A Gay Defense of a Traditional View of Marriage
By
Marco Antonio Roberts
Published Friday, June 29, 2012
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At
the end of June, to coincide with the date of the Stonewall riots of 1969,
Gay Pride celebrations will take place across America, from San Francisco to
New York City, and around the world, and even in faraway places romantic as
they are unlikely, such as Rome and Istanbul.
Houston itself will host numerous large gay pride events, including
one of the largest nighttime parades in the world, drawing close to 100,000
parade watchers each year, shutting down its major Westheimer
thoroughfare near downtown for five hours.
All of this will take place in the wake of recent milestones in the
area of gay rights and political advances, and with the heady expectations of
more gains to come. One
of these recent milestones occurred on Wednesday, May 9, 2012, when the
president of the United States made a dramatic announcement marking the
turning point in his personal so-called ‘evolution’ on his views on the issue
of gay marriage. After proclaiming in
his first presidential election campaign that he believed marriage was
between a man and a woman, the president now declared that it “personally”
was important to him for him to “affirm” that “same-sex couples should be
able to get married.” |
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A GAY
(AND RISKY) DEFENSE OF TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE
While
many people I know in Houston’s Montrose community will be reveling in this new
development, “personally,” I greet this news with mixed emotions. Though I was the leader of gay rights
activism in the mid-1980’s at Texas A&M University while a student there -
directly involved with the GSS
vs. Texas A&M University case that was settled at the steps of the U.S.
Supreme Court in 1985, and I and my life mate will surely benefit in the
foreseeable future from the inevitable influence this will have on the further
acceptance of gay couples into the social fabric, I have long believed that
civil union, not marriage, is the proper framework for formalizing the legal
status of same-sex relationships.
I
hesitate to publicly say fully why this is so.
The truth is, throughout my entire life, I have always found my fellow
gay brethren (in general – certainly not to a person), as virulently intolerant
of contrary opinions as the most fervent religious fundamentalists. I suppose this intolerance is natural to
groups that have experienced severe intolerance themselves, justified or
not. So, they – we –circle the wagons
around any of their shibboleths that seem to come under attack, even if that
attack comes in the form of a question.
So, I expect that while expressing my reasoning in full would at most be
only a matter of interest to most Americans, it would be found outright
incendiary among the overwhelming majority of what is now called the
lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender community (a terminology, by the way, which I
predicted back in 1989). No one can
breezily dismiss a highly emotionally charged sentiment that pervades the
community in which they must live.
There’s
also the complication that many good gay friends are already invested in the
institution as marriage, and a full commentary would be easily misunderstood as
a critique of what they have chosen to do in their own lives, something I would
not want to happen, especially when there may be little point in saying something
that will make no difference.
Yet, I
reject the idea that just because I’m gay, all things that gay people want are
good, just as I think it ridiculous to believe that just because I am American
that all things Americans want ought to be sought. And, I do see negative, if subtle and slowly
unfolding, consequences for the chosen path.
So, seeing almost no voices articulate coherently as well as
unapologetically (if still delicately), a public defense for the special the
place the union of man and woman play in our society, I feel compelled to do
so.
THERE’S MORE TO IT THAN JUST MARRIAGE
But my
misgivings touch on a larger politico-cultural trend of which the question of
marriage is just one, if very prominent, piece; it’s about the deliberate and persistent
effort earnestly under way in the U.S. and much of the West now for forty years
to deny the sexual dichotomy of the human species; that is, to deny that men
and women are truly innately, biologically different ; and that their different
constitutions have real ramifications in how they think, the choices they make,
how they react to other persons or circumstances, and yes, in their physical
and mental attributes. It is a movement
in great part spearheaded by lesbian feminists and gay men who loathe the whole
notion of masculinity and femininity, but with its effects targeted at society
as a whole as its promoters hope to create a world in which their (our)
‘gender-crossing’ is not seen in any way ‘less-than’ the norm. Lesbian feminists, of which I have met many
and have read their leading political theories, have the added motivation of
bitter resentment, if not hatred, for any notion of male advantage in anything
(e.g., men cannot be seen as being generally physically stronger, despite the
biological fact driven by testosterone), regardless of what advantages women
may have in other things.
Now, it
may seem odd that any rational person would insist on maintaining that men and
women are not biologically different at all. And, in fact, since science has
recently become more unequivocal in reinforcing this ancient recognition of
gender differences in humans (say
nothing of almost all the other animal species that inhabit the earth), these
‘anti-gender’ folks no longer say this as directly as they once did in the
1960’s and 1970’s; but the purpose and effect of everything else they say and
do is, and staunchly remains, to ensure we eventually erase any concept of
male/female distinction, except in the most clinical and cold descriptions of
our bodies, even if it means (sometimes especially so) rigging standards and
qualifications to force the result of sameness.
So,
this discussion will have its own dichotomy, between the discussion on gay
marriage, and the more important discussion on the effort to erase all gender
identity. We will start with the smaller
subject, but then we will touch on the larger matter at hand.
ON MARRIAGE VS. CIVIL UNIONS
From a
practical standpoint, one could argue that the decision by the gay (GBLT)
movement to insist on “marriage” instead of civil unions has been the reason
for the backlash among mainstream Americans, and what the activists fail to
account for is that what people think they should say in public may not be how
they vote in private. In 2004 we saw the
first court decisions forcing gay marriage acceptance by judicial fiat. Two years later we saw the first wave of state referendums, all cementing
anti-gay stances on marriage and civil unions; and these have continued through
subsequent election cycles, with not a single anti-gay marriage/civil union
referendum failing to this day, regardless of what the polls say.
