Saturday, August 11, 2007

Are You a Bigot?




We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all (straight) men are created equal....


The democratic candidates had their LBGT (Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay and Transgender) and they all seemed to dance around the issue of gay marriage (except Kucinich).

Should homosexuals be allowed to marry? I don't see how you can say anything but "yes, of course".

The conservative opposition, seems to have these basic justification for not allowing it:

  • If we allow that, we have to allow polygamy and bestiality, it's a slippery slope.
  • If we allow gay people to get married, our kids will all turn gay.
  • God doesn't like it.
In a country, where we purport to believe all people should be given basic freedoms, the bar ought to be set pretty high in order to deny rights and I don't think any of these quite measures up. And by quite, I mean whatsoever.

The democratic position seems to be, "well, they should have all the rights of married people but we shouldn't call it marriage" (except for Kucinich). Why not just call it marriage? It's kind of like saying "if interracial people get married, we should just give it another name".

In my opinion, government sponsored (for lack of a better word) same sex marriages should absolutely be legalized and it should be called just that. I don't think you can force individual religions to recognize them, however. That's their call - although if they get any sort of public funds, they probably shouldn't anymore as long as they practice discrimination.

I think if I were trying in a gay marriage movement, I'd have to think about taking the "Civil Union" deal as opposed to holding out for the term, marriage, and figure it would be a slippery slope and in a few years that would follow. At the same time, though, I'm not sure - it is degrading to say you can sort of be married.

All in all, I think if you're against gay marriage you're a bigot.

2 comments:

Joe Grossberg said...

I agree with you. And, for the record, I am pro-polygamy too. As long as it's consenting adults, with the right to divorce, I say go for it.

Open Bar said...

To me, polygamy is a different animal. It inherently degrades the woman (women? I would've done woman(s), but that'd be dumb) by literally making each woman only partially equal to the man.

The "consenting" label loses merit here, as women in polygamistic societies already have less equality going in, so how can you really trust that they truly want to be only one wife of many?