Soapbox

Dear  National Organization for Marriage,

    Since the 6th circuit has been hearing arguments about overturning gay marriage bans in several states (including my own) I wanted to address your most recent attempt at justifying your bigotry.
   The main thrust of your argument was to quote G.K. Chesterton and say that if a chair is different than other chairs then it isn't really a chair.  From this devastatingly brilliant remark  we are to understand that since a same sex marriage is not fundamentally  like a heterosexual marriage,  it isn't really a marriage. Sure,  same-sex couples can get something called a marriage license in some misguided states, but that will never make it a true marriage, because it doesn't conform to what society defines a marriage as being.
     You gay folks can call your horse a dog, too, but good luck getting it housebroken.
     Chairs. OK.
 
     Well, I would argue that in all of the important ways, same sex chairs ARE like heterosexual chairs. (Chairs? Really?)  The only way the two cannot be considered fundamentally the same is if you  believe that the single, salient, can't-be-changed-without- calling-a-bed-a-chair characteristic of marriage that makes it a true marriage is heterosexual intercourse.
    And that definition presupposes that the point of marriage is procreation by the married couple, with each other. And that isn't true. Look around! Millions of infertile couples,  middle-aged  newlyweds  and childless-by-choice couples would vigorously argue that procreation is not why they married at all.
   You insist that marriage is all about sex.
   The rest of us think marriage is about love.

   Except you don't really think that marriage is about sex, or about procreation either, as your next point makes clear.
   You go on to say that banning same-sex marriage is not at all discriminatory, because gay people can still get married any time they want to. They just have to marry someone of the opposite sex.  
   Think about what you just said:  the legal  union of a man and a woman who have no physical attraction to each other, who may be fond of each other but will never be in love and may never have sex…  THIS fits your definition of 'marriage' .
    But two people of the same sex who pledge to love each other, support and shelter each other, who wish to be a family together until their death- THIS does not? A Brittney Spears quickie marriage in Vegas with someone you barely know is 'a chair' but lifelong companions who adopt and raise children together is Soooo different that it's a bookcase?
    If you are seriously saying that  a loveless, sexless marriage is acceptable in your eyes as long as it involves a man and a woman, then marriage, to be a marriage, does not require love, procreation or even intercourse- just gender! But if marriage doesn't require sex- why do the parties have to be of different genders?

    When you remove God (which you have to do, because atheists can marry) and love, kids and sex from the requirement for a 'real' marriage,  what remains of marriage is a social and legal contract pertaining to joint ownership of property, custody and financial responsibility for children, insurance coverage and inheritance of estate after death.
    What is there in the above definition that precludes the contract from being made between 2 women or two men?
    Nothing. If two men can enter into a legal contract to form a company, file taxes, hire employees and provide goods and services,  then they can sign a marriage contract.
   Sorry, but the way your own arguments keep turning back on themselves it really does seem that. by your own definition. the gay marriage chair really IS just a slightly different chair. 

      Your final argument against same-sex marriage leaves furniture behind and ventures into musical theatre, since it is basically just Reb Tevye standing with his milk cow, shaking his fist and singing,
                     Tradition! Marriage should be arranged by the Papas!!
    We have never had same-sex marriage in America before, you say, so we can never have it.

    Ok, but we never had free public education for all children… until we did. Never had interracial marriage… but when we changed that, the country did not fall apart. Cats and dogs did not start living together- people didn't forget how to use a chair.
    We used to have slavery- and then we changed that. Women were not allowed to own property or to vote, but time went by and ideas and laws changed… and yet fundamentally things stayed the same. The sun still comes up in the east every day, even though women can vote and even run for office.
    And so it will be when Americans are allowed to marry the person they love the most, whether it be a man or woman. Tradition, after all,  is not necessarily good thing- it's just a thing.

    I'm sorry that you NOM types want society to stay frozen in place in 1776… or maybe 1576.. but society doesn't work that way. That which does not change eventually ceases to exist. Society adapts and evolves, just like everything else on the planet. I'm sure you don't like hearing me toss around ideas like 'evolution'- a lot of you probably think Noah had dinosaurs on the ark. And you can believe that if you want to. Isn't that great? But you cannot make me  believe it, or force me to live as if I do.
    So sure, you can believe that a same sex marriage is not an actual marriage because a horse is not a dog and a bed is not a chair, if that makes you feel safer. But marriage is a social and governmental contract- that's why it requires a license. It's a law, and new laws are being written and old laws are being amended every single day. It's called 'progress', you see?

    Earlier I compared you guys to Reb Tevye, crying for his tradition- but that's not really fair. In time Tevye came to see that what mattered more than 'the way things have always been' was the love and happiness of his children.
    He was a much wiser man than you.