Gay Marriage

   

In recent years the topic of Same Sex Marriage (hereafter SSM) has been much on people's minds.  It has been on the minds of gay people, because they believe they should be allowed to marry the consenting adult whom they love, same as straight people, and to enjoy thereby the many significant advantages (e.g. lower tax rates) that come with marriage in our nation.  It has also been on the minds of people who are against SSM.  In the 1990's. they were so afraid that the gay writing was on the marital wall that they attempted to freeze society in time, like a prehistoric bug entombed forever in amber, by passing the strangely named Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which proposed to defend the institution of marriage by decreeing that certain classes of people must not participate in it.

     It is not clear to me why the people who concocted this bit of anachronistic nonsense did so, what they feared, why they feared it, and what they thought this "act" would actually accomplish.  Suffice it to say that it was signed into law by President William Jefferson Clinton, whose own marriage promptly went straight down the crapper, not to be heard from again until, probably, 2016, when there is every likelihood that the nation will elect its first female (also its first separated) president, Mr. Clinton's estranged wife, Hilary Rodham Clinton.  By that time, of course, there is an equal or better likelihood that the DOMA will have gone the way of the poll tax and the saber toothed tiger.

     At present, the issue of SSM is a lively one, and proponents and opponents are loud in their advocacy for their respective sides, so I thought (as the Indian Jackson says in the film Cat Ballou (immediately before entering into a free for all that is turning a barn dance upside down), "I have a right to share in the fun without regard to race, creed, or color according to the Fourteenth Amendment.") that I may as well attempt to record my vision of the doings for posterity, while it's still interesting.  I assume that in fifty years or less, children being informed that there was a time when same sex couples couldn't marry will respond with an incredulous, "really?" or "you cannot be serious" or whatever neologistic expressions of surprise are current at the time.

Support for SSM is pretty simple.  The Supreme Court has ruled that:

1) marriage is a fundamental right;

2) homosexuality is not a crime;

Therefore, it would seem to follow that

3)  homosexuality is not grounds for denying one the right to marry.

Since marriage is a contract founded on love and commitment, and since by their nature homosexuals can only enter into loving, committed relationships with members of the same sex, it follows that they should have the same right to marry the consenting adult whom they love that straight people enjoy.

     Opposition to this position would necessarily have to be on the ground that SSM does harm which trumps the rights of gay people to marry.  However, opponents of SSM have clung, with mind-boggling tenacity to a substantial handful of entirely predictable - and rather vacuous - arguments:

1) juvenile bathroom humor - It is hard to know exactly what weight opponents of SSM believe these jejune taunts lend to their cause, but this is one of the two most frequently encountered forms employed by SSM antagonists; the other is

2) threats of divine displeasure - Opponents of SSM frequently couch their opposition in terms that amount to: God hates homosexuality, and it says so in this, that or the other passage in the Bible.  Not that many of these antagonists articulate a belief that the laws of the nation must be made to comport with the arcane values to be found in the Bible, nor would they want them to be.  These people do not want to have to stop eating pork or anything containing blood or fat; they do not want to have to give up blended fabrics, and they certainly do not want to have to give up watching the NFL, most of whose games take place on the Sabbath.  And though some might willingly give up the society of menstruating women, they do not find it expedient to propose this prohibition.  But for SSM they are prepared to invoke an exception.  Homosexuality was an abomination to Bronze Age Hebrews, and it should be treated accordingly by 21st Century Americans.  These people declare solemnly that, when New York or New Jersey is ravaged by storms or California by earthquakes, this is a divine shot across our bows, evidence of God's coming wrath against liberal states sympathetic to gay rights.  When Oklahoma or Texas or Alabama or Arkansas or Missouri or any of the other staunchly conservative, god-fearing states is substantially demolished by tornadoes, that is a natural tragedy and could happen to anyone.

3) "slippery slope" arguments - These claim, in effect, that if SSM is made legal, this will lead by inexorable logic to a state of things in which small children will be required by law to marry pangolins. The contention seems to be that, once SSM passes, anything goes.  A frequent inference (disturbingly frequent) is that, "if a man can marry another man, then I ought to be able to marry my dog."  The number of men who seem to have fantasies of marrying their dogs is truly impressive, and may give some insight into the prevailing psychology of those who oppose SSM, as though they fear that the only thing standing between them and marrying their dogs (to whom they may have promised God knows what) is DOMA.  This argument fails to embrace the fact that mutual consent by competent adults is a requirement for entering into any binding contract in this country, which pretty well leaves out children and pangolins, and, yes, even very smart, much loved dogs.  A relative of this argument equates homosexuality with pedophilia, asserting that pedophilia is merely another sexual orientation and should have the same standing as homosexuality in the marriage debate, completely discounting the fact that the whole problem with pedophilia is that children cannot by definition consent to the relationship, which makes this a non-starter, in addition to being manifestly absurd and probably malicious.  And then there's the question of polygamy, again on the assumption that, given SSM, anything goes.  And the argument against polygamy is not easy to formulate; on the other hand, it has no relationship to the discussion of SSM.

