A QUESTION OF IMMORAL MARRIAGES: Chris Schmidt

[Chris is a software engineer at a Big 3 technology company]

This email became very long. I apologize if the length is excessive. I seem to have written quite a bit, but these topics are very important to all people.

I've been reading your blog for three weeks now, and have enjoyed the debate so far. I wanted to make a comment on one of the questions you posed about homosexuals marrying someone of the opposite gender and thecall of it being 'immoral' or 'deviant.'

While I was in college, there was an article in the campus newspaper bysomeone who identified himself as gay, but had married his high school girlfriend. He commented that quite a few people told him he was self-loathing, or couldn't handle who he was. His editorial was his way of saying that he didn't understand why people in the gay community couldn't understand that sexual attraction isn't the only reason for falling in love. You could tell that he was fairly hurt by the negativity of some of his gay friends.

I don't think anyone can call this person's love for his wife or their marriage immoral. He wanted to spend his life with this person,
because he made a deep and special bond irregardless of sexual proclivity. Hopefully they are still together.

I can see where people in the gay community are coming from though. I realized I was gay when I was in high school, but didn't come out until last year (25 years old). What I, and many others have issues with is nsomeone knowing that they are gay and marrying solely for social acceptance or to hide who they are in some way. I don't feel that I could make a solid relationship with someone where my fundamental reason behind getting into the relationship is to gain social acceptance. It isn't right for the woman, and it is definitely not right for any children that may come about from the relationship. This type of relationship is the one that I feel many people are calling immoral.

It is founded on a lie, feeding off of one person's desire to be loved and another person's wish to hide something about themselves. I don't know how much good could come about from such an arrangement.

I have a question. If it is conceivable that a gay person can fall in love with a woman and get married. That would be OK, even if they don't have children? They have gotten married because of love, not an instinctual drive to procreate. My confusion is why a same sex couple that love each other would then be denied marriage. These two couples are founded on love and have no children. The only difference is one is sanctioned by society while the other is condemned.

When I first started reading the blog, I was completely for same sex couples to get married. After reading all of the responses, and
following the links from your site, I have changed my thinking a bit. My first perception was that people don't believe that I can truly have a real relationship with another man, which I believe to be false. That hurt, because it feels like people are trivializing my relationship. That it is somehow less than a heterosexual relationship (I don't believe people will say that a sterile couple are less of a couple compared to fertile couples; I feel the same for same sex relationships). I agree that the traditional definition of marriage as we know it today is one man, one woman. I think we may be moving too fast to change its meaning over night. I now agree with the idea of civil unions.

I feel that a gay couple's relationship should be recognized and have some legal meaning. I also think that it should be difficult (near impossible) to dissolve this union. By doing this the gay community can slowly start to mature and turn more monogamous. In a generation, when civil unions are hopefully prevalent, it should be much simpler to modify the idea of marriage to include same sex couples. By that point, society will be used to committed same sex couples. Everyone will have a better understanding of the implications and whether SSM is a good thing or not. I feel that more time is needed to understand how our world is changing, but I also think that if there is no reason for gay couples to settle down, we will never see a maturation of the gay community. Gay people are forever in a state of dating. The world does not impose the rigid structure on dating that we do for marriage.

Until society comes to expect mature relationships from gay people, we probably won't ever get them. Civil Unions should help, but it will take more than a handful of years for gay people to change.

Again, thank you for the blog. It is very refreshing to get different viewpoints from a wide range of people. I agree that this is a very important moment for the United States and the world. I hope that we can choose the right decision and improve and strengthen our society.






posted by maggie at 8:18 AM | link

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