If Gays Can Marry Can I Marry My Dog?
When will people understand that tradition is just a stumbling block in the pursuit of progressive thinking? My dog and I are very much in love. She has been my friend, protector and lover for eight years. I firmly believe that we are both deserving of a legal domestic partnership, too. If the gay/lesbian community can be granted such a thing, then why can’t we? Heck, I’d be willing to bet that there would be less uproar over me kissing my dog on the front page.
This was an actual letter written by Joe Freeman and published in the San Jose Mercury News on May 21, 2008, on the cusp of gay marriage becoming legal in California, and amidst visions of husbands kissing husbands and wives kissing wives.
While some feared immanent bestiality, others worried that if gays could marry, next thing you know, adults would be marrying kids. It’s all the same, right?
At the very least, what about consent?
An adult man can give consent to marry another man. An adult woman can give consent to marry another woman. But children are too young to fully understand what they would be getting into by agreeing to marriage — if they were asked their opinion at all. Children cannot give consent. Neither can dogs or cats or birds or lizards or cows… Bestiality and child marriage are nothing like gay marriage. Funny that ol’ Joe couldn’t make the distinction.
Joe is also worried about going beyond tradition, or traditional morality that is based in religion. But after all the atrocities committed in the name of religion, whether the Crusades or 9/11 or cutting women’s genitals from their bodies (female genital mutilation), I don’t find religion to be the best guide to ethics.
So religious morality can seem hardly moral at all, and too often the opposite.
Better to base morality on whether someone is being harmed.
I can see how homophobia hurts people. Gay bashing harms victims. Homophobia inflicts emotional suffering, sometimes so severe that gays and lesbians take their lives. At the least self-worth can greatly suffer. But those who bash also lose their humanity.
When parents can’t get married, children cannot visit a sick parent in the hospital, they can lose out on social security or inheritance if a parent dies, they aren’t guaranteed child support if parents separate. These kids miss out on the support and stability that other kids take for granted.
On the other hand, I don’t see how homosexuality harms anyone.
We would all be better off extending love instead of hate and contempt.
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Posted on October 5, 2011, in feminism, gay rights, gender, relationships, sexism, women and tagged feminism, gay marriage, gay rights, gender, LGBT History Month, relationships, religion, sexism, women. Bookmark the permalink. 30 Comments.
I have never understood the thought that homosexual marriage threatens heterosexual marriage.
The passing of Prop. 8 is what pushed me from politically aware to politically active. Even though a straight white male, I was outraged that we could vote to discriminate a group of people. Mine and my daughter’s first protest. So much hate and fear, so sad. We will win this battle, eventually.
i really believe the prop 8 should not of been passed, i don’t see the harm at all, love is love, let them love each other and get married and have that dream wedding they always wanted. who are we to decide who can get married or not, to me, it’s a very personal and “up to you” decision. i don’t think anyone else but the partner’s should be involved. with the whole marriage to a dog issue that Joe Freeman is dealing with, i don’t really know about that, i mean that’s a whole other species.
Fear and intolerance are the issue here. It has come to the point in our country where no good is coming from resisting gay/lesbian marriage but some still insist on fighting it to the end, no matter the costs. At the pro marriage side people are not allowed to be themselves or express who they truly are. This is leading to un-happy lives and spills over to heterosexual lives as well when homosexuality is hidden behind a hetero lifestyle and relationships. On the anti-marriage side people are filling their lives with hate and fear over an issue they do not understand. Homophobia leads to broken relationships within families, friends, co-workers, etc. and leaves lives in a bad way. I see no reason to hate so much, homosexuality is here to stay and even if you have religious convictions against it doesn’t mean you can’t live with it. Gay marriage, in my opinion, would have only positive affects on the state of marriage and families in this country. We waste so much on this issue when we stand to gain just as much by allowing it to flourish in our culture. This is one issue this country cannot mess up, we continue to jeopardize our status as a free society if gay marriage is not made legal soon or even worse banned as whole in our country.
This article is slightly disturbing by the fact that this guy even tried to compare gay marriage to marrying his dog. A dog is an animal who cannot talk and leagally you can’t have sexual affiliations with such a partner. In a gay marriage, it is still two human beings who can communicate with, tend to, and have understandings with one another. There is nothing wrong with gay marriage, you can’t help who you love and who makes you happy, so this guy really needs to get a grip. Dogs are wonderful companions, but they can’t make decisions which would be equivalent to ones the human brain would have to come up with. This guy’s ignorance is really annoying!
