My Interracial Marriage should legally be Gay (part 2)

On Comparing Gay Marriage to Interracial Marriages:

Is same-sex marriage a civil rights issue? It’s often said that “gay is the new black” and that the laws of the recent past against interracial marriages compare favorably to resistance to adding laws that allow for same-sex marriages because both are said to go against people’s rights to their “pursuit of happiness.” However, for starters the laws against interracial marriages have nothing to do with the far more ancient institution we call marriage. There were societies that accepted interracial marriage before the US had those rules because it’s still a marriage. But while that may show that these laws were unfairly imposed on an already existing institution called marriage and were not themselves a redefinition of it, that doesn’t hit the same sex marriage supporter’s objection on the head exactly. They would still say the two issues still relate to civil rights. Do they? Or is this a category mistake?

Gender has to do with biology and even the way we think and act, our gender makes us different in kind not merely by appearances. Whereas different skin colors do not constitute a difference in kind. The laws against interracial marriages were bigoted based on rejection of mere appearances (skin color) and arbitrarily calling other races subhuman. At that time, the genders of those involved in a marriage (being male-female) were part of what made it a marriage whereas the color or mere appearance of those involved had nothing to do with it being a marriage or not. It was a ban put on the institution, an imposition not natural to the thing called marriage. Justice was done when the ban was lifted. Defending marriage from being redefined to include same sex couples is not a hostile imposition, it is a defensive position. There’s no prohibition for same sex couples to marry. They can marry just like any one else. What is being prohibited is a regime change for the concept of marriage.

“Humans can marry each other” is basic (e.g. a black man and a white woman are both human). “Same sex couples love each other” makes sense, that’s not in debate here, but “Same sex couples can marry each other” is not basic and doesn’t even seem to fit the words being given. It’s like “I make my own destiny” or “married bachelor”—we can say the words but the meaning doesn’t fit. But what does gender and sex have to do with marriage right? Gender and sex obviously have a great deal to do with marriage while skin color doesn’t. This ought to be immediately apparent as honeymoons are still popular excuses for having sex, and marriages are still the way we keep society going by way of families. There are exceptions, but these are by definition of “exception,” not the norm. It may have to be pointed out to we who already assume that gender identity and sexual orientation is up on the list of life choices along with what college to attend, that same-sex couples generally speaking are not a natural pairing of genders. While marriage is a meeting of the minds is it not a mere meeting of the minds. While it involves romance, it is not simply romance. While it entails a lifelong commitment, it is not simply a lifelong commitment. While marriage is difficult to define, nobody thinks it is hopelessly arbitrary.

The details as well as the whole must be in view here if there is a case to be made to change what marriage is, institutionally. Marriage never was whatever the government or people says it is, and whoever says that is just plain wrong on the face of it. Why? Those who say so are being totally inconsistent, for if marriage is whatever we say it is, then why fight for same-sex marriage with such tenacious vehemence as if God were on their side? If it is justice we want, then we can’t appeal to such slippery logic as “marriage is whatever our generation says it is.” If it’s tolerance they want, they’ve already got it. Tolerance is for whomever you disagree with, not the opposite. But it isn’t tolerance they want, obviously, for they have said openly that they want complete moral acceptance, but this presupposes the answer to the very question I posed in my previous post, “Is homosexuality moral?” Proponents of “gay rights” who want to turn this into a civil rights issue assert that injustice is being done against gays, that the moral depravity lies on the other side, not theirs. How about you? Have you dared to ask or do you repeat what’s popular because it has been so often repeated? The subjectivity with which morality has been treated makes it difficult to even explain why I think it is immoral. I’ll try though, in my next post…