| When proposition 8 passed in California, it set off a massive series of protests that spanned the entire country, including a march here in Missoula led by our own Jamee Greer. The Mormorn church was also targeted for protest for its leading role in passing the state initiative.
The breadth and energy of the protest, I think, startled a lot of people -- including many of the protesters themselves. Dan Savage explains the surprise in reaction to an LA Times editorial that wonders why gays and their allies didn't take to the streets before the election:
Most gay people grow up desperately trying to pass, to blend in; most of us flee to cities where we can live our lives in relative peace and security. We don't go looking for fights. And most gay people walk around without realizing that they've internalized the dynamics of high school hells some of us barely survived: it's better to pass, to stay out of sight, to avoid making waves, lest you attract negative attention, lest you get bashed.
Makes sense, right? After all, can you think of a more neglected group this election? The issue of gay rights was deftly side-stepped by all the major presidential candidates, if it was addressed at all -- and there was nary a peep from the gay community. Shut up, keep your head down, maybe no one will notice, maybe they'll be nice after seeing how quiet you were. Obviously, when California -- innundated by conservative religious money, propaganda, and volunteers -- smacked down gays in the voting booth (by an ever-narrowing margin), the head-down tactic went by the wayside.
Whether gay community's subdued approach to their rights helped or hindered the passage of prop. 8 is moot; but what we do see reinforced here is the notion that many, if not most, of the gay community wants to be folded into popular convention and community mores. The quest for gay marriage isn't about overturning the social structure and "promoting the gay lifestyle," it's about gays wanting to fit in to the existing social structure. The habit of keeping your head down is a tacit acknowledgment to the high school bullies that their opinion matters.
Likewise, I don't see the bulk of the opposition to gay marriage having anything to do with religion or morality -- excluding the True Believers that make up a sliver (albeit a loud sliver) of the electorate -- but instead, again, with convention. Richard Thompson Ford:
Same-sex marriage would transform an institution that currently defines two distinctive sex roles-husband and wife-by replacing those different halves with one sex-neutral role-spouse. Sure, we could call two married men "husbands" and two married women "wives," but the specific role for each sex that now defines marriage would be lost. Widespread opposition to same-sex marriage might reflect a desire to hang on to these distinctive sex roles rather than vicious anti-gay bigotry.
As proof, Ford notes the overwhelming support that gay civil unions have among the electorate -- h*ll, even Governor Palin endorsed civil unions during her debate with VP-elect Biden. Voters begin to balk only when the "m"-word is brought up. And it's likely a reason why young voters don't give a rat's *ss about "protecting" the "sanctity" of marriage: they're already hip to amorphous gender roles. This generation is more likely to see stay-at-home dads and professional moms than that generation warming their rocking chairs at the old-folks homes, who overwhelmingly supported and voted for prop. 8.
It's this reason that a lot of anti-gay-marriage arguments don't make any sense to those of us who support gay marriage. They're really not about gays, or marriage. At first, the arguments tried to depict gays as too corrupt or dangerous for marriage. They can't fit into our civil society because they'd spread disease and immoral behavior (too much shagging). The evidence doesn't fit -- the advent of gay marriage in Massachusetts, for example, apparently didn't drag down that state's leading rank in low divorce rates. And the New York Supreme Court forever recorded its view in its ruling on its gay marriage ban that gays are too moral and stable for marriage: their unparalelled committment serves to discourage frisky, irresponsible straight couples from trying to match their gay betters. The idea that gays would someone ruin the institution of marriage is patently and obviously ridiculous.
Instead the real reaon folks are wary of gay marriage is that they're worried that the neutering of gender roles within a marriage might force them to consider acts that cross gender roles. In short, gay marriage might force dudes to do faggy things like take their daughters to the public library. And forget about ironing! Or baking a cassarole! Or knitting a sweater for Tommy!
How to combat this pervasive, subconscious relationship to gender roles is for others to decided. It might be we'll just have to wait out the old folks. Work on issues that are popular now -- workplace protection and civil unions -- wait a decade for marriage.
On a side note, the question of religion in gay marriage is interesting. I think most people use religion as a crutch in explaining their opposition to gay marriage. It's a helluva lot easier saying it's against your religion than to contemplate social mores, gender roles, and whether you should take your daughter to the library.
As for religious conservatives -- well, there's an age-old debate about social conventions and their usefulness that I won't go in to, other than to say most of those who are devout tend to argue there are true and eternal "godly" conventions that are in constant battle with "faddish" conventions of the day. But given that these "eternal" religious conventions change from generation to generation, what's more likely is that these folks simply are defending their slavish devotion arbitrary and antiquated mores with the rhetoric of eternity. I've always thought true belief would welcome fluidity in understanding and habit. After all, any mortal's conception of "God" is about as representative to reality as my kids' drawing of a ghost is to an actual ghost. But most conservative belief seems to be nothing more than "fossilized philosophy," as Simon Blackburn put it, "a philosophy with the questioning spirit suppressed." |
