I’m quite pleased with my blog post about why legalising same-sex marriage is the only logical option. It took me ages to finish, and I think it’s quite thorough. But at over three thousand words long, it’s not exactly bite-sized!
So here I present its boiled down essence, in the form of an imaginary dialog (( and using my favourite under-used HTML element, the definition list 8) )). It follows the same order as the original post, so if you want the details on any of these points, please look over there before arguing with them.
The Arguments
- Marriage is about providing a stable environment to bring up a family.
- In that case, we’d better ban marriage between couples who are celibate, infertile, or just happily childless.
- An opposite-sex marriage benefits from the complementarity of the sexes.
- I’m sure some do, but is that really the most fundamental thing which makes for a successful marriage?
- Parliament has never tried to enact a definition of marriage before.
- Just because they never have, doesn’t mean they never can; just like they could define “theft” in the 1960s.
- Wouldn’t the UK be breaking with international agreement on the definition of marriage?
- The UK would be joining Argentina, Belguim, Canada, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, and Sweden, who have already introduced same-sex marriages. The American and French presidents support similar moves.
- But there’s a universally accepted basic definition of marriage, right?
- Well… apart from the historical and geographical technicalities, such as polygamy, dowries, arranged marriages, wildly divergent views of divorce…
- Is this another move to disestablish the Church of England?
- Marriages held in a registry office are already explicitly prohibited from including any religious element, so
the battle to keep all marriages Christian was lost long ago. - This will open the door to other kinds of marriage, like incest…
- Hm, there’s some interesting discussions to be had there (if you don’t panic).
- …or polygamy…
- Yeah, that’s another interesting idea. Although it could get a little complicated.
- …or marrying your dog!
- OK, now you’re taking it too far; dogs can’t even voluntarily enter a legal contract!
- Legalising gay marriage would to teenagers being taught about eating shit as a sexual fetish!
- Wait … what!? Is this some kind of satire? Have I been trolled?
- Same-sex relationships are just different to marriages, so Civil Partnerships are the right answer.
- Marriages between 20-year-olds are pretty different to marriages between 80-year-olds. How many different labels do we need?
- But what’s the big deal? A Civil Partnership is the same as a marriage, just, well, not a marriage!
- If it is equal, it is a marriage; if it is not a marriage, it is not equal.
Who Opposes It?
Obviously these are dangerously generalised, but I think there are four kinds of people arguing against gay marriage:
- Homophobes – think that homosexuality is just plain wrong
- Homosceptics – don’t believe that homosexuality is as “real” or “valid” as heterosexuality
- Homonimbyists – fine with homosexuality, as long as it’s Over There Somewhere
- Homodiscombobulated (( I couldn’t think of a good word for this one. But “discombobulated” is such a great word, right? )) – just find it all a bit icky, and frankly get a bit confused
The End
(OK, just over 500 words. That’s as short as you’re going to get folks!)
an acute mind!
Disclaimer: I’m gay, and I fully support marriage equality.
Your blog post is excellent, but mis-titled. You give no “reasons to support same sex marriage”, but rather give only “reasons not to object to same sex marriage”.
Perhaps your blog would benefit from explaining what *advantages* would come about from the introduction of marriage equality, rather than focusing only on the *disadvantages* of maintaining marriage inequality?
Just a thought.
An interesting point. I guess to my mind the actual “advantages” are kind of self-explanatory: people who want to get married, get to get married. What more is there to say?
Beyond that, you’re into why *anyone* wants to get married (and why some people are quite happy not to). If there aren’t any reasons, then marriage should be abolished; if there are, then there has to be some reason why that particular reason *shouldn’t* apply to same-sex couples.
Sure, there are social reasons to support equality for its own sake, but mostly, equality is about a right that’s good for one group being good for a wider group too.