage equality being a “small” issue when there are issues that affect more people that need action:
It is something that affects every American as a member of a society that does not value the civil rights of others.
That’s like saying slavery only affected slaves or women’s suffrage only affected women.
How a society treats its minorities says a great deal about that society.
So while you, as a heterosexual, won’t be personally affected by gay marriage, and a gay person would be in a significant way – it affects you both with regard to the virtue of your society.
Now I agree with you that a huge part of the solution is to, as you said, remove religious undertones from civil marriage. But if religious organizations (the Catholic church,) non-religious institutions with religious ties (Boy Scouts) or companies (Exxon) are allowed to discriminate, we still have a problem.
From this conversation thus far, you have suggested that anti-discrimination legislation shouldn’t apply to private companies or religion, but have yet to show how this laissez-faire approach to anti-discrimination policies has had any positive effect on a society.
I believe that one role of the government is to protect minorities from discrimination – this obviously trumps the right of bigots to discriminate. It seems you disagree. What has more importance, protecting the right of individuals to discriminate, or protecting the right of individuals to be free from discrimination? You can’t have both.
Do we protect the right to discriminate or the discriminated against? I hope in looking at that question you’ll see the humanity in my argument.
On religious arguments against marriage equality:
To those with the extreme negativity towards gay marriage, or silly “I’ll pray for you comments,” the fact of the matter is that at the end of the day it is not a religious matter, it is a civil matter. Whether you like or approve of it, same sex couples are entering into in loving, committed relationships, taking care of one another, and raising children. To deny these people the benefit of the law that opposite sex couples have is both a violation of their rights… and quite bluntly, cruel. Why should the law deny a woman who was with her partner for fifty years the ability to visit her as she dies in the hospital because she is not “family?” Or deny her the right to make medical decisions for her partner? There are over 1,200 rights that heterosexual married couples enjoy that same sex couples are denied. How is this just? It is also a ludicrous debate because at the end of the day, it has literally no effect on heterosexual couples. It doesn’t devalue marriage – look at Britney Spears and Kim Kardashian if you want to see marriage devalued. And it won’t indoctrinate your children – trust me they already are thanks to pop culture and things like Glee. The net effect is zero. Gay people are already prominently all over and open, whether marriage is legal or not. It affects them in a fundamental way that alters their lives. It affects opponents in no way at all.
I might find religious arguments against marriage and homosexuality archaic and backwards and comparable to the Biblical arguments against interracial marriage… hell, I find religion in general archaic and backwards. But denying people rights that affect them everyday for some hypothetical moral high ground doesn’t seem very “Christ-like” to me. Do you think Jesus would have wanted Janice Langbehn to be forced to wait outside while her female partner of decades died alone? I don’t think he would.
On why I continue to engage on the subject with extremist Christians:
[REDACTED], I understand your feelings about wasting time trying to reason with “these people,” and I agree that the chance of getting through to them is slim to none- but the unfortunate reality is that they make up an alarming amount of this country. If we are to make progress in the present, we have to try. I don’t think Jihadist “should” be reasoned with, but the world we live in means that for peace we must.
[REDACTED 2], you seem to be following the “Santorum” philosophy of homosexuality, which is to say one of obsessed with butt sex, or as you say, misuse of a body system. You must also be against oral sex, masturbation, sex with your married heterosexual partner that is not to make a baby, sex between infertile people, sex with women too old to conceive, etc. Frankly I feel sorry for you that you would be so against the simple joys of intimacy with your partner, even in the context of marriage. If you aren’t against these things, than you must agree that we should prevent the elderly, the disabled, the infertile, those who do not want children, and anyone else who can’t or doesn’t want to have children from getting married as well. Otherwise that logic is hypocritical.
Making a serious point though, you suggest a “lifestyle based on biological misuse” which is so ignorant I don’t even know where to start discussing it. Do you only wish to be with a woman because you want to have vaginal, procreative intercourse with her? Is that the extent of your relationships?
Gay people are only “gay” because our society is discriminatory. In a perfect world no one would be gay and lesbian because no one would judge who people find partnership with. The label exist because of discrimination. Just like how we don’t label marriages between people of a different color anything other than marriage, in an open minded world, marriage would be marriage whether man and man or man and different race woman.
It has little to nothing to do with sex. Do gay people have sex? Yes. Is that why they are gay? No. They are gay because they have a physical, mental, emotional and psychological desire to find partnership with a person of the same gender rather than with a person of the opposite gender. They don’t choose this. Some people find love with a woman, some with a man, and some with both. That is just how they are. There is no lifestyle.
If by lifestyle you mean the promiscuous, drug and sex filled assless chaps parade you see at pride events, that makes up a tiny minority of gay people. People like Edie Windsor make up the majority. And I assure you that there are more heterosexual fetishists than homosexual ones.
