Well it is finally done-the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional. I am not sure how I feel about that.
I’m an old guy-I am not really comfortable with the idea of gay marriage. Then again, I am not exactly a fan of heterosexual marriage either. The idea that one person is the be all end all of one’s existence is one I really don’t accept any more. And if there is such a person, its me-and I don’t need to marry myself.
I suppose it was inevitable, and it is a reflection of how American mores are changing. 20 years ago-this ruling would not have happened. 50 years ago, no one would have dared take the idea to court, nor would California have thought to put Prop 8 on the ballot. That young people don’t really care as much as older folks like me about who is gay is a reflection of how American society is changing.
Or is it? I am not so sure America is ready for the second and third order effects of gays being married. Yes its going to happen-and yes I have no really impassioned arguments to make against it- but I still wonder.
Consider the change of command ceremony in the near future, where, the Navy trumpeting the advent of the first openly gay commanding officer-watches as the guy doing the saluting singles out his love for his gay partner during the speech.
Or consider this idea: a guy goes with another guy and shares a hotel room on liberty. They both are married to other men. Meanwhile-a heterosexual man tries to do the same thing with a female. Any bets on who gets to mast first? I mean after all-they both are practicing the buddy system.
Eventually there will be a norm that will be unofficially established of what will and what will not be accepted. Until we get there though-there are going to be some spectacular headlines on the pages of your Navy times.
And you are kidding yourself if you think the activism is over-this was never about gays being free to be “who they really are”. This is about cold hard cash-and receiving military benefits for partners and partners of partners. Nothing in the change in the law creates that-and until gay marriage becomes universally accepted, there are hard times to come.
And that is something that really bothers me. A guy goes out and gets laid with a woman-or a “sales professional” and he will be nailed to a cross and left to hang . In contrast, I cannot envision the Navy seriously going after “gay adultery”. Just-not-going-to-happen. Double standard number 1.
I also envision the strong desire to attain a critical mass of homosexuals in all units. How you quantify this, I have no idea, but someone in BUPERS is hard at work trying to figure it out. And lets not even go into the realm of heterosexuals “marrying” their roommate and splitting the BAH shall we? Its going to happen. Duffleblog already has predicted it.
But, as I said, there really was no legal leg to stand on-and there hasn’t been since 1994 when the Combat Exclusion laws were repealed. Once that barrier went down-the rest was just a fait accompli.
Deep down, I think the Supreme Court made the right decision. But it only happened because American society has changed-and the older ideas were no longer found to have merit. But its still going to be about 30 years before we reach a “norm” of what is acceptable and what is not.
And if 1v1 gay marriage is legal-why not polygamy? ( One wife is a big enough pain in the ass-why would want two or more?)
“May you live in interesting times.”
Skippy,
Here’s my take on this. If a guy decides to “marry” a guy in CA, but then goes to AR and decides to marry a woman, is he a bigamist? In the eyes of AR he is not since they don’t recognize gay marriage, but I guess in CA he will be. But I doubt if the legislature went so far as to put forth he requirements in CA on if you are currently married to a female that you can’t get married to the same sex.
The bad thing about the SCOTUS decision in regards to the CA Prop 8 issue set a bad precedent for that state. They only kicked it back to the lower court who ruled that Prop 8 was unconstitutional. The reason they stated was that the plantiffs, in this case the backers of Prop 8 were deemed by the court as to not having a standing in the case, since the CA Gov or AG did not file the appeal. In other words, since the Gov and AG wanted Prop 8 to fail, they would not go all out to fight the appeal in the courts. What this does is gives them an “end around” to any civil sponsored proposition or initiative that they don’t like but the public wants. If they don’t want to enforece something, just let someone file a suit and don’t defend it. This is going to have a much more serious affect on other CA props like their Prop 13, that hold the limits on property taxes, and thus keeps people from losing their homes due to rapid increases in property taxes. All they have to do is get some group to file a suit, in order to make sure that there will be the right amount of money “for the children” in schools and the CA AG will not defend it. If it gets ruled out, then they will be able to go back and stiff the rest of the people for more tax money.
The voters of CA need to take a look at MA. They thought that they had measures in place when Romney was the Gov in the event one of the two Dem Senators left office, and heaven forbid he would appoint a GOP Senator, so they changed the state constitution to make it necessary for a special election. The end result, when Ted Kennedy died and they had a Dem Gov, he couldn’t appoint anyone and as a result Scott Brown was elected. Though he lost in the 2012 elections, their plan had backfired on them.
As far as the adultery and other examples you cited, as I mentioned many of the cases I have been seeing over here are same/same sex assaults, but the ones that get the big press are the male/female assaults. I wonder will they put “Boys Town” club in Pattaya off limits now since most of the regular spots are not off limits, but you are highly encouraged to not go there and do something constructive like paint an orphange before your midnight curfew.
I see some dude has already married his kid in order to get around inheritance tax. Viva la revolution!
What I don’t get is that some of the arguments that gays make are that marriage is an old institution that is out dated with the “modern world.” If that is the case, then why do they insist that they have the right to “marry.” If they don’t believe in the biblical meaning of the word, then why bother with a license that says you are “married.” You can get the same type of benefits with a civil union now, so why try to change someone else’s beliefs just to suit your own agenda.
What I never understood was why gays got all wrapped up in trying to have a “traditional” marriage lifestyle with all the of the bullshit that entails. The really neat thing about the “70’s” for the gays was its focus on the individual and treating sex as the recreational activity it is. Of course AIDS had a lot to do with that, but there was also a desire by the 90’s to co-opt more traditional thinkers by making it seem like they just wanted “middle class ” values.
Marriage-gay or straight-is a trap. A lesson I have learned all too well and wish I could unlearn.
@Maurice
First of all, marriage is neither a defined nor biblical institution. Marriage has been redefined for tons and tons of times before this. It used to be that people got married so that their property would be safe. Then it was marriage for family reasons, so that family property would get bigger. And so on and so forth. If marriage were a "biblical tradition", maybe Jesus should have gotten married.
Furthermore, civil unions are not equal to marriage rights. There are more than 1100 federal benefits that Civil unions are not entitled to (some important ones being unable to sponsor a green card for the spouse, no hospital visitation rights, no right to file a joint-tax return), among many others.
Lastly, we have seen this sort of "separate but equal" attempt in the past, with segregation. Separate but equal is NEVER equal