Quote:
Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan
Peter, this isn't actually an argument against gay marriage. It's, at its core, an argument against marriage. To use it as an argument against gay marriage is a massive distortion, and is also self-defeating, as I'll illustrate below.
Marriage is optional, not normative--and to the extent that it promotes what you call "bourgeois morality," it is an effect of that morality, not the cause of it. People choose to enter marriage, or choose not to enter into it at their option, and although certain social and economic benefits are conferred on those who participate, it's also true that many people prefer to be single, and many couples (especially nowadays) prefer not to formalize their union in this way. So marriage is a choice--I think we can agree.
In the end, the issue of gay marriage is a question of the restriction of that choice by the government, and this is actually most easily illustrated through negative choice. If a heterosexual person chooses not to get married, that is their right. However, if you think about it no gay person could "choose not to get married" until gay marriage was recognized by the state. Their choice was made for them by the paternalistic (and yes, bourgeois) morals of the state.
In that context, a gay person remaining single can never be a rejection of bourgeois norms unless gay marriage is also legal and mainstream. You can't take away someone's right to vote and then say "look how he's resisting the status quo by refusing to vote!"
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No, on the whole it's an argument against modern marriage as defined primarily through John Locke. I just want to start off by saying that I know I'm making an unpopular argument. It's complicated and I don't expect many people on here will follow it or agree with it.
To begin with norms are the effect of our choices, the fact that marriage is optional and people choose to engage in it is what makes it a norm. The norm has changed, however, moving from an Aristophanic view of love and relationships as eros to a Lockean view of relationships (and children) as being instrumental in the conquest of nature.
In regards to stability, this isn't a bad thing. The family unit with children raised by a mother and a father is the best way to raise children who are stable, contributing "members of society." This is why I still think we should keep around the traditional definition of marriage as the only marriage in modern society. It is the best way for encouraging stable family units in a materialist world where notions of God and the eternal order no longer resound in communities and extended families.
On to my view of love and why I think homosexuality is prior and more significant than being subsumed by this bourgeous definition of marriage. Going back to Plato's Symposium we learn of the Greek definition of eros. That is, the notion of soulmates and longing we feel for other souls. In regards to human sexual activity, this is not bourgeous morality. It involves often a pansexual exploration of oneself in a very Dionysian fashion. Promiscuity leads the way to one day stability.
Homosexuality, especially, according to Socrates is notable for this type of behaviour. Historically, homosexuals did not have the final consequence of the marital act to act as a natural break to their sexual activity. Homosexuals were far more likely to explore the notions of brotherhood and community bonding through their sexuality.
Legalizing gay marriage uses the modern language of rights. Ignoring the diversity and plurality of society, it instead seeks to bureaucratize something as personal as love creating a new norm where bourgeois morality is the state-approved norm for all relationships.