But…but…it’s different because…it just is. Or something.

I recently had the gay marriage discussion with someone in an interracial marriage and she simply could not see the similarity.  Bigots will find any way they can to minimize or harmonize the disconnect.

Those who oppose SSM on religious grounds will be labeled as intolerant or face social ridicule?  Oh nooooooo we can’t let anyone face social ridicule or be ostracized based on their beliefs or views that is, unless they’re gay or support SSM

Some who openly and adamantly oppose SSM in the workplace may have their careers threatened <i>because people should be permitted to go out of their way to draw attention to their political views in the workplace and the workplace should support and adopt those views instead of holding them accountable for creating an uncomfortable and hostile environment in the workplace<i>

If Dobson had had a platform 40 years ago, you bet your sweet bippy he’d be frothing at the mouth over Loving vs. Virginia. That’s why I take the Same Sex Marriage debate seriously: it’s the same as my interracial marriage.

Loving V. Virgina was settled on 14th amendment grounds. The reason interracial marriage laws were unconstitutional was that they violated equal protections. I have the right to marry a white woman, therefore by the constitution everybody does including black men. Similarly I have the right to marry a woman, therefore everybody does even other women.—That’s the reason the the laws will be overturned against gay marriage and they are *EXACTLY* the same arguments which succeeded in Loving.

The final argument isn’t going to be about the rights of homosexuals but rather about the rights of everybody to marry the same gender. You cannot legally give women a right (to marry men) that you do not give me as well. The restriction probably will never hamper me personally, but it is an assault upon my freedoms.

Yep.  This is exactly the line of argument I always use.  I remember reading that the number of Americans approving of interracial marriage did not reach 50% until 1991.  199-friggin’-1!  That is almost 30 years after Loving v. Virginia.  The right to marry the person you love should NEVER be up to majority approval.

As someone in an interracial marriage, I take this stuff personally.

The post title is pretty much what I always declare when charging into battle with someone on this subject. (My wordier version is “There is no such thing as a principled, internally-consistent argument against gay marriage.”)  It’s ALWAYS about preserving a priveleged status, and almost always relies, consciously or not, on an understanding of homosexuality as an aberrant behavioral choice.

I remember reading a long blog dialogue a couple years ago between, oh, who was it… Sullivan, Maggie… somebody?  Basically, a bunch of housebroken conservatives who know how to sound sane when necessary.  Some were for, some against. It was bizarre, sad, and funny to see the anti-marriage crowd turn themselves into rhetorical knots to justify an unjustifiable decision.

There are arguments against gay marriage, and the arguments are distinct from those against interracial marriage. But those arguments are fundamentally Medieval in nature. That’s why we hear a lot of trumped-up arguments; the real ones sound ridiculous to modern ears.

This, incidentally, is why I disagree with people who are pushing for gay marriage statues rather than civil union ones. It’s strategic - civil unions have overwhelming support, even in the deep south where anti-gay marriage amendments are being passed… and because we know that separate-but-equal collapses, the statutes will get overturned and marriage allowed, so while it would be nice to have now, it makes it more guaranteed later. Marshall had the same strategy when he organized the attacks on segregation that culminated in Brown - there were a few early decisions that didn’t go that far, but started breaking down walls, so Brown wasn’t nearly as shocking. Worked in California and Connecticut on gay marriage now, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see New Hampshire and New York fall into line with a year or two.

They said that you can replace same-sex with a bunch of other words, including ‘deformed’.  I support deformed marriage, though the debate over that would just be weird.

Sad to say as a newcomer to Augusta, GA I’ve discovered the interracial marriage matter to still be an issue. On a first-date with a social worker (!) in her 30s about the second question she asked me—obviously an important first-date matter to clear-up for her—was “could [I] ever imagine _dating_ someone of another color.” My honest answer was met with the response I’d have to a confession of a fondness for torturing puppies or kittens, and a lecture on how that’s against the Bible and “simply the biggest no-no there is.” She then pointed out how there “were none of ‘those’ people in the restaurant, and if [I] walked in with ‘one’ we’d be served,‘because that’s the law these days,’ but everyone would notice, talk and disapprove.” When I shared this date-from-racist-hell with my (local) co-workers they, too, all pretty much agreed a history of interracial dating would render me fairly well undatable to the women they knew around Augusta.

Wait, shouldn’t the post title say “There Are No Real Arguments Against Gay Marriage” or “There Are No Real Arguments For Banning Gay Marriage”? As it stands, the post title contradicts the content of the post.

