Now that liberal wrath over the passing of California Proposition 8 is in full swing, it's about time I laid down the case for traditional marriage.
All cultures have their founding myths--stories involving gods or cultural heroes who established rites, social norms, etc. A healthy culture embodies these myths by realizing (real-izing) them in the lives of its members. Social institutions are, to the traditional mind, considered valid to the degree to which they emulate the structures laid down in the founding myths.
Marriage, in the myths of all Indo-European cultures, occurs between a man and a woman. In the myths of our Teutonic forebears, the first humans--created as a couple--were Ask and Embla. To be even more precise, the first couple to have their union sanctified by a god were Ai and Edda--another male-female couple--and the first couple to celebrate an actual marriage were Karl and Snoer.When our forebears "converted" to Christianity, they simply replaced the old myths with some of the new ones--marriage then was an institution which emulated the union of another primordial couple, Adam and Eve. When the redneck says, "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!" he is, in a crude but effective way, stating the same concept: legitimization and enforcement of social norms by reference to the founding myths.
The people have repeatedly voted against gay marriage in referendums across the nation for a simple reason: what Confucius called rectification of names. To the traditionalist, the phrase "gay marriage" is nonsensical. It makes as much sense as Noam Chomsky's "colorless green ideas:" "gay" is not an adjective which can modify the noun "marriage" in any meaningful sense, nor is marriage something which can take place between homosexuals. To assert that "gay marriage" actually means something when to the majority of Americans it is meaningless, is a fool's errand. To go further and demand that it be recognized by the laws of the land is pure effrontery made possible only by that arrogance which characterizes the egocentric leftist.
The issue has nothing to do with "hate," "intolerance," "bigotry," or any other moral defect which is trotted out as the "real" reason for opposition to gay marriage. Certainly there are individuals motivated by these things; but they are in the minority. This is why there are many people who, while opposed to "gay marriage," are supportive of the concept of civil unions. Civil unions have no myths to emulate; they are a state institution which allows gays to have the same rights regarding property, insurance coverage, etc. There are those who object to civil unions on the grounds that they would be easier to obtain than marriages. The solution is obvious: make civil unions as difficult to obtain and (more importantly) as difficult to dissolve as traditional marriages are.
I think everyone could be on board with that arrangement, with two exceptions: on the one hand, the radical leftist moonbat who thinks that "gay marriage" really means something and that opposition to it is simply motivated by "hate;" and on the other side, the truly intolerant individuals who really can't stand the thought that somewhere, there might be a man in bed with another man--and enjoying it.
I wonder, though, if it is not possible for gays to symbolically emulate the myths. There is ample evidence they did in many other tribal societies. Any lack of evidence for the practice in Indo-European cultures could theoretically be dismissed as being a result of generations of Abrahamic influence (Correct me if this is not the case.).
Ultimately it comes down to whether one equates "gender" with "sex." To my mind, it certainly is possible for a person possessing particular genitalia to have from birth a seemingly inconsistent spirit or mindset.
The battle for "gay marriage" is a battle not so much for heterosexual tradition (which is in a shambles now anyway), but for marriage licenses themselves - which are thoroughly modern. They are seeking the ability to obtain a particular kind of legal status - one that guarantees far more benefits than do civil unions.
http://www.factcheck.org/what_is_a_civil_union.html
Posted by: Unbekannte | September 07, 2009 at 06:00 PM