Inventive New Arguments Against Gay Marriage!

by Shaker Mlle. Bébé Gottbach, Ph.D

I sent this link to Liss yesterday because I thought "Gosh, Liss seems like the kind of lady that likes choking in disgust on a nice cool beverage." She asked me if I'd like to step in and guest blog my thoughts, so here you go. It is not brief, but honestly? I couldn't think of anything else to remove without losing a true encapsulation of my actual thoughts. Deep breath, aaaand off we go to the land of misfit boys.

There is a new consensus on gay marriage: not on whether it should be legalized but about the motives of those of us who oppose it. All agree that any and all opposition to gay marriage is explained either by biblical literalism or anti-homosexual bigotry. This consensus is brilliantly constructed to be so unflattering to those of us who will vote against gay marriage--if we are allowed to do so--that even biblical literalists and bigots are scrambling out of the trenches and throwing down their weapons.

OHNOES!!! Morons and bigots are being affected now! By "unflattering" interpretations of their belief that a minority group that is globally abused and globally at risk should continue to live that way! Clearly "Teh Gays" are running the country, people. Yes. You will be forcibly gay married any second now. I'd monitor the seconds on my watch, but I'm afraid the instant I look down they'll get me.

The gist behind this sly-as-a-box-of-rat-droppings logic is that gay marriage really isn't necessary. I'm reasonably sure gays and lesbians and same-sex partnered bisexuals might disagree with Mr. Schulman, but really, who gives a shit what they think, right?

The embrace of homosexuality in Western culture has come about with unbelievable speed

And also, fists! Why, it used to be illegal for same-sex couples to even have sex! We're so enlightened! Sam goes on to explain that we no longer require gays to skulk around in dark, moldy caves—pale, with giant, sightless eyes, waiting to capture an unsuspecting senator and tantalize him into their spelunkerous lifestyle with "The Big Nasty Gay Mole-Peen." No, no—now they're allowed to have jobs! *GASP* But no, they shouldn't be allowed to marry. Marriage isn't about LOVE you see. The entire point of marriage is...TO CONTROL THE NONNY.

Yes, that's right. Marriage is for capturing that wayward bajinga, telling it to CALM ITS PINK ASS DOWN, and helping it settle into a life of drudging nonny servtitude. And gays clearly don't have bajingas*, so there's no reason for them to get married. See? Totally logical!

The entity known as "gay marriage" only aspires to replicate a very limited, very modern, and very culture-bound version of marriage…

…The fact is that marriage is part of a much larger institution, which defines the particular shape and character of marriage: the kinship system.

All of this negates the FACT that right here and now, we marry for love. We choose who we want to spend our lives with. Perhaps it's time for the laws to catch up. And why CAN'T gay people be allowed into the kinship system? Do you think that a mother and father who LOVE their gay child wouldn't be capable of considering the spouse of that child as a son- or daughter-in-law? But I think that's kind of the crux when one is a homobigot. Perhaps part of what is MISSING in America, what's been DENIED our GLB family members is the ability to HAVE a place in the kinship system. To BE defined as someone's spouse, brother-in-law, cousin by marriage. To be allowed into a traditional family model if they want.

Mr. Douche-tastic goes on to explain the 4 most profound effects of marriage within the kinship system. Boiled down, they are:

1. Control those vaginas! I mean!—protect the 'baby-makin' & rape-ee' gender. That's why for centuries women were essentially enslaved by being bought, sold, and traded via the institution of "marriage" as the legally binding contract of their transfer. Gays CAN'T marry, because marriage is meant to reinforce that women are property. And gays aren't women!

2. Racial purity! Dude. You let the gays marry?—and pretty soon it's INCEST ALL THE TIME!! Which ignores that INCEST has a history of legal recognition already (hello Egypt, I'm talking to you. Fantastic wig, by the way, bb, who does your do?) Plus! It's confusing!!

3. (I personally love this one) If we let the gays marry, we can't call the town slut's kid a bastard anymore. OMG. We couldn't even brand her a slut! I... can't see....everything's gone all white...! Because somehow allowing gays to marry will remove the whole concept of "illicit sex" from...um...illicit sex. **

So anyway, yeah. If we remove the taboo from sex, those poor stupid men will stop marrying altogether, because y'know. Why bother?

4. This is a good one y'all. Really, I had to read it 6 times. Basically, marriage is a rite of passage into adulthood. Dudeman goes on a long flowery rant about other countries (which has nothing to do with the issue of the US allowing gays to marry). Allowing gays to marry will cause everyone to have SEX BEFORE MARRIAGE!! And then women can't sell their used cars...(wait, I meant vaginas) to the highest bidder. FOR THE LOVE OF JEBUS, THERE'S NO WOMEN TO EXPLOIT IN A GAY MARRIAGE!!! *swoon*

In fact, gay couples who marry enter into a relationship that married people might envy. Gay marriage may reside outside the kinship system, but it has all the wedding-planning, nest-building fun of marriage but none of its rules or obligations (except the duties that all lovers have toward one another). Gay spouses have none of our guilt about sex-before-marriage. They have no tedious obligations towards in-laws, need never worry about Oedipus or Electra, won't have to face a menacing set of brothers or aunts should they betray their spouse. But without these obligations--why marry? Gay marriage is as good as no marriage at all.

