Gay marriage take II

The gay marriage debate raged over at Commentary yesterday here and here and I want to make a last statement before I retire the issue for a while.

To me the right to marry who I want is without doubt an absolute right; government has the right to interfere in many aspects of ones life but not in something as personal, intimate and non threatening as who I love and want to marry. Government should stay the hell away from my bedroom and my love life.

A number of red herrings where thrown up during the debate; such as tax, guns and federalism suggesting that if we took them to the logical basic right then all guns would be completely legal and tax would be abolished – but this is an insane argument.

There are essentially two types of rights, those that have a knock on effect and hence have to be weighted against other rights and tax or gun rights would fall into this category. The second type of rights are those with no knock on effect, such as gay marriage and here’s why.

Lets say the two men or two women who live next door to you decide to get married to each other, what’s the effect on your life? Nothing, zip, nada, nix – in short your life carries on exactly as. That is unless you’re exercising your right to be a bigot in which case you get all huffy, scared and start ranting about the end of civilization as you know it.

But lets be honest here, two gay people marrying actual has zero effect on your life and it's certainly not bad for civilization. In fact Neil commented over at Commentary that gay marriage could actually be considered good for civilization and I concur.

As for the federal issue, it makes no difference to me if we talking country or province/state within that country – the right to marry whom one wants remains a fundamental right and frankly tough to those who are uncomfortable with it. It's got zip to do with imposing laws, these are rights.

As for the idea that the gay community should wait until people are more accepting, that’s bullocks. Apartheid did not end because white people stopped being racist, white people stopped being racist because apartheid ended. In other words the best way to change attitudes to gay marriage is to legalize it.

Bottom line is that people can think what they want about gay marriage, that’s their absolute right. That said it is equally an absolute right to be able to marry whom ever you want and nobody has any right to stop you. To my mind anybody opposing gay marriage on any grounds is just out of touch with the world and their place within it.

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UPDATE.

Wayne at Commentary has responded here and I have given a fairly long winded response that essentially says;

You see to me this is such a simple simple issue with an equally simple simple solution. Permit gay marriage and let everybody get on with his or her life. No real harm done to anybody, why does it have to become so complicated with debates around the Iraq war, abortion, animal rights etc.? Yes initially there will be all sorts of protest and hysterical complaints about the devil etc. but fairly quickly it will become apparent that a gay married couple are no different from a hetro married couple and we can all live in harmony, this is exactly what happened in South Africa.

Comments

[Maureen]

Your opinions are very passionate and intelligent. I strongly agree with what you are saying, and appreciate your audacity.

[Wayne]

Nice portrayal of me as a homophobe Fodder, when in fact I'm arguing for caution on a strategic level for pushing gay marriage too aggressively in conservative communities and states - when such a push by a simple rush to the US
Supreme Court may well cause an additional backlash to the enacted banning of it in those areas. One of building up support and understanding for it on the ground in those areas.

So read my response to that post, genuinely see what I'm saying rather than not recognising it and quickly saying you resign from the debate with the implied statement that we're close minded. Then answer this question honestly: Am I a homophobe in your mind now merely for calling for caution until launching a better strategised push? One built on grassroots education and mind changing than launching top down enforced policy that will anger others when they're more likely just not prepared for it.

And do you need it any clearer? "I'm in favour of gay marriage but differ on the means for attaining it." It would be nice if you were more honest in portraying it that way, and would go a long way to defusing the increasing animosity, with a likely reciprocal gesture on my part.

[a gay man]

Zablogger you are completely correct, this is really a simple issue and as a member of the gay community I applaud your contribution to our struggle.

best regards
Steve