Steel yourselves, friends. This is going to become boring.
Gov. Baldacci of Maine just signed a gay marriage bill, less than an hour after it passed the state Senate. Gov. Baldacci had said in the past that he was against gay marriage. Marriage licenses will begin to be issued in September.
I wish there were a way to spicify this kind of news, but it’s just so boring now. Read the guvna’s statement:
“I have come to believe that this is a question of fairness and of equal protection under the law, and that a civil union is not equal to civil marriage.
“This new law does not force any religion to recognize a marriage that falls outside of its beliefs,” the governor said. “It does not require the church to perform any ceremony with which it disagrees. Instead, it reaffirms the separation of church and state.
“It guarantees that Maine citizens will be treated equally under Maine’s civil marriage laws, and that is the responsibility of government,” Baldacci said.
Snoooooore. Duh, Baldacci. Five down, 45 to go. Sure, this makes me happy, but mostly it just preemptively exhausts me. Who would think something so boring would need so much debate? Do we really need to do this 45 more times? The conversation should be pretty basic to get someone to support gay marriage:
- Straight people are attracted to the opposite sex, but gay people are attracted to the same sex.
- People have relationships with people they are attracted to.
- Relationships result in marriage.
- Straight people marry people of the opposite sex, but gay people marry people of the same sex.
That’s basically all it boils down to, which is why I feel that there is always a minimum level of snark, disdain, and gratuitous reductionism necessary when discussing this. The biggest snag I can find is the part after the comma in number 1. People don’t want it to be true, so they just say it isn’t, or they tack on a ‘but’ – but it’s yucky, but I don’t like it, but I think it’s wrong and have no compelling reason why but I don’t like new things, etc. (but I have gay friends, no offense!)
So, thanks to everyone that agrees with me that this is completely boring. If you don’t think it’s boring, and you think it actually warrants real discussion, you’re wrong. Tell me why you’re not.
And to answer my own question, yes. We do need to do this 45 more times. Depressing. And then keep doing this, because it’s not about marriage. It’s a question about what a gay person is. So I’ll keep on defending the basics of my existence on the internet, and we can all have fun doing it together.
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The only thing boring is your superficial and predictable view of marriage. Imagine if some snarky gay guy came along and told you that he had an imaginary constitutional right to marry and furthermore that marriage is now ONLY about love and committment. But you really know that its also about a relationship that by design is generative. That’s the point… your view is a superficial and stingy treatment of marriage . Marriage deserves so much more than cutsy intellectually light-weight crapola about people loving each other… Oh great… maybe next you’ll weigh in with another point like telling me “arms are for hugging!” Sheesh…
Tell me, Tony – what are your views on domestic partnerships or civil unions?
I have yet to see a compelling case for government to recognize and grant civil union status to gay couples. The reason is I don’t see what government or society actually gets out of civil unions.
I suppose one could make a case that in a committed contraceptive relationship (such as a gay relationship), both partners experience some postive benefits that are of value to society. For example, I believe it has been fairly well documented that partners in long term relationships have decreased morbidity and this saves society money so we should give some sort of measured benefit. I believe there are also few minor other ones that sociologists are recently promoting, but taken in the aggregate, these benefits to society hardly begin to approach the benefits that committed heterosexuals in marriage bestow upon society. (cross sex socialization, the next generation, a biological heritage… you know all that outdated stuff like that:)
The only case gay marriage supporters seem to be making these days, if they are at all willing to come out of their “marriage equality” rainbow fortress, is that based on their love and committment they deserve all the priveleges of marriage. Don’t take this personally, but they just don’t deserve it. Not because they are gay, or because their personal relationships are inferior to mine (they are not), but because they don’t do much of anything for society in exchange for the benefits they are seeking.
I’m sorry, I think I missed the part of the argument where I’m no longer part of “society”…
I hate to have to revert to such an infantile argument, but would you advocate not recognizing relationships of infertile straight couples? You can string together a sentence pretty well, I don’t wish to patronize.
Let’s take two “committed contraceptive relationships” – one gay, one straight. You say that these relationships are equal. The straight one can get married, the gay one can’t. Umm.
Also, gay people have children.
It’s not just “love and commitment”.
OK Steve I should get a 5 million dollars from the government and I have stated no reason for it but its good for me and I am part of society. Therefore its good for society.
I think there is an obvious difference between a presumably fertile union that becomes infertile by disease and one that is contraceptive by design. But let us take your argument head on. Let us take the case where one fertile couple chooses to be closed to children. The best answer I can give you isn’t entirely pure, but it would be this. They are getting marriage benefits they don’t deserve.
If I knew beforehand they would have no intention of having children, and were still demanding a right to marry, I would be voting not to grant them marriage rights.
Yes I realize that a very small minority of gay couples have children from heterosexual unions. I wish them all the best and am open to supporting them in their awesome responsiblities without changing the institution of marriage.
Is Tony someone that we know or is he a New Media Douchebag? It’s okay if he’s both.
I think he came from my trolling of Carrie Prejean’s facebook page. He’s fun and definitely spices up the site. He is so against gay marriage that he would advocate disallowing straight people with ovarian cancer from marrying in the process. How could I not want someone like that around?