For those of you who have a hard time figuring out why many on the right so vehemently oppose gay marriage, I found this comment to be very worthwhile:
Oh, c’mon. It’s perfectly obvious why the GOP views “homosexual marriage” as dangerous and undermining to the “traditional marriage” structure. It’s all about maintaining a certain set of social expectations. Sure, I’d say the majority of young people still grow up wanting and expecting to get married someday, in the traditional sense. But there is a minority of people who don’t. Some because they’re gay. Some because they’re too self-involved, or too picky, or whatever. Pick your reasons. But these GOP types really do think that society depends on MOST of these people going ahead and getting married anyway, whether it’s what they really want deep down or not.
I’m not saying this very well—which is a real bummer for a professional writer—but think about the “social expectations” that our grandparents grew up with. It was just understood that EVERYBODY would eventually “get married, settle down and have kids.” EVERYBODY. And if you didn’t—if you somehow made it to age 45 as a committed bachelor, or a spinster, then you were an object of mixed scorn and pity, with just a dollop of suspicion tossed in for spice.
THAT’S the world the religious right-wingers want back. I honestly don’t think that most of them want gays thrown in jail, necessarily—but they DO want them subjected to social pressure and ostracism. The kind of social pressure that used to result in gays living double lives, publicly “married,” keeping their true selves secret and hidden.
If gays are not just allowed to live openly among us, without fear of being thrown in jail, but also granted the same social benefits, so that society is “officially” welcoming them and accepting them—then where’s the social pressure going to come from? How are we going to maintain the overwhelming societal expectation that “getting married and having kids” is What One Must Do?
Anyway, they aren’t going to come right out and admit that they want to impose hypocritical, empty “marriages” on unwilling but socially obligated participants. But that’s what it means when they say that gay marriage “undermines” traditional marriage. It undermines the set of societal expectations that those people want to impose.
If you look at it through that prism, the hysteria from some quarters makes perfect sense. The world is changing, and some people need the set of ‘order’ and the system of ‘values’ that, despite the fact that they do not work for many people, are what they deem are ‘right’ for everyone. America if baseball, apple pie, hot dogs, and Chevrolet. We are supposed to live in a world where you go to school, go to college, get married, have kids, pay taxes, and die. And only recently, in the minds of some of these folks, have we decided that women get to go to college and go to work, and for some of the people on the cultural right, this is still a shock. If you look at it from that angle, you can get a better understanding where some of these people are coming from, and as I have stated before, their exasperation can explain a lot of their behavior. As I have said before during discussions of the cultural right’s views in the ID/Creationism debate:
This isn’t about science. This isn’t about education. At least it isn’t for the ID/Creationist proponents. This is just another Quixotic rear-guard action in the culture wars.
This really is not about gay rights or marriage ending- it is their world view ending as they know it. As an example, even though we know better now, and we know about childhood obesity and all the complications it can lead to, there are still people out there who believe everyone should belong to the ‘clean plate club.” Even though ‘traditional’ marriage is not right for anyone, and heterosexuality is not the ‘norm’ for everyone, certain people want to demand it for their world view, not for the actual good of the nation. They may honestly believe that the world will end if their way is not adhered to, but it won’t. But good luck telling them that.
Finally, I think this freak-out by Pat Buchanan last night while debating Bob Shrum on Hardball will crystallize hat I have been trying to say:
SHRUM: … Now come on, you’ve been talking for a while, let me say two things. Number one, a committed gay couple living in a relationship is not a sign of decadence.
Number two, Pat, when your ancestors and my ancestors and Chris’ ancestors got off the boat, the Yankees who ran the country said it was terrible, it was going to lead to the balkanization of America, it was going to change America in terrible ways. This has been going on for years and years and years. I mean, the same people from Georgia, for example, who are going wild on immigration right now and saying we have to keep Hispanics out were the same people who were saying we have to keep blacks down.
BUCHANAN: But you don’t understand your history. Now, let me talk about this. You don’t understand your history…
SHRUM: … I think I do.
BUCHANAN: Now let me talk a minute. You don’t understand your history. From 1890 to 1920 we had a huge immigration, 20 million people, or something. Then we had a 40-year time-out to assimilate, Americanize, teach them the language, the history, the culture.
So by the time Chris and I went to school or me even in the 1940s and 1950s, they were Americans. I didn’t know where they came from. We didn’t know where any of us came from. You don’t have that. You’re importing parts of nations.
SHRUM: Pat, I don’t know where you went to school, but when I went to school they knew I was Irish. We knew the kid across the aisle was Italian.
BUCHANAN: What did he speak? Did he speak Italian or did he speak Gaelic or Italian or what?
SHRUM: Well, actually, you would have fit in just fine with the people who, during World War I banned the teaching of the German language. What we had between 1924 and 1964 was 40 years of…
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: … If I recall this meeting 20 years from now, will we have the same argument? Will there be a fight over gay rights or will we have accepted, Pat, for better or worse, the right of gay people or at least the opportunity of gay people to get married? Will that be behind us?
BUCHANAN: Listen, I think culturally and socially this country is headed downhill. I think you’re probably right there, Chris, but I do believe ethnically, culturally, linguistically, if we don’t get control of the borders, America is gone and we’re going to be a completely Balkanized nation.
I tend to agree that in some regard, assimilation is a vital part of any viable immigration plan, but given the context of the entire debate, it is easy to see that what really upsets Buchanan and those like him is that the whole world is changing, and they can’t cope with it.
While you are at it, if you have read this much, you should also read this excellent piece about the Christian Right movement by Ezra Klein.