On Gay Marriage

I find homosexuality disgusting.

I also find grapefruit disgusting. These are statements of personal preference. As such they are admittedly subjective, immanent, and highly influenced by taste, upbringing, cultural background, etc. It is not easy to do, but we should all make a conscious effort never to project such personal preferences into virtues, or use them as basis for general social or legal rules.

In a free society, you don't need a reason to allow things. Rather everything is allowed by default, and you need a reason -a good one- to outlaw anything. Ultimately one can only justify limiting someone's freedom by a necessity to protect someone else's rights. So that, if there might be any logic to limiting the freedom of homosexuals to marry, it will have to stem from the rights of others...

But what does it mean exactly to be married?

Marriage is one of those terms people use as if referring to one concept in particular, where in fact it lumps several independent concepts altogether. We do that often, and it becomes second nature: we stop thinking of the concepts separately, and start imagining them as one. Take for example: crisis, which is a lumping of turmoil and opportunity. Or justice, which is a lumping of reciprocity and vengeance. Marriage, once you think about it, is actually a lot of different concepts. They don't all necessarily apply or not apply to gay couples. In any case, I think we need to discuss their applicability one piece at a time.

Marriage is:

1. A personal partnership. Two people deciding (among themselves) that they intend to be each other's lifetime companion.
2. A social announcement. So that it may be known that two people are going to be permanently off the market so to speak (hence the ring, the red dot, etc.) and are to be considered by outsiders as one unit. This is the part relating to sending the couple one invitation card, visiting them both at the same time, giving them one gift and accepting one gift from both of them. Calling them the Johnsons etc.
3. A kinship agreement. This here gives one partner the right to operate as legal proxy or medical proxy for the other, and allows one to inherit from the other, etc.
4. A religious contract. Basically a formal bond sanctioned by God that gives a couple the OK to do things together that are otherwise considered grave sins. Basically this here is a god-given license to have sex.
5. A family unit. Which is probably the most important part. A couple is basically a factory-house, busy at making more of us. This social construct is the biggest investment for any society. A couple can create new people, and tend to them until they become productive. That's how we know the world will continue to run when we're too old to run it. That's how I know I may get medical care when all doctors alive today are too old to offer it to me. And that's mainly why married people get away with a lot of incentives like less taxation. It's fair once you think of it that way: I the single guy pay a bigger share than the married couple for the highways and hospitals that we both equally use, because in return they pay through the teeth -in money and effort- to create new people that will eventually run the world for all of us when we're old.

This makes it simpler to talk about gay marriage methodically:

Marriage 1,2, and 3 apply nicely to any couple, gay or straight. I have no issues what so ever with extending those to cover gays, and I can't think of any solid argument that can be made against those three on the basis on protecting someone's rights. But:

• Marriage 1 is a personal promise, requiring two willing participants and nothing else. You don't need any new legislation to allow for that. All you need is the absence of legislation that prohibits it.
• Marriage 2 needs social acceptance, which can be sought by raising social awareness through programs and media, but not legislation. You can't change society's attitudes by law, it's something we all need to work on. This sort of change can only ever by gradual, and some would say is already well under way.
• Marriage 3 is pretty much already covered in domestic partnership contracts, so that no new laws are even needed.

Marriage 4 is not at all subject to debate. If you're not a religious person, you couldn't care less. If you believe in a personal relationship with a deity, then you need to ask your deity directly whether he/she may sanction a relationship between you and your partner. The answer (Yay or Nay) is final, not subject to debate. If you believe in scripture, then the answer is already there for you to dig out. If you believe in clergymen, then you'd better go ask your rabbi or pope, and accept their answer whatever it may be.

Whatever the case, there should be no debate at all. Religion is not a democratic institution, it's about absolute truth. If you subscribe to that mindset, then you're in a way not even a part of that debate, because for you the matter is settled either way. DO NOT, however, expect anybody else to follow your truth, and do not under any circumstances try to project your holy law into a civil law of any kind, as that would violate separation of church and state, and piss off Decartes and a whole lot of other cool dudes who have been busy at work since the renaissance.

Marriage 5, the ultimate point of my argument, doesn't apply to gay couples at all. It definitely shouldn't be extended to cover them. It won't be fair at all, for example, to have a gay couple pay less taxes than I do, knowing full well that their relationship isn't going to contribute new people to society. I guess it sucks for gay people that they're physically incapable of reproduction, and I sympathize with them, but that doesn't change the facts. Gay couples, unlike classic couples, are not factories for new citizens, and are therefore not deserving of any government-backed incentives that follow, such as less taxation. As long as any of these incentives is lumped into marriage, I'd vote against gay "marriage".

The flip side of this is the right to adopt, which comes naturally to families under Marriage 5. You most definitely don't want to extend that right to gays, because it violates the rights of adopted children to much-needed male and female role models growing up. You don't want to tinker with society that way, not unless you really know what you're doing. And by "know what you're doing" I mean conducted massive amounts of research by disinterested experts, arriving at a clear consistent conclusion that raising children in all-male or all-female families does not mess them up long term. I'd be really surprised, though I'd keep an open mind on that if such research was actually conducted.

So where do I stand on gay marriage?

• For Marriage 4, ask the pope - I don't care either way.
• I'd support it provided that we specialize it into Marriage 1-3, excluding Marriage 5 explicitly.
• But I'm definitely against granting gays the right of marriage as defined today (all 5).