Sooner rather than later, the substantial differences between marriage and gay marriage will cause gay marriage, as a meaningful and popular institution, to fail on its own terms. Since gay relationships exist perfectly well outside the kinship system, to assume the burdens of marriage--the legal formalities, the duty of fidelity (which is no easier for gays than it is for straights), the slavishly imitative wedding ritual--will come to seem a nuisance. People in gay marriages will discover that mimicking the cozy bits of romantic heterosexual marriage does not make relationships stronger; romantic partners more loving, faithful, or sexy; domestic life more serene or exciting. They will discover that it is not the wedding vow that maintains marriages, but the force of the kinship system. Kinship imposes duties, penalties, and retribution that champagne toasts, self-designed wedding rings, and thousands of dollars worth of flowers are powerless to effect

I guess you all didn't realize that gays don't come from families. They're actually incubated and hatched at "The Teh Gays Faktory." They don't HAVE aunts and uncles, moms and dads, entire friendgroups that will pick sides and help them to work out their relationship woes. They don't invest in loving someone enough to go through the hell that is a bad breakup .

Few men would ever bother to enter into a romantic heterosexual marriage--much less three, as I have done--were it not for the iron grip of necessity that falls upon us when we are unwise enough to fall in love with a woman other than our mom.

Whew. Thank god. For a minute there I was so wrapped up in Teh Gays that I forgot "bitchez ain't nuthin' but trix and hoes." Thanks Mr. Doucheman!

Ultimately, it's straight marriage that will suffer, you see. Because don't you forget it, kids, GAYS ARE EVIL. When gay marriage fails, they'll take it out on straight marriage! And please, someone, explain this logic to me:

The irrelevance of marriage to gay people will create a series of perfectly reasonable, perfectly unanswerable questions: If gays can aim at marriage, yet do without it equally well, who are we to demand it of one another? Who are women to demand it of men? Who are parents to demand it of their children's lovers--or to prohibit their children from taking lovers until parents decide arbitrarily they are "mature" or "ready"? By what right can government demand that citizens obey arbitrary and culturally specific kinship rules--rules about incest and the age of consent, rules that limit marriage to twosomes? Mediocre lawyers can create a fiction called gay marriage, but their idealism can't compel gay lovers to find it useful. But talented lawyers will be very efficient at challenging the complicated, incoherent, culturally relative survival from our most primitive social organization we call kinship. The whole set of fundamental, irrational assumptions that make marriage such a burden and such a civilizing force can easily be undone.

*headsplosion*

So basically...allowing gays to marry...will...uh...cause civilization as we know it to end?

There is no doubt that women and children have suffered throughout human history from being over-protected and controlled. The consequences of under-protection and indifference will be immeasurably worse. In a world without kinship, women will lose their hard-earned status as sexual beings with personal autonomy and physical security. Children will lose their status as nonsexual beings.

Hey dude? They never really had it. Because nobody ever bothered to take away the entitlement on the other end of that sad equation.

Can gay men and women be as generous as we straight men are?

Will you consider us as men who love, just as you do, and not merely as homophobes or Baptists?

This is a stunning question, considering his previous statements. I'm inventing a new word kids, right here and now. Ready?

Douché. Your point oozes so much Douchetastic Douchetitude that I am temporarily stunned into silence like a deer in the headlights of a logic-bus.

I'll leave you with this...this gorgeous cherry of fantastico-squee-joy.

Every day thousands of ordinary heterosexual men surrender the dream of gratifying our immediate erotic desires. Instead, heroically, resignedly, we march up the aisle with our new brides, starting out upon what that cad poet Shelley called the longest journey, attired in the chains of the kinship system--a system from which you have been spared. Imitate our self-surrender. If gay men and women could see the price that humanity--particularly the women and children among us--will pay, simply in order that a gay person can say of someone she already loves with perfect competence, "Hey, meet the missus!"--no doubt they will think again. If not, we're about to see how well humanity will do without something as basic to our existence as gravity

Oh Teh Gays. Don't eat that equality bread. Because it's actually BITTER equality bread, y'see? And if you eat it? You'll be MISERABLE with your stupid equality! Just like us straight men are made MISERABLE by women, you'll be made miserable by...um... Well golly, I don't even know what to call that.

So please, Teh Gays. Don't eat the equality bread. It's horrible. Really. And also, it's as basic to our existence as gravity. But not yours. Trust us, Teh Gays. You SO don't want this bread.

Sam Schulman, a writer in Virginia, was publishing director of the American and publisher of  Wigwag.

And ginormous DOUCHE.

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* Lesbians don't count. Everyone knows you can't have REAL sex without a penis, so please, lesbians...shoot more video.

** By the same token, we should also ban Vodka. Just sayin'.