the republic for which it stands

[adiva_calandia]

This kid? Awesome.

Comments

[gethenian.livejournal.com]

YES I LOVE THAT KID.

[mercuriazs.livejournal.com]

Dude, is he for real????

I'd suck it up and be a mother if I brought up a kid like that.

[miraielle.livejournal.com]

I just hope my kids are half as smart and empathetic as that.

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

Wow. I hope my kids are that brave and thoughtful.

[lienne.livejournal.com]

That is THE AWESOMEST CHILD.

[batyatoon]

Oh you excellent child.

[gramarye1971]

Totally awesome kid.

[saphyria.livejournal.com]

THIS KID IS AWESOME! *loves this kid* *and he's from Arkansas!*

[kd7sov]

...

I will be bold, and express an opinion that appears unpopular.

I don't see that deviants should have special rights specifically because of their deviation. It is my claim that gay people (of whatever gender; I see no more sense in "gays and lesbians" than in "humans and women") have exactly the same right as anyone else, accounting for such things as age of consent: to marry a person of the other gender.

[adiva_calandia]

. . . Yes, they certainly do have that right, just as before the repeal of miscegenation laws, black people had exactly the same right as white people did: to marry a person of the same race. No exceptions made for people who were in love with someone of the other race, or weren't interested in people of their own race.

This is not a fight for "special rights" because of a deviation from a norm. This is a fight for the basic right that the norm has, and that the deviants* do not, because of their deviation: to marry a person you love.

I probably ought to disclaim the word "marry," here, since marriage carries religious connotations, and many people just want their same-sex civil union to be recognized as legal, without dragging any kind of church marriage into it -- but I think that's beside the point of this argument.

If you believe that gay people should be happy with their right to marry someone they don't love, and that demanding the right to unite with someone they do love is somehow demanding special rights . . . if you believe that a minority group can or should be denied a basic right to choose what they do, when those choices hurt no one . . . yes, I think you will find that to be an unpopular opinion around here.

I assume you posted this comment because you're willing to discuss your views, and I hope we can keep the conversation reasonably polite. And I don't want you to feel unwelcome in my journal -- but honestly, yes, that opinion is going to be unpopular here.

*I use this word only because you used it. I'm willing to use it in a technical sense -- that is, homosexuality is a deviation from the norm, therefore they are deviants, in the same way that a woman I know has only one leg and sometimes uses a wheelchair to get around, which is a deviation from the norm, therefore she is a deviant. I am not at all comfortable with the implications, though. If you are using it in a sense that isn't the purely technical sense, I'll cordially ask you to find another word, please.

[kd7sov]

I find, oddly, that I'm less willing to discuss than I expected to be. I will nevertheless make the attempt.

Your first point is a commonly-used and, to my mind, deeply flawed analogy. Being black is not a choice. While I suspect it's true that people do not choose to have homosexual urges, any more than most people choose to have any sexual urges, everyone has the choice to act on, or refrain from acting on, such urges. I am specifically heterosexual, though not strongly so; I have chosen, and continue to choose, to remain celibate, and in the unlikely event that I thought it warranted I could choose to have sexual relations with another man. All of these options are open to me, just as they are open to anyone else, regardless of which set of urges they may have.

You appear to discount the possibility of love independent of sexual desire. It is my experience that love is not restrained in such a way. I certainly love my father, my brothers, and so on. Even outside my family, I love several people, both men and women, after whom I do not lust.

I admit that my choice of words was intemperate, and I apologize.

[adiva_calandia]

If you'd rather discontinue the discussion, then, we can do that.

So let me see if I'm following your argument. Acting on one's homosexuality is a choice. Therefore, because it's a choice instead of something one is born with, like race or biological sex, gay people . . . should be denied the right to marry the person of their choosing? I'm honestly befuddled here; I feel like I'm missing a link in the chain of logic, maybe because I just woke up.

I mean, what that sounds like to me is that if I choose to deviate from the norm in some way -- say, by converting to Hinduism -- then it will be okay for the government to deny me the right to marry another Hindu. We'd be allowed to marry a WASP, since they're the majority. Never mind the fact that I as a Hindu might find Protestantism antithetical to the way I want to live my life. I'd have the same right the majority does: to remain in the mainstream. But it'd be my choice. And my other option would be to never marry, or maybe to cohabit with my Hindu partner for the rest of my life and never have the right to adopt children with him or share my health insurance with him or get a tax break with him or make medical decisions with him.

And yeah, I could choose to do either of those, and if it made me happy, well, awesome. But it might not make my neighbor down the street happy, and why should she have to do something that makes her unhappy? Because really, if all the choices make you equally unhappy, the freedom to choose between them kind of means squat.

. . . Okay, the English language clearly is not specific enough for this discussion. When I say "love" in this context, I do mean "love that includes romance and sexual desire," as opposed to "familial love" or "platonic love between friends." Would you rather I use the term "in love"? As in, "the right to marry a person you're in love with"? 'Cause yeah, sure, I love my male cousins (I don't have any brothers, but I'm sure I'd love them), but I've never wanted to marry them.

Thanks. Apology accepted.

[kd7sov]

That is... not the impression I wanted to give. It's more like... It...

What it is, is hard to come up with a decent analogy, since there are not many other sins that society specifically condones and encourages. I'd hoped to avoid such an inflammatory word, but there it is. You certainly can choose to sin, but it seems to me that you shouldn't try to be accorded extra benefits because you do.

Hm. I don't have first-hand experience, but I don't see that romance-love is all that different from advanced friend-love. Can you explain the difference, as you see it?

[adiva_calandia]

If that's the mindset you're coming from, then this discussion is doomed. I doubt there's much point in me trying to dissuade you from that belief. Understand, though, that I disagree with you on a fundamental level. And I really, really wish you hadn't brought that word in. I'd hoped to maintain a higher level of civility.

The problem is that "sin" is subjective, and something as subjective as that should not be the basis of political policy. Not in this country. If we were a theocracy, sure -- but we're not. I consider starting a war pretty freaking un-Christian, and I consider denying somebody health insurance the antithesis of "love thy neighbor," and I consider the condoning of torture to be against everything in the New Testament, but I wouldn't use religious rhetoric to try to argue for or against policy change. I might appeal to basic humanity: eg, I might argue for stricter DUI laws because putting other people in harm's way is just not the act of a decent human being, whatever religion they or I or the policy makers are. But I wouldn't argue that there should be stricter DUI laws because drinking is a sin.

That's not an exact analogy at all, obviously, but it's not meant to be, so.

Okay, I've never been so in love that I wanted to marry someone. I'm twenty-freaking-one and I'd never even kissed anyone until this summer. But I'll tell you this, from falling in crush over and over and over: when I hug my friends, I don't get butterflies in my stomach. When I hug my crushes? I do. I don't feel the desire to kiss my friends. And I don't imagine falling asleep in their arms. So yeah, for me, romantic love is very much tied into physical desire. It's also very tied into advanced-friend love, you're right -- but it's definitely not the same thing.