Re: same-sex marriage

>>> Pim van Meurs <pimvanmeurs@yahoo.com> 06/09/06 2:36 PM >>>writes:

I fail to see how fighting the rights of others to be involved in a loving
relationship affect your personal survival? In fact, I have a real problem
with those arguing that extending the rights of marriage to others somehow
undermines the meaning of marriage to others? Are we so insecure in our own
self that we feel threatened by others who find happiness in marriage?
How are you being attacked I wonder? What am I missing?

Ted replies:
This issue (as I see it) isn't whether or not a new definition of marriage
would affect my personal survival, or anyone else's. Nor does insecurity
(mine at least, and I doubt that anyone else's is involved either) have
anything to do with this.

The point is that within monotheistic religions (I leave others out simply
b/c I don't know anything about them on this issue) marriage has always had
special significance in relation to sexuality, reproduction, parenting, and
God. It has always been seen NOT as a nominal human creation, but as a
divinely ordained institution binding on all cultures and societies and
honored among them. What is being proposed, by advocates of same-sex
marriage, is precisely the view that marriage is a nominal human creation,
one that like any other contract can simply be set aside or redefined to
suit the wishes of both parties. It is true that traditional marriage has a
legal piece of this sort--that is, marriage is a recognized legal contract
(though the paperwork for it is simpler than any other contract I have ever
signed), but it is far more than this. Indeed, the legal part is almost a
triviality by comparison with the pledges made before God and human
witnesses.

This is not a trivial issue, Pim, it has nothing at all to do with personal
survival or insecurity. It has everything to do with what is thought to be
part of the ordained order of creation. And that, I realize, is what drives
this: a rejection of our (to speak collectively of traditional monotheists)
conception of ultimate reality and divine purpose. That is why this matters
a great deal to some of us.

From where we sit, this is not a matter of discrimination against
homosexuals or anyone else. We are not trying to deny rights to anyone: any
single man of legal age can marry any single woman of legal age. If some
choose not to exercise this right *for any reason*, that isn't
discrimination, any more than it is discrimination if some citizens choose
not to vote or to own property. I do not now and never have advocated that
homosexual people be denied any legal right that I also have. What they are
asking for -- that the government (and also churches, but that is not
entirely the same point) recognize equivalent relationships constituted in a
fundamentally different way -- is not IMO a call to end discrimination.
Rather it is a call to redefine marriage, which is not the same thing.

Ted
Received on Fri, 09 Jun 2006 15:33:45 -0400