(no subject)

[botias]

I try to get other people's viewpoints, most of the time. I've been struggling with some people's assertion that gay marriage is a threat to the institution of marriage, and I'm not alone. Except maybe with the even trying. I see lots of jokes about how, 'Oh no! I can't stay married to you, a couple of guys in MA got hitched!'. I can't say I've seen anything pro-gay marriage sympathising about how threatened it makes some people feel. Granted, I don't read much more about it than the average newspaper reader.

I think I've got it though. I went through a similar sort of thing with polyamory (I think). To me, a big chunk of what marriage means is sexual and romantic monogamy. So here's these folks that throw that out the window and still say: 'I'm married' or even 'I'm married in a much better and more enlightened way than you pathetic drones of the puritanical patriarchy'. Exposure to these different ideas caused me to experience very VERY traumatic and squicking imaginings of my own spouse finding himself another love and wanting me to deal. The bedrock upon which my marriage rested crumbled beneath me. I found it all terribly painful and threatening. I got over it.

So anyway, maybe this is how it is for folks for whom a big chunk of marriage is that it's a divinely sanctioned pact between a man and a woman. If so, I can get it. And I really hope they get over it.

Comments

[elynne.livejournal.com]

I understand your analogy; I still don't "grok". I suspect it's a difference in wiring, or something. I can't even think of an analogy that comes close to eliciting that response from me. Ah well. Looks like the "constitutional amendment vs. gay marriage" thing is being shot down, anyway.

[botias.livejournal.com]

I strongly suspect a difference in wiring too. No matter what my intellectual self rules on poly, my inner monkey just won't go there. The stick approach just makes it scream a lot, and it's not interested in the carrot. I felt bad about this for awhile, and then I got over that too. I feel sad for both halves of pairs who find themselves in 'mixed' relationships.

Has there never been something that seems so true and right and obvious to you that you've never given it a thought, and then discover that there are, in fact, thinking people that find it all a bunch of hooey?

The idea of sullying the Constitution with such a thing rather infuriates me.

[elynne.livejournal.com]

Has there never been something that seems so true and right and obvious to you that you've never given it a thought, and then discover that there are, in fact, thinking people that find it all a bunch of hooey?

*thinks* .... mind, I'm not claiming that this is the result of innate intellectual superiority; rather, it's the result of not having thought about things very carefully for a long time, then gradually having a series of "Oh, okay, now I get it" enlightenments, sometimes repeatedly beaten into my head.

I'll keep thinking about it, though. One of the disadvantages of having been raised as a moral relativist, I guess. ;)

[botias.livejournal.com]

It's not a moral thing I don't think. It's more like a person from one culture dealing with the realization that rituals they thought made the sun come up are, in fact, considered unnecessary and even laughable by some other folks. And what's worse, it looks like those other folks might be right on that sun coming up on its own thing.