I also
think that the need to equate homosexual unions exactly with heterosexual ones
is an emotional reaction against doing anything that sounds like “separate but
equal” without consideration that there may be real factors at play that do in
fact make these relationships different – in some ways small, and in some ways
very significantly. For example, two men
having sex will never have a baby by accident, and so, the public interest in
making sure they are married is simply not as urgent as that for heterosexual
couples engaging in sex. Every time a
man and woman sexually bond there is much more potentially at stake.
Moreover,
a common-sense argument can be made that children benefit from having a male
and female parental influences – all other things being equal - and thus,
though gay couples can make good parents, in cases of adoption it may be valid
to consider the heterosexuality of a couple as one of many factors when
selecting the best possible parents when more than one couple seek to adopt a
child, or guardianship. This is the same
question we have with single parenthood, not something to be outlawed or
condemned since we cannot judge all individual circumstances, but clearly not
wise to claim it has equal footing with the benefits of two-parent
child-rearing, particularly when some
studies have confirmed the
conventional view on the benefits of two-parent households.
A recent study claims that same-sex couples
are equally beneficial for children as heterosexual ones. But, this is curious since there are
extremely few children raised by openly gay pairings. How did they get a large enough statistical
sample? It also raises the question of
what effect does having both male and female parental influences in childhood
versus only male or only female. The
reality is that each study needs to be carefully reviewed before accepting its
conclusions because often the bias of the investigators leads the results. For example, if a study starts off with the
premise – as some do without proof – that having a father perform duties in
exactly the same proportion and manner as a mother makes for a better father,
that study will favor conclusions that see same-sex couples as no different
than ‘better’ heterosexual couples. This touches on our larger, second topic: the insistence
that there is no difference between male and female (and therefore, the
insistence that be it man and woman, man and man, or woman and woman, it makes
no difference to the child).
THE LARGER ISSUE AT
HAND: THE WAR AGAINST GENDER
The reality is that whatever is true about
the unique benefits of heterosexual marriage, they are not likely to sway the
forces that, on a larger scheme of things, are intent on erasing any semblance
of gender-distinction. These folks have
long seen the whole idea of gender differences as a “social construct,” that
is, an artificial, man-made (literally, made by males, particularly
heterosexual ones) distinction that needs to be eradicated. Lesbian feminists, and their feminist
followers, many of them gay men who were traumatized as young boys when they
couldn’t live up to the conventional view of what a growing boy should be,
despise any suggestion or affirmation of gender traits. And so, men’s college athletic departments
are eviscerated in a requirement that women be just as athletic as men. Women are told that they are not good enough,
or “equal,” if they are not more like men.
Physical standards are lowered in the law-enforcement, military, and
firefighting professions so it can be made to look as if men and women are
equally suited for the jobs in exactly equal proportions. It is why some European feminists have been
demanding that urinals be banned in men’s restrooms, or installed in women’s
(not kidding), and have already succeeded in having some elementary schools do
so. It’s why gay bars have unisex
bathrooms, and why now the University of Minnesota just introduced ‘gender
neutral’ bathrooms, where men and women can perform intimate bodily functions
together. (Ask yourself: why would
anybody push for this, if there was not some larger goal in mind?). Still, among a large portion of the gay
population, and many hard-left heterosexuals, this is considered advanced
thinking. It is not. It is doing away with the lessons of
civilization and taking us back to more animal behavior. Either way, it is a key point in the equation
of gay and straight unions.
While
it is a good thing to open as many life options as possible to people
regardless of gender, there is something seriously neurotic about a movement
that says simultaneously both: 1) that aggressive and competitive male
dominance of any profession or realm leads to oppression and injustice; and 2)
that women need to be more aggressive and competitive like men. I also fear that the civilizing and
moderating influence women have always had over men is being discarded as
inferior, and we may end up with a coarser and more warlike world for it.
As for
gay marriage, in the end, this may all become moot, as I suspect gay people
could one day cease to exist. Yes, I
know it sounds harsh to say so. And yet,
it seems inevitable that once the genetic and environmental factors are
identified for homosexuality – as they almost certainly will be, it will be
hard for many women and couples to resist using that information to exercise
their ‘reproductive’ rights, whether that be in the most extreme exercise of
that right, or in more mild forms, such as genetic engineering. These issues are already in play: this past
month a bill to ban sex-selection abortions was defeated in Congress.
DIFFERENT BUT STILL
EQUAL IN LOVE
This
June there will be great gay celebration of the recent gains in being seen as “the
same” as straights. But, for me, my
sense of self-respect and worth is not dependent on folks seeing my most valued
relationship exactly the same as they would that of a heterosexual couple. Legal
recognition is welcome, but what matters most to me is what Christ said about
love, and that I remain faithful and dedicated to Mike to the end.
We need
to get comfortable with difference in a better way, and not anxiously and
fastidiously require that every human condition result in exactly the same
outcome.
Readers’
Comments
As
always, you are the perfect balance of conservative and liberal. I feel
enlightened each time I read your words. I am honored you share with me. I hope you received lots of feedback on this.
I loved it just as much as I did the first reading of the shorter version.
-Kerry Byassee
I
think you are so talented in expressing your
thoughts/feelings and gives all something to think about.
Personally, I don’t care what the President thinks; I just don’t feel
good about him as a whole.
-Mary Wojo
Reading this, I have to
say as a straight person that I don’t understand why you would not want to gain
every legal advantage.
-Sheryl Teague
I think a lot of gay men
feel this way, but won’t say it around their friends.
-Gerald Frazier
Agreed.
-Kenneth Bauman
I don’t care what we call
our bond.
-Gerald Frazier
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