I believe that people are born the way they are and if they want to be gay/lesbian let them be. Is not our business if they want to get married, but everyone thinks differently. The thing I don’t agree with at all is why would you want to marry your dog now that I don’t believe in thats a little weird to me.
As a Californian and having lived in California for most of my short life, I do not have to be confronted with a great deal of homophobia like most people in the LGBTQ community in other parts of the world has to face every day. I have met some homophobes, and when they bash gays in front of me, I have learned to tune out their ignorance and unkind comments. They could explain to me how being a lesbian or a gay man is disgusting, repulsive, or sinful, but their words will only fall upon deaf ears. I used to be irked when my peers back in high school used the term “gay” as a derogatory, but a mentor in my life has taught me to live by the quote “He who angers you, conquers you.” I wholeheartedly support gay marriage.
Comparing same sex marriage to marrying a dog is definitely not the same. If a woman wants to marry another woman or a man wants to marry a man, then let it be. Let people marry who they love. It is not going to hurt anybody if same sex marriage is legal. I am a big supporter of same sex marriage. It is unbelievable how many people think that gays or lesbians are going to destroy what “family” is. To me, there is no wrong way of family. Gays and lesbians did not choose to like the same sex. That is who we are and we are going to love someone that makes us happy.
This topic is a really hard one for me to understand. Keeping the right to marry the one you love from people just because their sexuality isn’t our society’s norm is completely unfair. The people who protest so much against it are completely unwilling to put themselves in the shoes of the LGBTQ community. If they had, they would see how hurtful and cruel homophobia is. Being someone who identifies with this community it is especially hard to know that if I were to find the one whom I wanted to spend my life with, I wouldn’t be able to follow the tradition of getting married. Since I was little I’d been wondering what my wedding would be like, and to know that it may not be legal for me to have the dream wedding I’ve wanted for so long is something that’s hard to wrap my head around. I know that when the day comes for me, I’m going to be marrying that person regardless if it’s legal to the state or not. I just hope by then people open their minds and stop disregarding our community.
In my opinion, when you try to compare same sex marriage to marriage with dogs, the person who made that statement is talking out of ignorance. Being a straight male, I feel as though everyone is entitled their own aspirations and goals. Why hinder someones happiness just because an individual sees it as morally wrong. There is no harm in allowing same sex marriage. I don’t see how it can harm society or individuals in any way. The only reason why I see people reject such actions because of the fear of change. It is a natural reaction to dislike change. “Why fix something that isn’t broken”, is the saying that many people might think about. My other opinion is that eventually, no matter what, society will be forced to accept gays and same sex marriages, and will be able to see it as a normal thing. History only serves to back up change (blacks earning their freedom and fighting for equal rights as well as women).
If gays and lesbians want to get married, than I firmly believe that they should have the right to do so. Marrying a dog does not compare to the bond and commitment humans make to each other when they get married. There is no reason for a marriage between consenting adults to be illegal. I also believe that religion is a poor excuse for not allowing gay marriage. I was raised Christian and attended a private school where all of my ministers and teachers openly and strongly supported the right to gay marriage. I believe that many religious instituitions are evolving more than politicians want to admit.
There are so many different aspects to the prohibition of gay marraige. Above and beyond being able to marry the one you love and wish to spend your life with, there are many legal rights which are being denied to a family who lives and loves together just like all other families. The ability to provide medical insurance for your children if you are not the birth parent or to make legal and medical decisions for your children. The ability to visit your partner in the hospital or to make end of life decisions for them. There are issues for the offspring as they don’t feel their families are as valued as other peoples as they are not seen as legal families in the eyes of the law. By denying gay people the right to marry our society is continuing to perpetuate the belief that Gay people do not deserve the same rights as everyone else and the only basis behind this is religion. Religion should not be the basis of how we judge Human rights. All Humans whether male or female black or white or gay or straight deserve the same and equal rights.
It’s so crazy where people go with this “marriage” thing. Seriously? Marrying your dog?? All we are asking is for Marriage rights, the same rights that everyone else has. We are asking to exchange vows with someone we are deeply in LOVE with and want to spend the rest of our lives with. It’s not any different than what heterosexuals want out of marriage. People really need to stop making us out to be animals or whatever they think of us. We are human, we have feelings, we have a heart which means these issues effect us, they hurt us and its degrading to think people would even compare gay marriage to marrying an animal. We need to wake up, we need to start thinking about equality and the rights of others. We have a right to love whom we want so we should have a right to Marry the person we love.
