(no subject)
give me all the opinions you can, please. i wrote this for my english class.
The "M-word"
A lot of talk has been going on recently regarding Gay Marriage- and many people have certain questions about the issue. These are legitimate questions, which deserve to be answered. The most important one generally tends to be, "What the hell's the big deal?" However, I believe I may have found a possible answer to why some people have a problem with gay marriage. I take my cue from the "N-word" controversy.
You see, just like "the N-word" is generally seen as exclusively the property of black people, so "the M-word" is currently seen as the property of straight people. It's nothing personal to gays and lesbians; it's just "our" word. At least for now. And, just like the "N-word" is offensive to some blacks when spoken by white people, so some straight people get offended when gays start throwing around the words "marriage", "wedding".
Some straight people just feel that gays aren't sensitive enough to the long and painful history of straight marriage and oppression. You think black people have had it tough? Trust me. No one has had a harder time than married couples. It all goes back to the Stone Age. The male Neanderthal smashed the female on the head, dragged her back to his cave and "made her his bride". And then, he spent the rest of his life listening to her bitch at him for not taking out the trash. See? We're all victims. To some straight people, gays asking to be married is like white people asking to be slaves. It just doesn't compute.
When most people talk about "preserving" straight marriage, they don't mean that gay marriage will actually hurt the institution of straight marriage- they just want to keep the word in the hands of straight people. It actually makes a lot of sense if you buy into the theory that the biggest homophobes are actually repressed homosexuals: Just like jocks who beat up their gay peers to avoid thinking about the erection they get when they shower with their teammates, the biggest opponents of gay marriage- old 'straight' white guys- are desperate to avoid considering that they- or someone in their family- might be gay. And that's why marriage has to stay a straight word. Because if now straights AND gays can get married... well then, when former Senator Jesse Helms tells someone his grandson got married, it could mean a split-second of awkwardness while someone thinks, "To a woman... or a man?"
Similarly, if gay marriage is made legal, when some old fart Congressman brags about his 60th wedding anniversary, it could require him to add the caveat- "to my wife... a woman... seriously, I've checked."
The issue is not that marriage is "sacred"- if it was, then all that drive-through-Chapel crap that happens in Vegas would have been outlawed decades ago, and adultery would be punishable by stoning. The issue is that Strom Thurmond's frat brothers in Congress ("go class of 1908!") don't want to do anything that gay people do. If a lot of gay people started expressing an interest in fishing, I'm sure you would start hearing some folks whining about the "sanctity" of that, too. Soon there would start to be petitions towards the Fish and Game Wardens to refuse gays fishing permits. That's also why most of the older members of government used to not refer to gay sex as "sex"- it was always "sodomy". It's ok to call it "sex" now, though, because most of the older guys haven't been able to "perform" in years.
I predict that eventually we will have gay marriage in this country (if only in a couple of states), and that it will quickly be followed by a movement among conservatives to coin a new term for straight marriage. In fact, I've already come up with one proposal: "Straight-jacket."
The "M-word"
A lot of talk has been going on recently regarding Gay Marriage- and many people have certain questions about the issue. These are legitimate questions, which deserve to be answered. The most important one generally tends to be, "What the hell's the big deal?" However, I believe I may have found a possible answer to why some people have a problem with gay marriage. I take my cue from the "N-word" controversy.
You see, just like "the N-word" is generally seen as exclusively the property of black people, so "the M-word" is currently seen as the property of straight people. It's nothing personal to gays and lesbians; it's just "our" word. At least for now. And, just like the "N-word" is offensive to some blacks when spoken by white people, so some straight people get offended when gays start throwing around the words "marriage", "wedding".
Some straight people just feel that gays aren't sensitive enough to the long and painful history of straight marriage and oppression. You think black people have had it tough? Trust me. No one has had a harder time than married couples. It all goes back to the Stone Age. The male Neanderthal smashed the female on the head, dragged her back to his cave and "made her his bride". And then, he spent the rest of his life listening to her bitch at him for not taking out the trash. See? We're all victims. To some straight people, gays asking to be married is like white people asking to be slaves. It just doesn't compute.
When most people talk about "preserving" straight marriage, they don't mean that gay marriage will actually hurt the institution of straight marriage- they just want to keep the word in the hands of straight people. It actually makes a lot of sense if you buy into the theory that the biggest homophobes are actually repressed homosexuals: Just like jocks who beat up their gay peers to avoid thinking about the erection they get when they shower with their teammates, the biggest opponents of gay marriage- old 'straight' white guys- are desperate to avoid considering that they- or someone in their family- might be gay. And that's why marriage has to stay a straight word. Because if now straights AND gays can get married... well then, when former Senator Jesse Helms tells someone his grandson got married, it could mean a split-second of awkwardness while someone thinks, "To a woman... or a man?"
Similarly, if gay marriage is made legal, when some old fart Congressman brags about his 60th wedding anniversary, it could require him to add the caveat- "to my wife... a woman... seriously, I've checked."
The issue is not that marriage is "sacred"- if it was, then all that drive-through-Chapel crap that happens in Vegas would have been outlawed decades ago, and adultery would be punishable by stoning. The issue is that Strom Thurmond's frat brothers in Congress ("go class of 1908!") don't want to do anything that gay people do. If a lot of gay people started expressing an interest in fishing, I'm sure you would start hearing some folks whining about the "sanctity" of that, too. Soon there would start to be petitions towards the Fish and Game Wardens to refuse gays fishing permits. That's also why most of the older members of government used to not refer to gay sex as "sex"- it was always "sodomy". It's ok to call it "sex" now, though, because most of the older guys haven't been able to "perform" in years.
I predict that eventually we will have gay marriage in this country (if only in a couple of states), and that it will quickly be followed by a movement among conservatives to coin a new term for straight marriage. In fact, I've already come up with one proposal: "Straight-jacket."