I still wish the government had given up marriage and only recognized civil unions for all couples. Leave marriage as a religious term. Use civil union as the legal term for all.
I was fine with civil unions. Going beyond that point, to gay "marriage", is the same as compelled speech - the law telling me to call a male a woman - but worse. It's redefining religious beliefs by force of law. It's the state dictating matters of religion. Utterly contrary to freedom of expression, freedom of religion and separation of church and state. Gay marriage IS state religion.
A overlly long drab confused assemblage in search of a thesis, sounding strangely petulant, ahistorical, and bitter at turns.
A typical aside:
"But how do you force rando religious conservatives to call you married?"
I remember almost identical statements made mid-80's, 90's early 2000's, same uncool "rando" vibe, and sad timbre of self-loathing, frankly. Usually by the most "critical adherents" of queer theory. Funny how the concept keeps flipping back and forth across antithetical groups.
While the writing seems to imply staggering harm erupting from the marriage gap in gay rights portfolios (GLAAD) in the form of a new "Trans rights" agenda, left unmentioned is the ACLU (Non-gay) and SPLC (Non-gay) Trans agenda erupting also.
"Trans rights" of course having nothing to do with the aforentiomed "street teens", but rather medical experimentation on middle-class gay and lesbian children.
I particularly liked the hyperbolic comparison of same-sex "marriage" to pronoun and the intentional sex confusion of "gender", as though calling two men married were tantamount to the cruelty of demanding lesbians have sex with trans women, teen girls compelled to disrobing in locker rooms with adult men, or rapists in women's prisons.
"But how do you force rando religious conservatives to call you married?"
I spoke to Gayle Rubin about trans, she felt that it was a wedge issue to simply rally the conservative troops and attack gay rights. As I read this, I think "why conservatives?"
“Reading gay couples’ demands for marriage now, I feel bewildered. You found a partner, you’re in love, just be happy! Fuck your neighbors!“
Same. I wonder if this stems from a female-typical desire for acceptance and a tendency to get one’s feelings hurt more easily among more feminine gay men and political (straight, female-typical) “lesbians.”
Right. Civil union with all the legal rights is fine. Marriage is a religious concept. Forcing "marriage equality" gives the religious conservatives the "slippery slope" argument of "gay rights started it" - and they're not entirely wrong. Letting each church decide if they want to wed same-sex couples or not would have been better. I once heard a married gay man employed by the Church of Sweden say it was wrong for the church to force through same-sex marriage despite the opposition. I couldn't understand it then - couldn't understand the hypocrisy of still benefiting from it by marrying. I understand it better now. What scares me most is the history revisionism - suddenly we all wanted gay marriage all along and the lesbian feminist critique is forgotten and the difficult dialogues with homophobic church folk are forgotten.... Now you're not even supposed to talk to anyone who disagrees with you.
I'm not a champion of marriage; I was disappointed that domestic partnerships were on the chopping block when gay marriage passed. So assimilationist. I know that married Americans have a plethora of rights over single Americans- that's another story - and that LBG folks deserved those rights too. Just the same I'd rather see this archaic institution wither out and die.
Why not? Because we have an entire body of law that provides rights to spouses that do not accrue to civil union participants. This is an extremely silly and ignorant argument.
Great article. (That pic from SITC had me laughing out loud.) I am only understanding now the amount of schism that legalizing gay marriage caused in Protestantism, and the downstream effects of that schism that we are seeing when it comes to trans.
Overall a thoughtful and well-researched article, but I feel like you missed the mark on some things. Here’s a good post that explains it more eloquently than I could:
I still wish the government had given up marriage and only recognized civil unions for all couples. Leave marriage as a religious term. Use civil union as the legal term for all.
I was fine with civil unions. Going beyond that point, to gay "marriage", is the same as compelled speech - the law telling me to call a male a woman - but worse. It's redefining religious beliefs by force of law. It's the state dictating matters of religion. Utterly contrary to freedom of expression, freedom of religion and separation of church and state. Gay marriage IS state religion.
A overlly long drab confused assemblage in search of a thesis, sounding strangely petulant, ahistorical, and bitter at turns.
A typical aside:
"But how do you force rando religious conservatives to call you married?"
I remember almost identical statements made mid-80's, 90's early 2000's, same uncool "rando" vibe, and sad timbre of self-loathing, frankly. Usually by the most "critical adherents" of queer theory. Funny how the concept keeps flipping back and forth across antithetical groups.
While the writing seems to imply staggering harm erupting from the marriage gap in gay rights portfolios (GLAAD) in the form of a new "Trans rights" agenda, left unmentioned is the ACLU (Non-gay) and SPLC (Non-gay) Trans agenda erupting also.
"Trans rights" of course having nothing to do with the aforentiomed "street teens", but rather medical experimentation on middle-class gay and lesbian children.
I particularly liked the hyperbolic comparison of same-sex "marriage" to pronoun and the intentional sex confusion of "gender", as though calling two men married were tantamount to the cruelty of demanding lesbians have sex with trans women, teen girls compelled to disrobing in locker rooms with adult men, or rapists in women's prisons.
"But how do you force rando religious conservatives to call you married?"
I spoke to Gayle Rubin about trans, she felt that it was a wedge issue to simply rally the conservative troops and attack gay rights. As I read this, I think "why conservatives?"
Why not civil unions?
Good article
“Reading gay couples’ demands for marriage now, I feel bewildered. You found a partner, you’re in love, just be happy! Fuck your neighbors!“
Same. I wonder if this stems from a female-typical desire for acceptance and a tendency to get one’s feelings hurt more easily among more feminine gay men and political (straight, female-typical) “lesbians.”
Right. Civil union with all the legal rights is fine. Marriage is a religious concept. Forcing "marriage equality" gives the religious conservatives the "slippery slope" argument of "gay rights started it" - and they're not entirely wrong. Letting each church decide if they want to wed same-sex couples or not would have been better. I once heard a married gay man employed by the Church of Sweden say it was wrong for the church to force through same-sex marriage despite the opposition. I couldn't understand it then - couldn't understand the hypocrisy of still benefiting from it by marrying. I understand it better now. What scares me most is the history revisionism - suddenly we all wanted gay marriage all along and the lesbian feminist critique is forgotten and the difficult dialogues with homophobic church folk are forgotten.... Now you're not even supposed to talk to anyone who disagrees with you.
I'm not a champion of marriage; I was disappointed that domestic partnerships were on the chopping block when gay marriage passed. So assimilationist. I know that married Americans have a plethora of rights over single Americans- that's another story - and that LBG folks deserved those rights too. Just the same I'd rather see this archaic institution wither out and die.
Why not? Because we have an entire body of law that provides rights to spouses that do not accrue to civil union participants. This is an extremely silly and ignorant argument.
Great article. (That pic from SITC had me laughing out loud.) I am only understanding now the amount of schism that legalizing gay marriage caused in Protestantism, and the downstream effects of that schism that we are seeing when it comes to trans.
Overall a thoughtful and well-researched article, but I feel like you missed the mark on some things. Here’s a good post that explains it more eloquently than I could:
https://www.reddit.com/r/redscarepod/comments/18grodj/the_materialist_nonidentity_politics_reason_why/