Today, the SCOTUS shot down DOMA, the bigoted anti-gay bill that was passed in 1996 solely for the purpose of telling gays to get back in the closet. So naturally, there are going to be some haters out there crying "unfair!" even though they've spent the better part of twenty years making sure the only place gays have in society is a prison cell. Just ask Ken Kooky-elli who is currently trying to get anti-sodomy laws put back on the books because THE CHILDREN!!!!
So today I thought I'd address some of the more common excuses (and I use that term deliberately because, let's be honest, there are no "arguments" against gay marriage) that are thrown around as to why gays shouldn't be allowed to marry and just go back in the closet. Follow me below the little squiggly thing:
"B-b-but people VOTED against it!"
Yeah, thing is, voting for or against something doesn't automatically make the other side go away. Just ask the birthers. It also doesn't mean said law is constitutional. DOMA was a clear violation of the full faith and credit clause and interfered with states rights like you wouldn't believe. Now, this may not be true for every individual state amendment and I have no doubt getting rid of those will be much harder but let's be honest, voting against gay marriage was not now, nor was it ever, going to make the gay community go away. Which, apparently, many on the right thought it would if their responses are any indicator.
It's a slippery slope that leads to people marrying all kinds of things!
This excuse was cute fifteen/twenty years ago when there were no gay marriage laws on the books but we've had it for ten years now in some places and none of the horrible things that you have predicted have even started coming to pass. Couple that with the fact that a lot of these causes you worry about predate gay marriage by decades. Incest? Legal in some places already depending on who you marry. Polygamy? We'd have to literally re-write how the entire legal system works just to accommodate it. If I have three wives and I die, who gets what? What if one of the wives doesn't like the arrangement and wants the law changed? Sorry, but things like polygamy present their own set of problems that gay marriage simply doesn't. That isn't to say it can't be resolved but come on, you don't get to just point to one group of people and say "they get to marry, why don't we?" and have the laws change.
A lot of this stuff has existed before so there actually is precedent for it. Like age of consent laws. Which, BTW, already vary from state to state anyway. But the worst part of this excuse is that it's faulty logic. The people making it assume connections between things automatically exist based on nothing. If you legalize one, the others will follow. This is completely ridiculous and proves those making this excuse have no understanding of complex legal issues. Gay marriage works so easily precisely because all it does is expand the existing laws to include more people. Most other examples require more than that. If I want to change a law, the burden of proof is on me to justify this law change. I don't get to simply point to someone else like a petulant child and say "they got cake, so I should get cake too!"
Marriage is about reproduction and continuing the next generation!
This excuse has always amused me in that these same people who make it don't feel any need to stop straight couples who can't have kids from marrying. Or elderly couples where the woman is clearly long past child bearing age. So gays can't marry because they can't have kids but straight couples who also can't have kids are still allowed to marry. That's the actual definition of a double standard. Couple this with the fact that many gay couples DO have kids and this excuse falls apart probably the most easily. To give you an example: My best friend is a woman who can't have kids. She is still well within child bearing age, her body just isn't capable of it. So what should the law be regarding her and her husband (who has two sons by a previous marriage)? Does their marriage "count" in the eyes of right wingers? No children have been produced or ever will be. Is theirs a "sham" marriage?
Churches and Christian businesses will be forced to perform gay weddings!
This one was always a head scratcher to me because it was completely dependent on understanding the "logic" circulating in right wing circles about why gays marry in the first place (which I'll get into in the next example). In right wing minds, gays will sue churches demanding that they perform gay weddings against their will. Now, even if you ignore the fact that this has never happened in any of the places that have legalized gay marriages (and despite right wing lies that it's happening in Canada) you still have to explain why you assume it will happen at all. I don't know of any Christian couples who burst into Synagogues and force the rabbi to perform a Christian wedding so where does this assumption come from that gays will do the same to churches?
Well, for starters, this is what churches have been telling their congregations for years. I'm guessing knowing full well it was bullshit. They needed an excuse to pretend like this was some sort of threat to them to justify continuing to try to stop gays from marrying despite public attitudes changing and this was the best example they could think of. It doesn't help matters that many businesses have actually been sued for not participating in gay weddings. The thing is though, those businesses were violating LOCAL laws regarding non-discrimination. Which is a wholly separate set of laws completely unconnected to gay marriage whatsoever. If you have a problem with that, work to change THOSE laws. But don't try to deny someone else the freedom to marry the person they love. Otherwise, you make it a little hard to sympathize when you complain about all these gay couples making you participate in their weddings.
If we allow gays to marry, it will undermine the whole institution or marriage!
This excuse has never made sense to me until a bigot explained that the "real" reason gays wanted to get married is to undermine the institution as a joke so that no one will want to participate. Ignoring the fact that there is no evidence for either gays wanting to get married as a joke or that it will have any effect on the number of straight marriages, this premise is ridiculous if for no other reason then the fact that "undermining" marriage is a state of mind to begin with. Marriage as an institution is an abstract idea. It only exists as society allows it to exist. Marriage can only be "undermined" if you SEE your marriage as undermined. It's purely perceptual. If you feel your marriage is strong, it will still be that way no matter who else is allowed to participate. If your marriage is weak, denying others the freedom to marry won't fix it.
"B-b-but allowing gays to marry changes marriage FOR EVERYBODY!" It does? How? You aren't being required to marry someone of the same gender and I highly doubt any law that's passed can make you accept another person no matter what anyone says. So how is anything "changed" for you? Your life will go on same as it always has regardless because it had no tangible effect on you.
There are others but I don't see any real point in going over them in that in many cases, it would just be treading over much of the same ground and most of the other excuses are built largely on cartoon stereotypes of gay people in general. I highly doubt we need to rehash those here. If you have any others you feel are relevant, though, feel free to put them in the comments section.
Happy Freedom to Marry Day to all the lucky gay couples out there who now have their marriages recognized by the federal government! Good luck to all!