If my brother can marry a woman, why can’t I? If I can marry a man, why can’t my brother? Neither of us had a choice as to what gender we were born as, any more than we had a choice as to our race. If someone is going to argue that I shouldn’t have this right that my brother does, they’re going to have to explain very. carefully. to me just why my gender means this is a right I shouldn’t have.

(I mention being born as male or female—I sort of think this is true for transgender people too, in that they may be born in a body that looks different from the way they are inside, but they have always been who they know they are inside. Same as me. But that isn’t my main point here, so don’t let me derail the thread. If everyone can marry either gender, that will be good for everyone.)

There are a lot of rights I don’t currently take advantage of—the right to run for public office, the right to bear children, the right to set up a printing press. But just because I’m not using them doesn’t mean I’m not entitled to them. So my right to marry a woman should be just as recognized as my right to marry a man, even though I’m not using either one right now.

Wow, Dr. Wu, that is sad and scary. :(

I enjoyed this woman’s attempt to explain why some people deserved civil rights and some weren’t:

http://fundamentallyflawed.wordpress.com/2008/10/23/who-in-the-what-now/

It’s easy to get bogged down in arguments over whether ethnic minorities and gay/lesbian people are equally entitled to full protection under the law. Lately I’ve tended simply to say, “Why is it more important for you to justify prejudice and inequality than to work to overcome it?”

This group of folks took a homobigot ad running in California now and changed all mentions of same-sex marriage to interracial marriage, to demonstrate what’s really going on here.

Well, they’ve convinced me.  Interracial marriage is a bad thing.

Thank God I’m a pure-bred Anglo-Saxon…

(As Nenya pointed out, the post title is confusing.  There are no real arguments against marriage equality.

I checked out the bigot’s website. Its the freaking mormons. These young beautiful people who seem to be filled with hate are all mormons. A couple are mormon actors. What the hell is wrong with the LDS church? I mean, why can’t they mind their own business?

Sorry, Amanda,
Not buying it.  Loving did not re-define marriage.  Same-sex marriage does.

fuck you tomonthebay,
Of course “loving” redefined marriage—just as it “redefined” biracial children transforming them from illegal byproducts of fornication into legitimate offspring with rights of inheritance through both parental lines.  And “same sex marriage” has, of course, existed in other societies so legalizing it here won’t “redefine” marriage at all. Historically and culturally speaking it will certainly broaden *american* marriage customs and bring them in line with world historical customs which include, variously, marriages to trees, to dead people, and to person’s of the same sex.  and again, fuck you and your total ignorance of human history and the human heart.

aimai

What is it with this obsession with the dictionary? Is your dictionary really more important than someone else’s civil rights?

I have to imagine that the mormons have a particularly weird case of internal repression going on about what kinds of marriages are OK, given their own history. So they take it out on the rest of us…

“Historically and culturally speaking it will certainly broaden *american* marriage customs and bring them in line with world historical customs which include, variously, marriages to trees, to dead people, and to person’s of the same sex.  and again, fuck you and your total ignorance of human history and the human heart.”

Gold

Not buying it.  Loving did not re-define marriage.  Same-sex marriage does.

I’m afraid you’re mistaken, tom—Loving did, in fact, re-define marriage since marriages between people of different races were explicitly outlawed in many states.  The state of Virginia considered the Lovings’ marriage to be invalid on its face and having the Supreme Court say that they had to accept it re-defined marriage.

Marriage in the 21st century—as opposed to what it was 200 or even 100 years ago—is a partnership between consenting adults.  Companionate marriage is the most common form we have today.  Please explain what it is about companionate marriage that precludes the idea of same-gender relationships.

Since there is more than enough empirical evidence showing that same-sex marriage does not cause social degeneration or vice, I just ask conservatives to explain to me why the government should not stay out of defining what pairs of consenting adults can do. If they continue to yammer on about it, I ask them why they can’t stop thinking about gay sex. I’m straight; I find gay sex ikky; by simple analogy, I expect that if I were gay, I would find straight sex ikky. But no gay person has ever tried to force me to have sex with him, so what I think ikky is my own damn business and not to be inflicted on others. Opponents of gay marriage and homophobes in general may say they don’t like teh gay, but for something they don’t like, they spend an awful lot of time obsessing about its most intimate details.

I loved the SNL parody of the VP debate. Not only did Tina Fey do a great job as Palin, but they skewered Biden and the Democrats’ hypocrisy on the gay marriage issue.

LATIFAH AS IFILL: “The next question is for you, Senator Biden. Do you support, as they do in Alaska, granting same-sex benefits to couples?”

