I see what you're saying, and to me, yeah, this is one of the fascinating things about Card's position. It's not so much homosexuality that bothers him, it's the entire modern (as in, within the last century or two) project of redefining marriage. The vast majority of us in the West now believe that it makes perfect sense and is only right and proper that people enter only into marriages that make them subjectively happy. That's a pretty new project, so his ultimate point is somewhat valid: Civilization was not built on companionate marriage. It's not a proven commodity yet, on the historical scale.
However, he's way out of the mainstream on this one. We've been increasingly, *rapidly,* moving toward a model of marriage that favors personal satisfaction over social interests, and by now it's essentially a done deal. Marriage SIMPLY DOES NOT mean what he thinks it ought to mean in this culture anymore. That's why it makes no sense to most of us when he says that homosexuality is natural, but that civilization depends on people doing what is unnatural for the greater good, ergo gay people ought to marry heterosexually for the good of us all. Under the currently dominant meaning, our culture identifies those as *fake* marriages, as *shams.* Only Card's preferred meaning makes that a viable option, and even most people who don't care for the idea of gay marriage generally agree that the "fake" loveless self-sacrificing marriage is a terrible idea as well.
He's just plain lost the battle to define marriage as he pleases. Our expectations of marriage are generally not the ones on which civilization was founded. Will this be the end of us all? Well, it's only been a hundred years or so since companionate marriage became a dominant cultural standard, so it could be too early to tell. But I don't think it looks like the end of us all just yet, in spite of Card's belief that enforced heterosexual marriage is the only thing that staves off complete social breakdown and mayhem.
I do wish every random nutjob person, however strong his convictions, would stop refrain from setting himself up as the One True Declaimer of Rightness and just... see what happens. I mean even if pigs fly and Card is right about the OMGhorrors that would come from legalizing gay unions... what's it to him? Why not just wait and see, and let the (per him) immoral-or-gullible get their just deserts?
I'm willing to let the heterosexuals go on reproducing in their way, even though *I* think adding to population and maintaining many "traditional values" will have horrid effects on civilization... because I'm not in charge of them. I get to make my choices, not theirs. I expect my choices are well-founded, and I expect others' seem well-founded to them, so I am comfortable leaving who is more right to the test of time.
What bothers me about Card is not his position WRT gay marriage, but how he is soooo insecure over the defensibility of his choices, that he wants choice done away with by government fiat.
This is not new for him. The societies he's imagined all along have been characterized by how little choice they allow; the morals of hisstories have always included "bad things happen when people don't obey benevolent authority".
However, he's way out of the mainstream on this one. We've been increasingly, *rapidly,* moving toward a model of marriage that favors personal satisfaction over social interests, and by now it's essentially a done deal. Marriage SIMPLY DOES NOT mean what he thinks it ought to mean in this culture anymore. That's why it makes no sense to most of us when he says that homosexuality is natural, but that civilization depends on people doing what is unnatural for the greater good, ergo gay people ought to marry heterosexually for the good of us all. Under the currently dominant meaning, our culture identifies those as *fake* marriages, as *shams.* Only Card's preferred meaning makes that a viable option, and even most people who don't care for the idea of gay marriage generally agree that the "fake" loveless self-sacrificing marriage is a terrible idea as well.
He's just plain lost the battle to define marriage as he pleases. Our expectations of marriage are generally not the ones on which civilization was founded. Will this be the end of us all? Well, it's only been a hundred years or so since companionate marriage became a dominant cultural standard, so it could be too early to tell. But I don't think it looks like the end of us all just yet, in spite of Card's belief that enforced heterosexual marriage is the only thing that staves off complete social breakdown and mayhem.
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I mean even if pigs fly and Card is right about the OMGhorrors that would come from legalizing gay unions... what's it to him? Why not just wait and see, and let the (per him) immoral-or-gullible get their just deserts?
I'm willing to let the heterosexuals go on reproducing in their way, even though *I* think adding to population and maintaining many "traditional values" will have horrid effects on civilization... because I'm not in charge of them. I get to make my choices, not theirs. I expect my choices are well-founded, and I expect others' seem well-founded to them, so I am comfortable leaving who is more right to the test of time.
What bothers me about Card is not his position WRT gay marriage, but how he is soooo insecure over the defensibility of his choices, that he wants choice done away with by government fiat.
This is not new for him. The societies he's imagined all along have been characterized by how little choice they allow; the morals of hisstories have always included "bad things happen when people don't obey benevolent authority".
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