I really know why this guy would even bring his dog up. First of all, the gay/lesbian community are of the same SPECIES, they can verbally agree that do want to be with eachother. Human couples relate,support,love one another,and are physically attracted to one another. Unless this man has a special relationship with a talking dog that is sexually attracted to him, he is in no position to disrespect the gay community like that. As humans they do have the right to be with whomever they choose to. Dogs don’t pick their owners, they’re bought. Just saying.
I am outraged at he ignorance of other people when it comes to such an obvious human rights issues as gay marriage. I grew up with a handful of my close family how are gay and this type of relationship as only ever been presented to me, or seemed as normal as a straight couple. It was never an issue that needed to be explained to me as a child but because it was always the norm. Though as I am older I became aware of the inequalities surrounding those how are gay. It is a common human right that is being abused to deny gay and lesbians the right to marry their loved one, exposing them and leaving them venerable without the common rights of a married couple. As adults and teens are taught to be more open excepting of gay and lesbians people can still not abolish homophobia when it comes to gay marriage. For an individual to compare marriage to their dog to a human relationship is a slap in the face to all that has been done to insure gay and lesbian’s human rights.
I find this mans argument against gay marriage to be completely offensive. How can you compare two human beings in love to a human in love with a dog? He’s insinuating that gays and animals should have the same rights. All humans should be treated as equals. If I choose to marry an African American man and I was an Asian woman there would be no issue, so why can’t a woman marry another woman? I believe that love is blind and you can’t control who you are attracted to. Gay marriage does not hurt any one, but ignoring their human rights does hurt people.
“On the other hand, I don’t see how homosexuality harms anyone. We would all be better off extending love instead of hate and contempt,” Broadblogs
This is one of the topics I feel are unnecessary, and it truly breaks my heart that we even have to argue about how some people should live their lives. Like seriously? I’m a heterosexual female and even though every now and then it’s emphasized on whom to date, but I don’t remember walking down the street and feeling threatened of being killed because I’m heterosexual. And it is for that same reason that I do not interfere or worry about the next person’s dating life. Especially since other people’s dating life do not affect me in anyhow, it’s not like I wake up with a bump on forehead just because I didn’t protest the gay and lesbians. Being negative towards gays and lesbians doesn’t better my life in anyway and it certainly does not stop hunger or cure AIDS, matters which I’m most concerned about. Matters which greatly affect my well being as loving and compassionate person. Now this comes from a Christian point of view, or shall I say MY Christian point of view, seeing that most people who condemn gays/lesbians are “christians”. Deuteronomy 6 verse 5 reads as follows, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your HEARTS. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” Now, interesting enough, there is NOWHERE in my Bible where I read that I should love my neighbor as myself under certain CONDITIONS. My Bible just says to love and treat people with respect period. And as for Mr Joe Freeman having the audacity of comparing human beings with dogs? I’m gonna go ahead and pray for Mr Joe tonight.
I don’t understand why people make this argument! Two adults can consent to get married but children and animal obviously can’t so to even make that parallel is ridicules! Why should peoples opinion matter when you chose a partner? they don’t have to live with that person. Also I don’t understand when people say things like, but what should I tell my kids, how is this problem anyone else’s problem than those parents? I don’t understand how what should be a private matter, is somehow a public matter that the public should vote on! I married my husband out of love and it was our decision, it should be the same for everyone regardless of whom you marry!
Also the fact that gay people don’t have the same right is something that in itself should be illegal.
Allowing gay marriage could only do good for our society. The constant fight has made no positive steps toward anything, rather it has only caused more conflict. By accepting the gay community and allowing them to marry whomever they please will not affect other heterosexuals. Obviously arguing and not allowing gays to marry has not done any good up to this point, there wil always be gay people, so whats the big deal? Who cares who marries who, as long as people are happy. How do homophobes become satisfied knowing that gay people can’t marry? How does it effet their own lives? I will never understand that. People shouldn’t worry about other’s lives, it only takes away from living your own life. I think that the argument over gay marriage is simply absurd and a complete wast of time. People are not going to change who they love because others don’t think its okay. The whole “if gays can marry, can i marry my dog?” statement is absolute ignorance. This sarcasm is completely avoidable. If people would learn to understand and accept one another everyone would be a lot happier.