SUDEIKIS AS BIDEN: “I do. In an Obama-Biden administration same-sex couples would be guaranteed the same property rights, rights to insurance, and rights of ownership as heterosexual couples. There will be no distinction. I repeat, no distinction.”

LATIFAH AS IFILL: “So to clarify, do you support gay marriage, Senator Biden?”

SUDEIKIS AS BIDEN: “Absolutely not.”

There is no rational basis for denying homosexual couples the the same rights as heterosexual couples.

When I shared this date-from-racist-hell with my (local) co-workers they, too, all pretty much agreed a history of interracial dating would render me fairly well undatable to the women they knew around Augusta.

Sounds like a most excellent Bozo Filter to me if there ever was one.  Immediately removes all racist prigs from your potential dating pool without that painful first date lecture being repeated.

Actually, Mnemnosyne, he’s right - Loving did not redefine marriage. Heterosexuals did that, all on their own.

For millenia, traditional marriage put the husband as legal head of the family. It was less than a hundred years ago that the excuse for women having no right to vote was that the husband cast a vote for both of them, for example. Divorce was something only permitted under very limited and stringent circumstances - and often only the husband could “set aside” his wife, not the other way around.

Heterosexuals changed all that, and in doing so, changed the nature of marriage. Allowing same-sex couples to marry is less of a departure from “traditional marriage” than shared custody is.

Being allowed to marry without the permission of your father or without the payment of a dowry changed the definition of marriage. ‘Traditional marriage.’ I mean, eBay sellers are in the habit of calling things from the 70s ‘vintage’ and things from the 50s ‘antique’, and the anti-equality crowd seem to have got their traditions from the mid-20th century.

Not buying it.  Loving did not re-define marriage.

Y’know, as apt as it may sound, “Loving v. Virginia”, shortened to “Loving”, makes for some <u>very</u> confusing posts.

Sorry, Amanda,
Not buying it.  Loving did not re-define marriage.  Same-sex marriage does.

Youngsta.

tomonthecrazypills, might I suggest that you and your hate-loving ilk kindly shut the fuck up while the people with some measure of compassion, intelligence and decency talk, please?

It’s peculiar to me that the protection of the sanctity of marriage should depend on who is allowed to participate in it.  It seems to me that if you see marriage as something sacred, then it is so because of the nature of the relationship it defines, not because of who participates.  How, for instance, can you call a heterosexual marriage of convenience for immigration purposes somehow more sacred than a homosexual marriage between two people who love each other and want to make a home or raise children together?  It doesn’t compute.

piminowcheez, it DOES make sense - if you think homosexuality is wrong and same-sex relationships are disgusting. Otherwise, no, not so much with the making of logic.

I wouldn’t mind gay-marrying Geoff!

Wow, we need to get this ad on TV pronto. If I win the lottery before the election, I’m SO paying for it!

I recently had the gay marriage discussion with someone in an interracial marriage and she simply could not see the similarity.

To me the analogy is fairly strained: The chief objection to interracial marriage was that natural fertility would produce mixed-race, i.e. inferior children. In contrast, all same-sex couples are infertile.

The best argument against Prop. 8 to straight people is that couples you know are in love just like you, live together just like you, raise kids just like you, and take care of their elderly relatives just like you. So why deny them the status of marriage?

Hector B. - The nature of the arguments against it doesn’t change the nature of the arguments for it, which are that people should have the right to marry.

“You cannot legally give women a right (to marry men) that you do not give me as well. The restriction probably will never hamper me personally, but it is an assault upon my freedoms. “

Unfortunately for you, hayseed, the 14th amendment says nothing about sex discrimination. If it did, then the 19th amendment would have been superfluous. So sorry.

Unfortunately for you, Ostiarius, the Fourteenth also has an equal protection clause which has been used (in the Supreme Court) in sex discrimination cases.

I know exactly what the 14th amendment says, dimbulb, and it has nothing to do with “sex discrimination.” If it did, then the 19th amendment would have been superfluous. Do I need to draw a picture for you in crayon?

Are you or are you not aware that the Fourteenth Amendment has been cited in sex discrimination caselaw? If not, there are wonderful second-grade textbooks out there for you to read.

(In case you haven’t noticed, we’re not talking about voting rights.)

I am aware of some low-watt judges pretending it refers to something it does not, yes.

Oh yes, low-watt judges like Sandra Day O’Connor and Harry Blackmun and William Brennan. Those low-watt judges.