4) "It ain't natural!!!"  -  The objection that SSM and homosexuality in general are not "natural" and are therefore unacceptable is based on a rather nonspecific logic.  These objections are typically expressed on internet news threads, a phenomenon not found in nature, in a language (usually English, more or less) not found in nature, using a device (computer) not found in nature, concerning an institution (marriage) not found in nature, and often referencing another institution (religion) also found nowhere in nature.  The fact that homosexual relations are sometimes found in nature aside, it is unclear why not being "natural" should be a bar to acceptance by these people, many of whom also make a minor fetish of firearms, and extol as the pinnacle of God's achievement through man the development of manufacturing and technology, whose raison d'être is to distance Man as much as possible from those limitations and frailties imposed on him by his natural endowment.

5) "It's sick!  It's a mental illness and can and should be treated!" -  This is another common assertion of opponents of SSM; not, interestingly, one endorsed by persons actually knowledgeable regarding mental illness and its treatment.  I have been a licensed clinical psychologist for over thirty years, and know that, although there was a time several editions ago when the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders included homosexuality among the diagnoses one might attempt to treat, that was a very long time ago, at a time when extramarital pregnancy and even premarital sex (in females) were also regarded as mental disorders.  This was before the Boulder Conference and its Scientist-Practitioner Model for psychology were fully embraced by the profession, and most views of psychopathology still derived from the brilliant but deeply flawed theories of Dr. Freud.  Suffice it to say that at present (and for over thirty years), the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Medical Association, and their counterparts in all developed western nations are in agreement that homosexuality is non-pathological.  Moreover (Marcus Bachmann notwithstanding), studies attempting to alter sexual orientation through psychotherapy (including some rather draconian aversion therapies - see A Clockwork Orange ) have failed to produce desired results.  In sum, those who actually know what they're talking about with regard to mental disorders agree that homosexuality is NOT a form of mental disorder, and that "curing" it through psychotherapy is neither desirable nor possible.

6) "It's not NORMAL!" -  This appears to be largely a variant of items 4 and 5.  This seems to express the view that anything so far removed from conventional mainstream social norms cannot possibly be okay.  And it is true that, in the most literal sense of the term, homosexuality is not "normal" - is not the norm.  Homosexuals comprise some 5% of the citizenry of the USA, and as such they are statistically unusual.  Why this should be grounds for objection in itself is hard to grasp, since, for example, extremes of beauty, athletic prowess, and professional achievement are similarly infrequent, and no one objects to them.  That a nation that preens itself on its appreciation of individualism should reject out of hand a group of people entirely on the ground that they are different seems to be, itself, anomalous.  Remove from the discussion the fact that homosexuality is a relatively rare phenomenon, and we are left with the fact that SSM involves people falling in love, finding each other sexually attractive, and wanting to get married.  It would be hard to imagine something more normative in American society than this.

7) "Ooooooh! It's sooooo icky!!!" -  This line of "argument" embodies elements of many of the others, but it boils down to this:  opponents of SSM, contemplating what they imagine to be the sexual behaviors of homosexuals and finding them unappealing (even as gay people find the sexual acts of straight people unappealing), become agitated and incredulous that anyone could conduct themselves in so vile and repellant a fashion.  The obvious answer to this, as offered repeatedly in these discussions, is, "if it doesn't appeal to you, don't do it."  Somehow, though, this simple remedy seems not to satisfy.  The theory seems to be that if something is found subjectively revolting enough, that constitutes a justification why it should not exist.  De gustibus non est disputandum doesn't cut it, apparently.  The "ickyness argument", it need hardly be said, refers only to male homosexuality.  Sex between women is something many SSM opponents find "hot".

8) "Being gay is a choice!" -  This is an assertion offered by many opponents of gay marriage in response to the argument that, since gay people are born gay (even as black people are born black), one should not be discriminated against on the basis of something over which one has no volitional control. The theory is that, if gay people choose to be gay, they can choose not to be gay, and if they want to get married, they should first choose to be straight, like everyone else.  Well, first of all, over the course of a long life, much of it as a clinical psychologist, in which capacity I have gotten to know a great many gay people very well; I have never encountered a single gay person who reported having chosen to be gay.  Indeed, most report having gone through significant parts of their early life secretly troubled over the discovery that they embody a characteristic that society as a whole treats as loathsome, and many experiment with dating members of the opposite sex in an effort to shed their homosexuality and become "normal".  But it never works.  I have known several gay men lamenting that they are gay because they find suitable partners hard to come by, while they are often surrounded by nice women who see them as ideal mates on account of their sensitivity, aesthetic sense, understanding and disinclination to treat women as sexual objects.  Say what you will about life, it does not lack for irony.

So, the overwhelming evidence is that people do not choose to be gay (although Marcus Bachmann is striving, against clearly insuperable odds, to be straight).  But even if they did, a question remains: should  persons choosing one benign sexual orientation be denied basic civil rights enjoyed by persons choosing a different benign sexual orientation?  I have yet to encounter a cogent justification for this.

In sum, the above illustrates the basic lines of argument offered by opponents of SSM in support of their opposition.  That these are based on virtually anything but fact and logic is apparent.  There is superstition, there is aversion, there is ignorance, there is tradition, there is fear of the unknown.  What is lacking is rationality and, above all, justice.  That American society is well on its way to accepting SSM is hardly in doubt.  Whether we can demonstrate that we are a humane, compassionate and just society in a more or less timely fashion remains to be seen.  It may be seen this week when, it is anticipated, the Supreme Court will rule on the constitutionality of DOMA and Proposition 8 (a California law prohibiting SSM).