A controversial take on homosexual marriage...
A controversial take on homosexual marriage…
EDIT: Here is the link to the essay about Heinlein and sex and pedophilia, etc.. http://www.scribd.com/doc/63270/Robert-Heinlein-and-Sex [I posted this to a thread on boingboing but I don’t expect that any of my friends will read it there. I’d love to hear reasoned commentary on this] This isn’t gonna be a very popular opinion, but I’m gonna put it out there anyways. “Authority” meddling in who marries who goes back, I believe, to the very earliest of “civilization”, when humans banded together for mutual protection from the lions, wolves, etc, not to mention the other humans. Societies have always had some kinds of restrictions on sexuality because how it was practiced affected the kind of society that would emerge in the next generation. (I would point folks who wish to read more about this to Robert Anton WIlson’s “Ishtar Rising”) Bottom line is that every society has some kind of rules about sexuality and making children. Raising kids is really hard work, yet it is vitally important to the community that it is done “right”, so a couple who has made the commitment to raise a child (important to the society as a potential future soldier or worker bee) is afforded some privileges that aren’t afforded to those who have not made the same commitment. These privileges could include better housing, more food, respect from the community, etc. Disease and other dangers made it pretty important that breeding happen, and frequently. This is not to say that a homosexual couple isn’t going to raise kids, but as a rule, MM or FF couples don’t breed without going outside the dyad for some assistance, but that goes against the control of sexuality that societies seem to need. When making gross generalizations (which is what laws are all about), MF couples breed, MM/FF couples not only don’t breed, but also take breeding stock out of the pool, also not good for the survival of a society in which children do not always grow to adulthood. A man and a woman don’t have to plan to have a child, that part usually happens just naturally, so one could usually make an assumption that if a man and a woman decide to marry (before they have kids) then society can pretty safely pre-emptively grant some or all of those privileges on the assumption that those future potential soldiere et al will soon come. Yes, some couples marry with no intention of procreating, but I’d say that is a relatively modern innovation. These traditions got wrapped up in religion because part of the role of religion is to tell the next generation the proper way to behave as a person in the eyes of “god”, which is really an embodiment of The Society. Remember, I’m talking really primitive times, there was no difference between the authorities and god, the authorities referred to god for the source of their power. Nearly everything above is predicated on “primitive” society. We like to think that we’re more advanced than all that, but because all of these are wrapped up in religion, and we’re often given our religion before we have any real say over it, many folks just believe “in their gut” that that is how it is. Of course, we dont have to worry so much about lions and tigers and cholera, so it’s no longer as important that every dyad produce children. People get married “for love” (because that’s the only acceptable circumstance for them to shag on a regular basis) with no intention of procreating. No worries, there are others having kids and with the advances of medicine and whatnot, there isn’t so much pressure on everyone since nearly all the kids survive nowadays. Yet the privileges afforded to married couples still remain as a vestige of that previous time. If one looked at relationships today without any regard for the historical underpinnings of the whole institution, it seems unfair because we’ve put the carriage before the horse - we think that the most important part of the marriage thing is that the two people love each other, and on that basis homosexual marriage makes just as much sense as heterosexual marriage. So that’s how we got here: we grew out of needing to control every marriage because they don’t all lead to babies, yet we’re in the habit of controlling just this very thing. Now I’m gonna get really weird. Just who made up those mores in the first place? Did some really smart humans sit down and make up some rules early on? were they developed over time? or were those rules handed over to us? huh? handed over from where? Well some would say “God”, but that’s stepping into some deep quicksand. I prefer to refer to “alien anthropologists”, beings who could have been around at the beginning guiding us. Think “2001, A Space Odyssey”, if you will, but I prefer to think in terms of Gurdjieff’s “Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson”. If we humans are alone, with no advanced guidance, then homosexual marriage will eventually win the day if humans want it. If, on the other hand, these rules were handed down by those who would still consider us “primitive” for whatever reasons they have, then I would expect homosexual marriage to ultimately fail. I for one am watching with fascination to see how this plays out.