Marriage
I'm reading Family Law and there's an excerpt from an article that claims that the main reason people who support gay rights disagree with gay "marriage" is that they somehow want to retain their superior position. The specific quote: "To a couple that gets married, marriage just looks ennobling...But stand outside of it and you see the implication: you and your relations are less worthy."
This brought to mind the opinion on Plessy v. Ferguson, the "separate but equal" case. It said, among other things, that if separating blacks and whites made blacks feel inferior, then it was because of the blacks' issues. If they automatically saw being put in a separate case as saying that they were less than white people, it was all in their head and therefore their problem. If you made all the white people ride in a separate car, then they would just say "Oh, look, see how special we are? We get our own car."
Obviously, that's stupid. (Well, the last part may have a bit of merit... ;-)) Still, it raises an interesting issue on marriage, especially in light of another quote that basically said "In the early days, gay rights was about the right to be different. Now it's about the right to be the same."
Basically, we have a battleground in that area of gay rights and gay marriage has more or less become a huge prize to both sides, regardless of actual opinions. In short, we've created a situation where those supporting gay marriage see it as the last bastion of inequality while those who oppose it see it as the last real way to protect traditional values and what's right. The other merits of marriage get brought up every now and then, but it seems like a good portion of the fighting is over the symbolic nature of marriage.
But I happen to know that not everyone in a committed relationship wants to get married. That goes for both straight and gay couples. So is this an actual case of what they discussed in Plessy? Is the fact that some people are fighting so hard for same-sex marriage having a secondary effect of perpetuating the belief among same-sex couples that until the have that right, then their relationship will somehow never be truly equal?
And this may or may not make sense and I may completely disagree with everything I wrote tomorrow. It's late, I'm tired, and I wrote this quickly, mainly because it was an interesting thought and I want to hold on to it to consider it more later.
Still, I think it's worth considering.
This brought to mind the opinion on Plessy v. Ferguson, the "separate but equal" case. It said, among other things, that if separating blacks and whites made blacks feel inferior, then it was because of the blacks' issues. If they automatically saw being put in a separate case as saying that they were less than white people, it was all in their head and therefore their problem. If you made all the white people ride in a separate car, then they would just say "Oh, look, see how special we are? We get our own car."
Obviously, that's stupid. (Well, the last part may have a bit of merit... ;-)) Still, it raises an interesting issue on marriage, especially in light of another quote that basically said "In the early days, gay rights was about the right to be different. Now it's about the right to be the same."
Basically, we have a battleground in that area of gay rights and gay marriage has more or less become a huge prize to both sides, regardless of actual opinions. In short, we've created a situation where those supporting gay marriage see it as the last bastion of inequality while those who oppose it see it as the last real way to protect traditional values and what's right. The other merits of marriage get brought up every now and then, but it seems like a good portion of the fighting is over the symbolic nature of marriage.
But I happen to know that not everyone in a committed relationship wants to get married. That goes for both straight and gay couples. So is this an actual case of what they discussed in Plessy? Is the fact that some people are fighting so hard for same-sex marriage having a secondary effect of perpetuating the belief among same-sex couples that until the have that right, then their relationship will somehow never be truly equal?
And this may or may not make sense and I may completely disagree with everything I wrote tomorrow. It's late, I'm tired, and I wrote this quickly, mainly because it was an interesting thought and I want to hold on to it to consider it more later.
Still, I think it's worth considering.