Douchehat Doubles Down: Straight Marriage is Thick, Gay Marriage is Thin
Poor Ross. Having been justifiably put through the wringer for his fail attempt to ascribe magical sparkly pony values to theoretical straight marriages that gay marriages cannot hope to attain (if indeed the state somehow deems they are needed at all), he now comes back with a new theory. Straight marriages are thick and gay marriages are thin. In that, apparently, something about straight relationships and sex is so complex in a way that gay relationships can never hope to be:
The interplay of fertility, reproductive impulses and gender differences in heterosexual relationships is, for want of a better word, “thick.” All straight relationships are intimately affected by this interplay in ways that gay relationships are not. (And I do mean all straight relationships. Because they’ve grown up and fallen in love as heterosexuals, the infertile straight couple will experience their inability to have children very differently than a same-sex couple does. Similarly, even two eighty-nine-year-old straights, falling in love in the nursing home, will be following relational patterns — and carrying baggage, no doubt, after eighty-nine years of heterosexual life! — laid down by the male-female reproductive difference.) This interplay’s existence is what makes it possible to generalize about the particular challenges of heterosexual relationships, and their particular promise as well. And the fact that this interplay determines how and when and whether the vast majority of new human beings come into the world is what makes it possible to argue — not necessarily convincingly, but at least plausibly! — that both state and society have a stronger interest in the mating rituals of heterosexuals than in those of gays and lesbians.
Join with me, will you all, in saying “Ross, this is complete and utter bullshit”.
Because, as we all know, gay and lesbian couples never have reproductive impulses or concerns about fertility. Why, if that were so gay and lesbian people might actually become parents! And adoption statistics don’t begin to reflect the number of gays and lesbians who have conceived children using donor sperm and surrogate mothers. Maybe there is one big difference between straight and gay parents, though. The vast majority of gay parents approach parenthood as a positive choice.* And for chrissake, Ross, how do you know that “the infertile straight couple will experience their inability to have children very differently than a same-sex couple does”? Seriously, did you take a survey or something? My experience as an adoptive parent active in the adoptive community is that the desire to become a parent does not know straight/gay boundaries. So shut up about stuff you clearly know nothing about, mkthx.
Next point and we’ll let that piece of festering garbage compost. Why, please tell me why, “both state and society have a stronger interest in the mating rituals of heterosexuals than in those of gays and lesbians”? First of all, the state has no interest in the mating rituals of either group. If you are again talking about the reproductive or adoptive issue of either group then please explain why the welfare of children of gay and lesbian couples would be of less interest to the state than that of the children of straight unions? Because, duh, it’s not. The state has an interest in protecting the welfare of all children regardless of who their parents are.
But the reality is, Ross, that you know yourself that your arguments are ridiculous. You come right out and say it:
This thickness issue also helps explain what often sounds like tongue-tiedness and/or desperation from social conservatives when they’re asked to explain what, exactly, it is about marriage that makes it distinctively heterosexual: the whole “well, it’s about love and monogamy and complementarity and fertility and sex differences and childrearing and …” refrain, which seems unconvincing to many people, should be understood in part as an attempt to grapple with just this complexity.
Um, it could. It could also be a manifestation of the fact that there is no rational argument to explain why straight marriage should be valued above gay marriage (as in see opinion of Judge Vaughan Walker).
But just as big an issue here is that your whole *argument* (and that of the person Eve Tushnet whom you have quoted at length despite the fact that what she wrote was incomprehensible in its entirety) assumes that marriage is solely about reproduction and the supposed superiority (thickness?) of heterosexual relations to skinny gay relations. Is that really all people get married for? Do the 89 year old couple in the nursing home just get married so they can flirt in the proper heterosexual way and be legal? Come on. People marry to create family bonds. To have those significant others that are there for them and that have their backs. To ensure custody of children if something happens to one of the pair. To create inheritance rights. To be able to be with loved ones in their final hours and make their decisions and not be questioned or hassled. To deny this fundamental human right to marry to anyone based on their race, their nationality, their sexual orientation is wrong, just wrong. We got the first two groups put right, now we’re getting there with the third.
And Ross, your whole thick/thin analogy? It’s a thick headed argument that would only appeal to thin thinkers. Sorry Douchehat - another epic fail.
*And yes, I know, so do most straight parents. But we all, um, know the ones, that, you know, don’t. amirite?
Posted by marindenver on 08/12/10 at 07:59 PM • Permalink
Categories: LGBT • Politics • Our Stupid Media •
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