"Scare quotes" are the newest form of ad hominem. They are an instant de-legitimation of a term; a source not to show someone that you are using the term differently, but that the term itself has no meaning. This is what the term gay marriage has become. It is a pejorative phrase that distracts people from the source of marriage itself which is love. I want us to go back to the source. The issue is not marriage, it is same gender love.
Perhaps we need to suspend the discourse about sexual intercourse, anal sex, what "the bible says" (see how de-legitimation works by the way?), and marriage for just long enough to get at the root of the issue. This is not about sex. This is about love. This is about when two people who happen to be the same gender want what the vast majority of normal functioning humans crave, to be with a partner; a partner with whom we can be vulnerable, desired, honored, served, and for whom to give ourselves completely. It is about the desire to seek that which is not us in order to be more whole, more complete, and more fulfilled.
Western (or Northern) societies have marriage not as some arbitrary social contract in order to reproduce the population. Perhaps that is what it once was, but it is not that way anymore. As God loves us not because of our ability to procreate, but by the mere fact that we exist, so we seek the love of another human being for a physical embodiment of the love by which human beings were created. Either this kind of love, that absolutely does occur and is desired to be seen as legitimate by those attracted to the same gender, is a legitimate love – or it is not.
Here is another way to ask the question: Is love a gendered faculty of human existence if love does not exist for the sole purpose of pro-creation? The problem is that we continue to root the notion of love in anachronistic and unnecessary proscriptions of gender without once asking if this kind of love is possible without reference to gender. Those who oppose same gender marriages cannot ask these questions because the answers betray their ideological commitments which are abosolute and necessary.
This is where the flaw is exposed. Ideological commitments rooted in anachronistic assumptions without present warrant overrule the fundamental premises of the nature and object of human love and desire. Either love is gendered, or it is not. By Gods grace alone, all of us in the Christian community should address the latter in the affirmative, lest the ideological assumptions of human creation overrule that which give breath, live, and the gift of reason to human beings.
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As much as I appreciate your plea to humanize the debate, I must disagree. Advocates as well as opponents of same-gender marital unions politicize the issue to such an extent that something as fragile as love gets rooted out. If a person can indeed genuinely love someone of the same gender and not have sex with them, then why not do so and leave the rest of us no room for critique or social commentary?
There's the problem. You went right to sex rooted in ideological assumptions before any discussion of love. My position is that these sorts of assumptions ought to be bracketed before we jump to intercourse, fellatio, cunnilingus, anal sex, etc. For the LGBT community the issue is not sex at all. No one needs legal legitimation to have sex. The issue is that the state refuses to legitimize same gender love. The issue is that people of the same gender either love each other as do people of different genders or not. And your last question does not make sense. Get rid of some of the negatives and re-phrase. There's plenty of social commentary to go around. I just disagree with one set of arguments I think are irrationally conceived for reasons I have continued to argue.
Well said Drew. It's about love, not sex.
Apart from the non sense at the end, I don't understand 'pistol's comment. 'Plea' to humanise the debate?
The problem is that once you pull sex and even marriage out of the discussion and focus on love, it does not fit into the ideological structures that inform nonaffirmative positions. This itself reveals that these are positions that are ideologically conceived in extra-biblical referents.
drew,
I agree with you that sex should not be the issue when it comes to Marriage. But you must agree that Mariage was and is a commitment between two [male and female] and that it was institutionalized for the fact of pro-creating and replenishment of the Earth.
As towards the Love of another equal gender, we find that Christ 'loved' the Apostles and the World, but he did not have sex with them nor did he marry them. Also, i find it demeaning of your educational background to even advocate that the Love of God is extended to homosexuality to the point that they too can have a union based on Biblical Principels.
When we look at the Love of Christ and that of God as well, i believe that we have defamed the Word of God, in the truest manner, when we can agree that homosexual marriages are equal to heterosexual marriages. The two can in no wise be equal, yet i will agree that there can ba a bond of Love, but not to the point of marriage between equal genders.
sorry to hear that you think my position is demeaning to my educational background. but it is because of my educational background that i came to support this position. ironic right? it would be better if you refrained from ad hominem and stuck to the issue.
Christ's non-sexual relationship with the Apostles is irrelevant.
based on the support you offer to your position, couples that have no intention or ability to have children should not get married? i have another related post arguing why this is not a rational outcome in societies where pro-creation is not a necessity for the propagation of the human race. actually, this does nothing to account for population levels worldwide and that in many if not most cultures the function of marriage is no longer simply procreation.
drew,
I agree with you that sex should not be the issue when it comes to Marriage. But you must agree that Mariage was and is a commitment between two [male and female] and that it was institutionalized for the fact of pro-creating and replenishment of the Earth.
As towards the Love of another equal gender, we find that Christ 'loved' the Apostles and the World, but he did not have sex with them nor did he marry them. Also, i find it demeaning of your educational background to even advocate that the Love of God is extended to homosexuality to the point that they too can have a union based on Biblical Principels.
When we look at the Love of Christ and that of God as well, i believe that we have defamed the Word of God, in the truest manner, when we can agree that homosexual marriages are equal to heterosexual marriages. The two can in no wise be equal, yet i will agree that there can ba a bond of Love, but not to the point of marriage between equal genders.
sorry to hear that you think my position is demeaning to my educational background. but it is because of my educational background that i came to support this position. ironic right? it would be better if you refrained from ad hominem and stuck to the issue.
Christ's non-sexual relationship with the Apostles is irrelevant.
based on the support you offer to your position, couples that have no intention or ability to have children should not get married? i have another related post arguing why this is not a rational outcome in societies where pro-creation is not a necessity for the propagation of the human race. actually, this does nothing to account for population levels worldwide and that in many if not most cultures the function of marriage is no longer simply procreation.