One Reason I Would Like To See Gay Marriage Pass

In the modern media consciousness, there is no more noble, pure-as-the-driven-snow construct in all of humanity than the Gay Couple.

Now, I have nothing against gay couples.  Indeed, while I believe that God or Evolution or remorseless fate or random biology or whatever you believe in did in fact create male and female parents for some very good reasons – they are different, and both bring things to the child-rearing process that the child needs and that the parent of the other gender lacks – that for example it’d be preferable to have adoptive kids raised by gay couples than, say, single parents.  If nothing else, they can play one-on-one instead of zone defense against kids.  You laugh, but it’s important.

But the debate about gay marriage has nothing to do with children (and if it did, gay couples would eschew marriage, since the divorce industry is the worst thing for children). Indeed, you can listen to gay marriage supporters for years – as I have – and hear scarcely a mention of children (which is true of way too many straight couples too).

But here’s the one reason I’d like to see gay marriage pass.

Currently, gay couples – at least, the sort of gay couples that intend to get married – are portrayed, inevitably, as saints and angels walking among us.  Kind, loving, perfect parents, in a relationship placid enough to shame a fifties sitcom family.   And go ahead and read any thread about gay marriage on Youtube; the thread will be full of teenagers saying “I’d take any gay couple over my parents” (although I suspect you’d see some of those same kids saying the same thing on video threads about the Partridge, Manson and Ganbino families.  Teenagers are like that).   And always, always, always, whether in anecdote or media report, gay couples are juxtaposed with straight couples – who fight, get divorced, get arrested, have the sorts of problems real couples have these days.

You never see the couples where one partner is flopped on a sofa in front of a TV, halfway through a twelve-pack, while the other partner is screaming at her about how she could have been something until she met her.  You never see the cop cars in front of gay couples houses, frog-walking a boxer-clad handcuffed gay guy out to the car while the other, in a tank top, bellows “I love you, Earl!” from the porch of the trailer and vows to come and bail him out.

The reason is most likely political correctness (and the fact that gay couples, having to adopt kids as they do, do have to be highly-motivated and just-about-perfect, at least for a while).

And if gay marriage were legalized, one minor fringe benefit would be that gay couples would actually “get” to be human.

Or at least the media – news, entertainment and otherwise – might start portraying them as humans.  Which is another matter altogether.

18 thoughts on “One Reason I Would Like To See Gay Marriage Pass

  1. Why in the world would you think that gay marriage would look like heterosexual marriage?

  2. I have a gay father-in-law, and I can tell you he exists on an end of the gay spectrum that is so far removed from the gay world portrayed in “Will and Grace” it’s astonishing. The fights/break ups he’s had with his assorted boyfriends over the years have been EPIC. Makes for interesting holidays.

  3. My teenagers about “how good” gay parents would be, they’ve seen the lesbian down the road and listened to her teenager’s stories and they know better. In general, homosexual couples are less stable and less monogamous than heterosexual ones* and that leads to more problems than plain sexual orientation and any (residual) discrimination that might engender.

    Honestly, I think gays are nuts to be pushing for inclusion in marriage laws as they are presently written. They’d be far better off arranging things legally on the side than shoving themselves into the legal grinder that is divorce court. But as I’ve pointed out, they can get 97% of the benefits that they claim to want with a simple set of legal documents, yet as there’s no demand for those legal documents you have to wonder if it’s really marriage they want or just society’s blessing.

    *You’re no doubt shocked that folks who rejects one of society’s bigger mores are more likely to reject other important mores, too.

  4. Darn those bigoted, homophobic facts:
    A study to be released next month is offering a rare glimpse inside gay relationships and reveals that monogamy is not a central feature for many. Some gay men and lesbians argue that, as a result, they have stronger, longer-lasting and more honest relationships. And while that may sound counterintuitive, some experts say boundary-challenging gay relationships represent an evolution in marriage — one that might point the way for the survival of the institution.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/us/29sfmetro.html?_r=1

    Love this quote from the article: “In 1900, the average life span for a U.S. citizen was 47,” Mr. Quirk said. “Now we’re living so much longer, ‘until death do us part’ is twice as challenging.”

    Gay marriage has been legal in Denmark since 1989. In Denmark, the average gay “spouse” has 8 different sex partners each year.

  5. How long will ELCA’s rule against homosexual clergy who are NOT in monogamous relationships stand? Non-monogamous marriage is the standard for gay male “marriages”.

  6. Terry wrote: “Why in the world would you think that gay marriage would look like heterosexual marriage?”

    Mitch wrote: “Based on the premise that gay people are human…”

    What’s the punch line, Mitch?

  7. What i meant by “Why in the world would you think that gay marriage would look like heterosexual marriage?” is that Hollywood has done its best to put an “Ozzie and Harriet” face on same-sex marriage. It is not there. Gay couples, especially male gay couples, view marriage very differently than heterosexual couples.

  8. To elaborate:

    Mitch wrote: “Based on the premise that gay people are human…”

    Mitch – your point being…what?

  9. Point being that the media narrative is that marriage is all about love, and that all these gay couples love each other, and they’ll make not just great families, but better families that all those cheatin’ domestic-abusin’, tank-top-wearing straights.

  10. The redefinition of marriage is absolutely about children. It’s about adults – heterosexual and homosexual – building a bigger grown-up sandbox to play in. Children just interfere with adult freedom. Gay marriage is also the last major battle of the “tolerance enforcers” – Mark Steyn’s term for the ideological conformity demanded by the cultural Left. Chick-fil-A may continue to exist, but will a faithful Catholic or evangelical be allowed to keep their job at General Mills if they express opposition to the party/company line on gay marriage?

  11. “How long will ELCA’s rule against homosexual clergy who are NOT in monogamous relationships stand?”
    Well Terry, up until about three years ago. One reason I left the ELCA. They are now officially apostate.

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