I've been sorting through my own mixed feelings after election season and it's been fascinating to watch the right wing jump through the same old hoops trying to justify their anti-gay bigotry in the face of nationwide protests. American-born religious zealots seem shocked, SHOCKED!, to find out that gays and lesbians have a breaking point, and we will not stand for their attacks any longer.
We all know the arguments by now, how anti-gay zealots justify their prejudice by claiming LGBT people are immoral and our "behavior" is a threat to society. They hide behind their religious belief systems and hide behind misleading or deliberately mis-interpreted social science data to "prove" that we are unfit to parent or be full participants in society.
What is most infuriating is seeing socially conservative minorities arguing that LGBT rights are not civil rights, because our lives are a "choice." Well, guess what, they're right, every openly gay or lesbian person in this country has made a choice, to be open and honest. And so what? We can still argue for our place in the world.
Let's review the basic framework of the anti-gay marriage argument (although nearly any of these items can also be used to attack any/all gay rights proposals):
-- Being gay is a choice, not an immutable characteristic like race, ethnicity or gender.
-- Marriage is the bedrock of society and the deterioration of this institution has damaged our society.
-- Children need both a mother and a father for appropriate development and arrangements other than heterosexual marriage deliberately deny children one or both.
-- Social science has demonstrated that children fare better in married households than in households with single parents.
-- Marriage is a sacred institution to most religions and any attempt to "redefine" that institution undermines the strength of the institution.
-- Relationships outside of marriage are immoral to the vast majority of religious people and we should not force them to accept immorality.
You know what, let's cede all these arguments to the anti-gay side; I still think we have the winning argument against their hate. After all, being gay is a choice. I may not choose my sexual orientation; I certainly did not opt to be a homosexual, but I certainly chose to be open, honest and authentic about my sexuality. We all know about those who decide to be dishonest and follow society's guidelines for men and women. They have names like Larry Craig and Ted Haggard and Jim McGreevey - men and women who denied their essential sexuality to live a straight life. There are undoubtedly thousands, if not millions of Americans who are living those same lies.
So let's concede the choice issue - as it is the immutable issue does not seem to gain ground. Many anti-gay hatemongers simply respond with the alcoholism argument - even addictions have a biological basis and still should not be supported by society. Even if we concede this issue, though, the anti-gay side is still stuck with a huge inconsistency in their attacks on "immorality."
Can you think of any other behavior, any other chosen lifestyle that has all the same issues as homosexuality? There must be other choices that people make that mean they live outside the sacred institution of marriage, that leads to children being raised without a mother or a father and therefore fare more poorly, and that religions believe is immoral.
Well, I can think of one - divorce. Divorce is a choice, one made by those who have initially chosen the "appropriate' lifestyle of "traditional marriage" and then selfishly decide that they would be more personally fulfilled if they make a decision to live a lifestyle not approved by God (remember, "what God has joined together, let no man pull asunder" - it's in most Christian weddings). Even if they have children, the law allows them to make this choice, although it means children will automatically be in a family structure that leads to more social problems over time. Certainly the existence of divorced couples has a powerful and negative impact on marriage, as those couples provide an alternative to living within marriage that children are led to believe is "normal." And divorced people can be remarried, although those remarriages are considered sinful by many different churches, thereby compounding their negative impacts on society.
Here's the thought experiment. If it is all right for the majority to deny marriage rights to LGBT people, there is a precedent for singling out other groups based on their behavior. If divorce and gay marriages have very similar impacts on society, social conservatives should welcome similar actions to strip rights away from those who, through their own chosen behavior, prove themselves to be enemies of the institution. Certainly we should begin by stripping marriage rights away from the divorced.
Although some divorces are caused by violence on the part of one of the partners, most divorces are for the convenience of the parties involved. You've heard the excuses, "it just didn't work out," "we drifted apart," etc. Basically what these people are saying is "we didn't work on our marriage," so why should they still have the right to marry. I am not against marriage-like rights for these people, things like inheritance and hospital visitation, but we should not confuse children by comparing the relationships of these immoral people to actual marriages. Thus, we should immediately pass state Constitutional Amendments to deny the divorced the right to remarriage, but maintain their right to DP and Civil Union relationships. Those who have been divorced cannot complain, they'll still have the same rights even if their relationships are considered a little inferior to marriages. It's all for the good of society.
"What about the children?" you may ask. Well, we have to support them as well. Arkansas has already decided that heterosexuals in unmarried couples are unfit for adoption and fostering, and Florida and Utah have bans on single people adopting, so we have the beginning of a good protection system for children, but we need to do more. I see another amendment drive to deny divorced people the right to parent, whether through adoption, fostering or biologically. Once a couple decides to be divorced, the state would take their children and place them with a married couple; if this has the added effect of keeping more people in their marriages, so much the better for society.
Now, I don't really believe in the anti-gay arguments, but you cannot deny how well they fit the chosen behavior of divorce either. The next time you have some anti-gay marriage type making these arguments, ask them the simple question "Would/could you do the same thing to people who are divorced? Should those people be considered less valuable than married people because they have chosen an immoral lifestyle?" How many people would be able to do that?