Gay "Marriage" part II

So I'm minding my own business, trying to write a response to a response I received to my post entitled "Gay 'Marriage' and Other Mysthical Beasts." So I type my response, and the TypePig page says, "We're sorry, we cannot accept this data."

So I've posted my response here. Sorry, Unbekannte, but it's the only way I could do this...oh, the seance I shall have with TypePig...

(Readers will be thrown off if they haven't read the original post or the response to it)

Hail, and sorry for the delayed response!

I don't check this as often as I ought to, since I'm just building up content and rarely have any visitors...

Brief answers:

Symbolically, it may be possible for gays to emulate the myths; but it's an extremely convoluted matter (which I'll deal with in a moment).

Any lack of evidence for the practice in Indo-European cultures could theoretically be a result of Abrahamic influence--but it would only be theoretical. I mean, really, we could point to anything we might wish were a part of Aryan culture and claim that it is not found because it was suppressed--but that's not really sound methodology (even if it were true, which would be unprovable).

Much of our evidence predates the influence of Abrahamic religions--for example, the accounts of Tacitus, at a time when not even the Romans (let alone the Teutonic tribes) had yet converted to Christianity. One also finds evidence in contemporary Aryan cultures which have had little influence from Christianity and its relatives. In India, for example, the majority of Hindu clergy will not officiate at a homosexual wedding, despite the existence of homoerotic motifs in traditional art and mythology.

As far as whether gays are seeking the material benefits of the marriage license over those of civil unions, it is a defect in my post (and thank you for pointing it out) that I did not make clear that the civil unions I am pushing for are something that we do not have yet--an actual federally recognized civil union, which would provide the federal benefits and the inter-state portability which current civil unions do not. There are hardliners who will not settle for less than possession of the cultural capital represented by the very word "marriage;" and it is against these that I have drawn my line. Heterosexual relations are indeed a shambles, as you point out--but that fact instills in me the wish to rebuild along traditional lines, rather than to capitulate and re-define in order to acommodate what we now have.

While tribal societies often have institutions whose participants frequently manifest questionable or even reversed sexual roles, those institutions are not solely defined by sexual orientation. They are a "top-down" institution, i.e., the participants recognize a spiritual reality and manifest it in their lives. Many (though not all) modern gay "marriage" candidates would do the opposite, i.e., "I have x orientation (for whatever reason, no matter how materialistic or pathological), and I demand that it be recognized spiritually!" That aside, many of the "alternative" roles available do not involve complete participation in one gender or the other. The hijra of India, for example, are neither male nor female, and while they enjoy a certain amount of enfranchisement due to the recognition of their natures, they cannot completely fulfill the role of a normal man or woman. The sworn virgins of Albania (keeping the discussion to Aryan cultures), while they are considered in every respect to be men and are allowed to transact business deals and enter gendered spaces restricted to men, never marry.

Let's suppose that you did have a person with a spiritual nature which is sexually the opposite of his or her physical embodiment. Such aberrations (meant in a pure sense as a departure from the norm, not in a moral or pejorative sense) may well occur, and most healthy traditional societies (in my opinion) have roles which could be filled by these folks. But they have rarely been fully enfranchised as either one or the other sex. For a "man in a woman's body" must desire a woman, but the woman he desires must herself be a "man in a woman's body" for the attraction to be mutual! Then, spiritually, you would have the union of two males (in the case of a lesbian couple), which from a cosmic (or, if you like, natural) standpoint lacks the dynamic opposition of forces required for a union which will emulate the male/female polarity.

Those are just preliminary considerations. The issue can certainly become even more complex. There may be certain rare cases in which an individual weofodthegn or godhi would see fit to unite two people of the same physical sex on a sacral level, though to write that possibility into the law of the land and grant all homosexual "marriages" the same status I think would be a gross mistake. I believe that it is best--and easiest for all--to avoid clogging up the gears of normal social function by continuing to make the distinction between marriage and a union between homosexuals.

Thanks for the food for thought you have provided me; I may very well rewrite this post.

Comments

[Relationship with Jersey & Broncos]

If Ohio State Sen. Nina Turner gets her way, men seeking prescriptions for erectile-dysfunction will be required to undergo sexual counseling. Along the same lines, Virginia Sen. Janet Howell proposed linking Viagra prescriptions to digital rectal exams.