What’s wrong with (those who oppose) same-sex marriage?

It looks like Peter LaBarbera of the contradictorily named Americans for Truth (About Homosexuality) has launched yet another anti-same-sex-marriage campaign, the Illinois Defense of Marriage Initiative, which is expected to suffer the same ignominious fate as so many others like it. It also boasts the below list, itself lifted from this longer and detailed flyer ^{[PDF, 28.5 KB]} from another religious-Right group, The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (and which I have exactly zero intention to read for the sake of not spending all night on this):

What is wrong with same-sex “marriage”?

1. It Is Not Marriage^[1]
2. It Violates Natural Law^[2]
3. It Always Denies a Child Either a Father or a Mother^[3]
4. It Validates and Promotes the Homosexual Lifestyle^[4]
5. It Turns a Moral Wrong into a Civil Right^[5]
6. It Does Not Create a Family but a Naturally Sterile Union^[6]
7. It Defeats the State’s Purpose of Benefiting Marriage^[7]
8. It Imposes Its Acceptance on All Society^[8]
9. It Is the Cutting Edge of the Sexual Revolution^[9]
10. It Offends God^[10]

How could I resist?

• 1) You know, the logic behind “calling something by another name doesn’t change what it is” works both ways; you also can’t change something just by claiming that it isn’t what it very clearly is, no matter how loudly or often you screech it. Once again, marriage (at least in modern times) is an evolving social construct that was originally co-opted by (and is currently transitioning out of) religion, and these days, it is nothing more or less than a civil, usually state-sanctioned, union between two (or possibly more) people, mostly out of love. Whether or not these individuals have matching genitalia really is (or should be) of no concern to anyone other than themselves. That includes offended busybodies.

• 2) There is no such thing as “Natural Law”. The fact that stochastic natural processes and non-sentient organisms behave and interact in various ways is no rational basis for deciding what intelligent and emotional beings such as humans should or shouldn’t be allowed to do. Nature is really more of a template; it gives us an environment to work with and operate within, but what we choose to do with it is entirely up to us. There really is no reason to attempt to derive right or wrong from the natural world alone; otherwise, we might as well start eating babies and killing everyone with have sex with. For starters. (Seriously, a thousand cookies to Jen for writing that post.)

• 3) Except that children don’t need both a mother and a father to survive and flourish. Ask any kid raised by single or (*le gasp*) same-sex parents. In fact, kids raised in gay households actually tend to be better adjusted than others. Sounds like a bit of a direct contradiction to bigots’ claims to me.

• 4) And this is a bad thing … why? (Oh, right, gay cooties and end of society an’ shit.)

• 5) What moral wrong? Seriously, until bigots come up with any coherent reason why homosexuality is wrong in the first place – other than “’Cause God says so”, which is rather the opposite of credible – then they’re really just asking to be dismissed. And all forms of marriage that include loving and consenting individuals are, by definition, a civil right.

• 6) Only if one’s definition of ‘family’ is strictly limited to “mother, father and children”. Realistically, ‘family’ is anyone and everyone you love and hold close in your life. This inherently disregards pretty much every physical aspect, including gender (and age, and ethnicity, and height, and hair color, and …). And gay parents can adopt or (for women) receive artificial insemination, which rather deftly eliminates the sterility issue.

• 7) I’m not exactly an expert in economics, here (which is what I reckon this argument is all about), but any thinking that concludes that supporting LGBT folks’ right to marry somehow equals financial or legal devastation is intrinsically and hopelessly flawed.

• 8) How idiotic. What is so demanding about simply getting people to accept the fact that gays want to marry those they love as much as heterosexuals do? Again, no-one is forcing anyone else to do anything. Billy and Bob Doe won’t have to start kissing and fucking if their state legalizes gay marriage, and religious leaders are always specifically excluded (as they should be) from being forced to marry Millie and Mandy if they don’t want to. Only those whose job requires them to treat the public equally (be they government functionaries, medical doctors, public educators, etc.) may find themselves forced to serve same-sex couples, and at any rate, anyone who chooses to discriminate rather than do their job properly deserves to lose it, anyway.

• 9) Leave it to religious-conservatives to still harp on about a social phenomenon that largely ended decades ago. Seriously, it’s over. Gay sex is pretty much as accepted as straight sex nowadays. Unless gay people regularly hold drunken orgies your front porch, you really have nothing to complain about.

• 10) Oh, well, I’m convinced. Srsly. That’s, like, totally a good argument. Appealing to the whims of an imaginary sky-being – not at all pants-on-head retarded. Nope.

Seriously, homophobes, you really, really need to get some new material, if only for the sake of adding some variety in your close-minded gibberish.

(via Joe. My. God.)

Tags: Illinois Defense of Marriage Initiative • Peter LaBarbera • The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property • The American TFP • gay marriage • same-sex marriage • LGBT marriage