Crusades
The other day at work I had a momentary moral crisis. I was assigned a project to essentially promote a book that espouses that homosexuality, being a silly choice, can be cured through the power of the Lord, if only the misguided homosexual-minded person prays hard enough and finds a spouse of the opposite sex to help them through it.
Leaving aside several paragraphs of exactly how that offends me, is almost certainly wrong, and patently ignorant, my conundrum was at what point do I stop sacrificing my moral standards for a paycheck? I had a moment’s thought experiment about refusing to do it, being fired, and calling in the ACLU or someone. But since I have bills, and a cracked tooth, and a nine-year-old, I just polished off the thought experiment and forgot about it. I write about distasteful or outrightly stupid subjects all day long. This is not new. I’m a grown-up.
And besides–despite being an admitted hypocrite–I can’t rightly go around lecturing people about how valid my offense at their offense is if I can’t allow things offensive to me to be said. After all–I’m not saying people don’t have the right to say pretty much anything they can get away with. I’m just reminding you that I have the perfectly valid and equal right to think its stupid and rail against it.
In my case, that often seems to be not that something I said offends people, but rather than I have the perfectly valid response of being offended by their offense at my remarks. My offense, after all, is just as valid as yours.
So. I was already thinking about that. And then I had to stop on the way to pick up Nora from school to get food; and of course I saw tabloids, and two subjects stick in my mind:
- Some inane nonsense about Kim Kardashian’s publicity wedding, and
- Some close-minded polemic rant about the hideousness of gay marriage.
Which leads me to here.
I don’t begrudge you the right, if you do, to believe that gay marriage weakens the institution of marriage. I will insist, however, that–as we’ve already discussed–you allow me the right to insist that position is ridiculous.
Only one thing weakens the institution of marriage: the failure of that institution. Divorce weakens marriage. It’s really that simple.
Consider the vows (well, most of them) that seem to include some variation of “til death do us part.” They don’t say “until you get bored with your spouse and decide it’d be more fun to get a leg over with the hot guy at work,” or “only so long as she keeps that hourglass figure and likes to have sex five times a week,” or “given that the median household income never drops below $64,000 per year.”
Til. Death.
I don’t care why you agree to it. Because you’re in love. Because you’re religious, and you’re worried about your eternal soul. Because you need a green card. The why doesn’t matter. The what matters.
You said forever. It’s that simple.
Now, I expect I’ve got -ists of all sorts rallying the arguments–what about abusive relationships? What about adultery (let’s be fair–that’s abuse)? What about [insert rallying -ist cry here].
I didn’t say divorce was wrong. I said it weakens marriage. And it does. But nothing stands like bedrock–not even bedrock–against every tangible circumstance. Things change. People change. Divorce is often necessary, even intelligent. It’s not going away. If the goal is a stronger “institution” of marriage, then a defense against divorce should be enacted.
Let us look at the popular (of the many, many, many spitballing celebrity divorces popping up right now) example: Kim Kardashian’s 72-day marriage. 72 days. That’s less than three months. That’s shorter than the common 90-day “probationary” periods most of us go through in new jobs. 72 days. If you can’t stay married 72 days–and let’s be realistic, given the legal realities it was probably more like 50-something days–then you don’t have any business getting married, because you don’t have a fucking clue what it is and what it means.
When you stand up–be it in front of a legal official, a religious official, everyone you know and treasure in the world, or a combination of all three–and say “this person, and no other, for the rest of my days,” you should probably think about the words. You should know that people change, and are changed. Where and how we live, jobs and coworkers, children, diseases, accidents, acts of randomness, whatever–all things change people. You have to be willing to accept that change. I am a perfect example–I am very little, at 35, like the person I was at 25.
I had considered these things, before I climbed that altar and said the words in front of everyone I cherished in the world. My marriage failed. I failed. I believe people when they tell me it wasn’t my fault, but I refuse to surrender all complicity. There was a point where I had to concede there was no further benefit to continuing to try. In retrospect, I almost certainly should have never gotten married.
But that’s the reality: if you want stronger marriage, you need to educate people about what they’re agreeing to. Given the radical changes we experience as individuals today, in a global world, I’m not certain marriage is honestly wise. We change, as persons, far more often and more quickly today than people did 100 or 200 years ago. I certainly don’t believe marriage is necessary. Far too many of us get married because it’s what you do. We grow up, we go to school, we go to college, we meet someone, we get married, we have kids. Happily ever after. And for many, many people that’s exactly what they want and what they’ll get.
But for an equally large number of people, it’s not what they want, and it would be a mistake to force it on them.
I don’t care, particularly, about marriage “as an institution.” If two–or more–people are competent to get married and want to, then let them. In fact, where do you get the balls to insist you have the right to deny other people anything? What does it possibly matter if they have the same or different chromosomes? The operative word there is “competent.” 
If you believe marriage is an institution and should be protected, fine–but protect it by its own values, not those you append to it because of other beliefs.
You don’t like gay people? Good for you. You’re entitled to your beliefs. What you’re not entitled to do is impose your beliefs on me or anyone else. I dislike–hate, despise and loathe, even–a great many people. I hate them because they’re loud, or because they smell disagreeably, or because they make remarks I disagree with, or because they believe things I think are morally, socially and intrinsically offensive. This is America (where I am, at least, for my overseas readers); you’re allowed to think those things. I’m also allowed to think you’re an idiot for thinking that way. True story.
Let me say it again: you’re not entitled to impose your beliefs on me or anyone else. I don’t get to smack, cut or annihilate the people I hate, no matter how much I may want to, or the compelling reasoned arguments I can make for their extermination. So you don’t either. Denying two people the right to join their lives in the same way that people have been doing literally for millennia because they happen to both be the same gender is just silly. Be honest. You don’t fight gay marriage because you think it threatens heterosexual marriage; you fight it because you don’t like homosexuality. Because you think you have a right to decide for other people how they live their lives, what they do in their bedrooms, and who they spend their time with.
How dare you. That’s right, how dare you.
I don’t think stretch pants should be manufactured in a size larger than 6. I don’t think smokers should get access to government funds for lung cancer treatment. I think rape should be a crime punishable by public crucifixion, and people who drive slowly in the left-hand lane should be flogged. These are all beliefs that I’ve adopted based on my own view of the world. I believe these things just as strongly as you believe the things–good or bad–that you believe. I’ll happily bring them up in conversation. I’ll try to convince you. But I don’t for a moment imagine I have any more right to insist you think like I do than you have to insist I adopt your beliefs.
It’s perfectly acceptable, and might even be necessary, to tell people they shouldn’t do something. Enough people saying “maybe this shouldn’t be legal” is what creates law, after all. But you should not be–and I’m not, none of us are individually–allowed to say “No, you can’t. Because I say so.”
So, to bring all of this around to the beginning, I realize that it would have been wrong for me to not do the work assignment. It’s not my place to stop anyone from saying anything and, if we’re being honest, the idea at question was so patently stupid that no one will be convinced in any case, unless of course they already believe that–which isn’t really any manner of convincing at all.
