Zach's essay was a mess, but there were several paragraphs which stood out-- either for their awfulness or familiarity-- I cut out whatever amused me, or seemed particularly misguided, and portioned the quotes throughout my response, using them as mini writing prompts. In spite of Zach's inability with letters, he manged through most arguments made by the sanctity of marriage crowd. So composing this was like writing a counter-editorial to something penned by Bill O'Reilly immediately after he'd received a thorough colonoscopy.
Though it was styled as a peer-review, our instructor informed us she would not be handing our work back to the original authors (but still requested we go light on cruelty), so she was my audience. As this woman was the only relatable human being on campus (Salt Lake Community College is a bottomless shithole) she was easy to gauge.
I'm proud of this paper because I largely ignored my teacher's request to refrain from cruelty, and still received a healthy A. I'm proud of this paper because, even though I choose an easy target, it works as a broader response to those on the right of this issue. And it's probably the best essay I've written.
Author's Note: All quotes from Zachary are in bold, all others are in italics.
There are instances when cruelty and accuracy amount to synonyms, when their colorful circles overlap into a malice-filled venn diagram. Summarizing Zachary Vallentine's paper on gay marriage-- Ornately tittled, "The Gay Marriage Debate"-- is such an instance. As an opinion piece, it's vague, illogical and poorly sourced: full of ignorant blanket statements and melodramatic slippery slope arguments. As writing, it's a throbbing mass of redundant non-sequiturs.
The first two pages made me question if it's author had encountered homosexuals. And the last two, wondering if he was raised in an Iranian cave where putting pen to paper enjoys the same legal status as sodomy. Regardless of upbringing and circumstance, Zachary is clearly anti-rainbow. Quote:
"While having an open mind and the ability to look past personal views is a necessity, the changing of laws to allow gay marriage is one situation that Americans need to stand together and protect the holiness of this sacred union."
The 'It's good to have an open mind' platitude careens into a 'gays shouldn't be allowed to marry' wall of non-logic, and the ensuing rhetorical thud seems to be the only connection. So marriage is sacred; marriage is a holy; the institution is vulnerable-- an infant teetering over the business edge of a shark tank-- and must be protected?
Marriage is a concept, societal and governmental, used to join property and people, not some fair-skinned damsel perched atop a conflagrated tower-- screeching for help. Yes, there's often religious elements to the modern practice: when not being preformed in drab settings of a judge's office, the union is conferred by a minister of some sort. But whatever the method, marriage is as secular as it is sacred; as much mundane as metaphysical. Would anyone ramble on about the safeguarding the "holiness of tax brackets" or the "sanctity of census taking?"
But I'm being unfair: having experienced the trauma of my parents divorce at age nine, I know marriage isn't only some fancy notion reducible to notarized paper and ritualized cake-eating. It's just an idea, but are so compassion and tolerance-- and it has concrete ramifications for families and their children. Which is why I found it so queer to see Zach's paper skirt over divorce so nonchalantly; it's not mentioned once.
My parents didn't end their 20 year plus relationship so my father could run of to Cancun with our pool boy. After Dad moved out, Mom didn't start spelling her gender with a Y and wearing flannel to Lilith fair-- they broke up over less tabloid-friendly concerns: money, arguments about money, trust, and dependability; relationships end for simple reasons. Here's a 2004 survey of UK divorcees by consulting firm Grant Thornton International:
Reasons Given for separation:
* Extramarital affairs - 27%
* Family strains - 18%
* Emotional/physical abuse - 17%
* Mid-life crisis - 13%
* Addictions, e.g. alcoholism and gambling - 6%
* Workaholism - 6%
* Homosexual cabals 0% (reason not given)
In my mind, the government recognized sundering of families poses a far more conspicuous threat to the marriage than some dudes with wedding bands brutally sodomizing one another in the comfort of their impeccably decorated home. So where's the conservative movement to outlaw divorce (and for that matter, adultery)? Where are the propositions crowding ballots in our rural heartland and south?
Quote (from a 1999 study by the National Center for Policy Analysis):
"Aside from the quickie-divorce Mecca of Nevada, no region of the United States has a higher divorce rate than the Bible Belt. Nearly half of all marriages break up, but the divorce rates in these southern states are roughly 50 percent above the national average."
From a November 2004 edition of the Jew York Times: (by Pam Belluck):
"Kentucky, Mississippi and Arkansas, for example, voted overwhelmingly for constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage. But they had three of the highest divorce rates in 2003, based on figures from the Census Bureau and the National Center for Health Statistics. The lowest divorce rates are largely in the blue states: the Northeast and the upper Midwest. And the state with the lowest divorce rate was Massachusetts, home to John Kerry, the Kennedy's and same-sex marriage."
