My Pick for "The Day's Most Annoying Column On Gay Marriage"
From a field chock full of qualified contenders, I pick: Gay marriage: A trip to the moon on Gossamer wings? by Kathleen Parker.
Why do I find it annoying? Well, I guess I just find the whole "I loved MY BEST FRIEND'S WEDDING, so nobody could call ME a homophobe" wrappings to the "Nature says gays can't get married" argument irritating and in need of a good slap. I'm not sure I'm up to slapping Kathleen (it's late; I'm sick), so you are invited to take a bit of her piece and give it the treatment it deserves. But here are a few comments I can make, even in my weakened state:
Following the gay marriage debate - and now the Massachusetts court ruling legalizing gay marriage - feels like being lost in a house of mirrors. Everywhere you turn, there's a dead end, a wall, a shattering of logic, a splintering of instinct.
And this is bad, because we should always base our laws on instinct.
On the one hand, it seems obvious that marriage is between a man and a woman - the basic biological unit, society's foundation, civilization's keystone. On the other, what's wrong with allowing people of the same sex to live together under the same civil protections permitted heterosexual couples?
The questions are further complicated by the fact that most of us know and/or love someone who is gay. We have gay children, gay friends, gay uncles and cousins. Some have gay fathers and lesbian mothers. Who wants to deny them respect and happiness?
And so we sit back quietly and watch the reordering of society for fear of hurting a loved one's feelings or offending a co-worker or losing the affection of entire blocks of people.
Biology doesn't require a government-sanctioned relationship: the birds and the bees manage to reproduce quite well without marriage licenses. I'd argue that the basic unit of society and civilization is the FAMILY, in whatever form it occurs in the society in question. So, since all biology wants is for the species to be propagated (and I can't see how letting homosexuals marry will impede that), and since nobody has presented a scintilla of evidence that legally sanctioning homosexual unions is going to bring about the end of civilization as we know it, why do we need the "other hand"?
And while I do know people who are gay, it's not my fear of hurting their feelings that makes me ask, "What's wrong with allowing people of the same sex to live together under the same civil protections permitted heterosexual couples?" To me, it's just a matter of fairness and equity.
And I don't really think that letting them marry is going to "reorder society." I mean, the change won't REQUIRE everyone to enter into a homosexual union. Hetero marriages won't suddenly be dissolved. Churches will still be allowed to only offer religious sanction to marriages between a man and a woman. Kids won't "catch gay" and decide not to reproduce. I see the only changes being legal and governmental: society will undoubtedly change over the coming years (it always does), but I don't think that "gay marriage" is the catylyst that will suddenly warp it into something new and alien.
I figure I'm a fairly typical middle-of-the-road heterosexual married woman when I say: I love gays and, well, the whole gay thing. I love all my gay friends and relatives, not to mention my hairdresser; I love what gays do to urban neighborhoods; I love gay humor, gay style and whatshisname in "My Best Friend's Wedding."
I was what we used to call a "fag hag" when you could still use the term affectionately without fear of offending - before most of today's gays were out of diapers (changed most likely by a mom or a dad, not by Heather's two mommies or Douggie's two daddies). Thanks to my very best friendship with my gay first cousin, I've had many a gay time as a token belle in the heart of San Francisco's Castro district.
In other words, no one who knows me would call me a homophobe.
Yup, Kathleen thinks that gays are great! They make the best hairdressers, spruce up urban neighborhoods, and are really stylish; they also have that catty humor that is so funny, like on "Will and Grace", and are always thin and neat. Kathleen even used to hang out with them, back before it became fashionable and everybody started becoming gay. Kathleen is so unprejudiced that we can see that whatever she says next must be totally fair and impartial.
Nevertheless, I do not worship gayness, and I'm certain that society needn't be restructured in order to accommodate even my loveliest gay friends.