It'd be heavy-handed to focus only on divorce in a paper that glosses over it so completely, so I'll cherry pick some of the funniest arguments Zach came up with to battle the advancing specter of legalized gay marriage:
"If homosexuals were allowed to be married nothing would stop pedophiles from using the same excuses to attempt to marry young boys and girls. NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love association) is a perfect example of an organization that would try to legalize men marrying young boys. Americans would also have to allow polygamy simply because of love. In short, the simple fact that you might be in love with someone is not the only valid reason to allow marriage that is not socially acceptable. There is too much legal risk."
Comedy gold.
Does Zachary truly believe it's a fine line between legalizing gay marriage and state-sanctioned pedophilia? That polygamy is at our doorstep the moment we pronounce a couple 'Man and Husband?' Those are wholly unrelated laws-- and when employing slippery-slope arguments, it behooves one to remember that the 'slope'-- like a healthy portion of the people for whom I'm advocating-- goes both ways. Until doing research for this paper, I was unaware the last law banning interracial marriage in America had been overturned a mere 20 years before I was born to my Mexican father and Caucasian mother of poor judgment. Never mind that amendments are designed to ensure personal freedoms-- The only exception being the ill-fated 18th or 'prohibition' amendment--, passing a constitutional ban on gay marriage sets a wide precedent for governmental regulation of personal lives.
After sounding the alarm on NAMbLA's lobbying juggernaut, Zachary descends into several paragraphs of bigoted lies:
"Marriage should not be a gateway for homosexuals to receive the same tax breaks, rights, and privileges that heterosexual couples receive. The main reasons why homosexuals want to be married are financially motivated. Another reason they want to be married is to further their acceptance in American society. Marriage is a legally binding contract and should be entered into for the correct reasons."
At the start of his essay, we needed to defend the "Holiness of this sacred union"-- and now it's simply a legally binding contract. Here is Zachary's prejudice at its most naked; he ignores the long, pronounced, and still continuing history of heterosexuals entering into marriage for morally dubious reasons-- BUT HEY, AT LEAST THEY AREN'T FAGGING IT UP.
"Even if raising children is a priority for some homosexual couples, have two moms or two dads is not the ideal situation to be raised in and learn how to properly become a member of society. There are specific things that humans learn from a father and certain things that one would learn from a mother. No matter how you try to duplicate the proper family structure it cannot be done. There are a lot of negative effects of children being raised by only a mother or only the father. How could homosexual couples be any different?"
From wikipedia's page on Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender parenting:
"The American Psychological Association states in its Resolution on Sexual Orientation, Parents, and Children (adopted July 2004):
“There is no scientific evidence that parenting effectiveness is related to parental sexual orientation: lesbian and gay parents are as likely as heterosexual parents to provide supportive and healthy environments for their children"; and "research has shown that the adjustment, development, and psychological well-being of children is unrelated to parental sexual orientation and that the children of lesbian and gay parents are as likely as those of heterosexual parents to flourish."
Similarly, Children's Development of Social Competence Across Family Types, a major report prepared by the Department of Justice (Canada) in July 2006 but not released by the government until forced to do so by a request under the Access to Information Act in May 2007, reaches this conclusion: The strongest conclusion that can be drawn from the empirical literature is that the vast majority of studies show that children living with two mothers and children living with a mother and father have the same levels of social competence. A few studies suggest that children with two lesbian mothers may have marginally better social competence than children in traditional nuclear families, even fewer studies show the opposite, and most studies fail to find any differences. The very limited body of research on children with two gay fathers supports this same conclusion "
I'll close with a 2004-era conversation between the always brilliant Jon Stewart, and the consistently alive Larry King:
KING: Will same-sex marriage be an issue in the campaign?
STEWART: I was freaked out by it, because I love my wife and I'd hate to have to leave her for a dude. They said, "the gay marriage," and people got upset, so I figured, well, clearly this means that there's a law being passed that we all now have to be gay-- once it was explained to me it doesn't seem like such a big deal anymore.
Post Script:
Countries that impose the death penalty on gays:
Mauritania
Sudan
Iran
Saudi Arabia
Yemen
Countries that allow gay marriage:
Spain
Belgium
The Netherlands
South Africa
Canada
Let's be more like Belgium and less like Yemen.