Leaving God out of the equation, it is irrefutable that Nature had a well-ordered design. Male plus female equals offspring. It is a certainty that male/male and female/female unions don't meet Nature's standard. They may occur "naturally" in that one does not consciously elect to Be Gay, but such unions fall short of any design that matches Nature's intentions. It also seems clear that our moral codes and institutions were created primarily to protect that design in the interest of the species and civilization.
Thus, marriage - for all its flaws and miseries - has evolved to promote, support and nurture that basic necessary unit. If the state goes out of its way to make marriage attractive, it is because marriage is so difficult and, in many ways, unnatural. It is far more natural for humans, animals that we are, to enjoy gratification whenever and wherever than it is to settle for decades into a system of monogamy.
Well, I don't worship gayness either, but I don't see how giving them the same rights as heterosexuals is "restructuring society."
And while it IS certain Mother Nature doesn't bless same-sex unions with offspring, what the heck does that have to do with governmental policy? Unless Kathleen is saying that one's legal rights are effected by fertility or something.
And yes, while monogamy isn't easy, I think that's an excellent reason for opening marriage up to gays and lesbians. Those among them who want to take on the challenges and difficulties of commitment should be COMMENDED for their desires, not punished. And Kathleen, you can't say that heterosexual marriage is so hard and "unnatural" that it requires the special "hetero only" help from the government, because you already used the "it's natural" argument as the justification for there only BEING hetero marriages.
That many fail, however, is no justification for eliminating the goal of the nuclear, male-female, monogamous family, which has worked well if not perfectly for most of civilized memory.
One might argue logically for extending certain benefits to same-sex couples, but marriage isn't necessary to that end. Surely next-of-kin issues for corporate and death benefits can be managed outside of marriage. Moreover marriage isn't only about civil rights. Marriage is mostly the institutionalization of an ideal that we honor in observation of a higher natural order.
The fact that some homosexual households already include children isn't sufficiently compelling to redefine marriage either. To extend marriage rights to gays on that basis presupposes that raising children in homosexual households is just as good as raising children in heterosexual homes with two parents. Surely no one needs a scientific study, or God forbid, a poll, to "prove" what is written in our human DNA - that sons and daughters need the qualities of both their parents, Mother and Father.
That said, it is unlikely that a few thousand married homosexuals will topple civilization, as some have warned. Or that homosexual men will suddenly opt to marry ducks, as Bill "No Spin" O'Reilly recently proposed.
So, the basis of our legal system should be "institutionalizing our ideals?" Okay, let's start with recriminalizing adultery.
"Surely no one needs a scientific study" = "I don't have a scientific study."
Since we were conceived by the combination of male and female DNA, this proves that we need to be raised by only a male and female parent. Nature says so. Of course, the rest of the animal kingdom, which is conceived in the same way, must also start forming nuclear families to raise its young -- otherwise, the DNA will get mad.
Bill O'Reilly really said that about men marrying ducks? Wow, he really is getting sillier every day!
But this is not an insignificant social experiment to be tittered over in cappuccino bars. Making homosexual unions equal to heterosexual unions - the superior natural order of which cannot be disputed - is not just a small step for equality. It is a gargantuan leap from a natural order that has served mankind throughout civilized human society.
We should look long and hard before we leap.
And if we look long and hard and then leap anyway, Kathleen is going to be REALLY PISSED.
Anyway, I hope you found this piece as annoying as I did; feel free to make any points about it that I missed, or to correct anything you think I got wrong.
Now, as a bonus, here's my "Favorite Column on Homosexual Marriage for Today": Holy Matrimony: What's really undermining the sanctity of marriage? In it, Dahlia Lithwick talks about what the White House should do it it really wants to ensure the sacredness of marriage. You know, stuff like forbidding divorce, stiffening marriage requirements, and banning soap operas. I thought it offered a sensible and funny coutnerpoint to Kathleen Parker's column.
And since tomorrow there will no doubt be another couple of dozen columns addressing the MA court's decision and how it will cause the Earth to suddenly rotate the opposite direction tune in then for another edition of "The Most Annoying Column on Gay Marriage of the Day."
4:32:15 AM 
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