I agree with same sex marriage as matrimony is the basic right for not only heterosexuals, but also homosexuals. In Japan, after the Tohoku Earthquake 2011, many people began to marry. Why? The couples in the disaster zone could not get much information about their missing partner from the government and were not allowed to enter the makeshift to look for the loved ones because they did not have a family-related certificate. The worst case was that a woman who lost her partner by tsunami had to leave their house since the man owned the house and she did not have any legal rights to take over it; she lost everything. To live in the constitutional state, either America or Japan, marital status connects individuals, provides benefits for the couple, and protects the two. Understandably, homosexuals need the right to marry.
If the main argument against gay marriage is the morality of tradition and “atrocities committed in the name of religion”, then I just don’t see how any of their arguments can refute that gay marriage doesn’t do harm to anyone. Correct me if I’m wrong, but in our OWN constitution; specifically the first amendment, it states that there is a separation of church and state, meaning that religion should not affect the decision of the state. This brings me back to the term “marriage”, if they got the definition of marriage from the bible, then it is under religious affiliation, which means that marriage cant be limited to men and women. I think you bring a good point about consent, it really plays a big role to argue that people will all of sudden be able to marry their animals. To the point of child marriage, I believe in some states, you can marriage someone at the age of 16 WITH the consent of the parents, but even then THEY don’t have the consent. I can’t believe people are so un-accepting of homosexuality. As a heterosexual male, I think it is refreshing to see a homosexual couple, their love seem so genuine and pure. Other couples, i just see them on their phones and totally no sense of affect towards each other, but hey, that just what I observed. And it is definitely awesome to see more states allowing gay marriage, shows not everyone is narrow minded.
We can love animals and live with them, but I hardly understand why it is necessary to get married with them. But I believe homosexual people should be legally allowed to get married as well as heterosexual people do because all people deserve to be happy regardless of sexuality. We are separated and treated differently depend on whether we fall in love with a person whose sex is same or different with us, and obviously heterosexuals is dominant and superior in our society. Although homosexuals are a member of society just as heterosexuals but our society still hesitates to give gay couples the right to marry.
you cannot have babies by mashing 4 breasts together, or men with men. Simply apply Kant’s test of the universalized maxim. if we all are homosexual then there are not babies, our society dies, humanity dies, this is simple ethics, it is simple. apply this maxim to any situation to find the ethical decision in the matter. Life of humans or death of humans. Like marrying a table.
Your point rests on the notion that the only purpose of marriage is childbearing. If that were the case then I could not be married to my husband because we have not produced children. And neither could my mother who remarried in her 60s. Or my father who married a woman in her 40s who never had children.
And relying on “universal happiness” is interesting because “no one having children” because “everyone is gay” would only occur if everyone were gay. But only about 5% of the population is gay, so there’s nothing to worry about.
And to those who think that if being gay were acceptable then everyone would be gay, I can only assume that they have suppressed their natural homosexuality, leaving them to think that everyone would be anxious to be gay, given the chance.
“If gay people can get married, can I marry my dog?”
Sure, if your dog can demonstrate the cognitive reasoning capabilities required to consent to a lifelong commitment, go for it. It doesn’t affect me or anyone else who isn’t involved in the scenario, so it’s not my business to judge what two consenting beings want to do with their lives.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time I’ve heard dog-human marriage used as a reason to deny gays essential human rights. Equating gay marriage to interspecies marriage is preposterous, and the implications that gay people are of the same echelon as pets is simply vile.
And if we’re basing our laws and morals on what the Bible and other religious texts say is right, then we should all be allowed to own slaves and stone/exile our daughters if they are raped. Who is to say which religious laws are correct and incorrect for today’s use? If you quote religion as a reason for allowing or not allowing something, you can’t choose to only follow the texts that suit your personal prejudices. Religion should not even be considered when making decisions about marriage laws in the U.S., as the last time I checked, we were still supposed to have freedom of–and hence, from–religion. I couldn’t agree more with your statement, “Better to base morality on whether someone is being harmed.”
So far as I can tell, homosexuality only hurts people if it is forced upon them, the same as heterosexuality. I can’t think of an example of the former scenario that is widespread and socially acceptable, yet young men and women are often forcefully taught that heterosexual marriage is the only acceptable lifestyle, even in today’s most “progressive” societies. It seems to me that we have a long way to go before humans as a whole can accept one another in love and mutual understanding, rather than condemning those whose actions are different from what we’ve been taught is normal.
I propose we create a new legal status equivalent to marriage called garriage. Gay people can get garried to each other how ever they want. And see if the issue goes away.
If it doesn’t, that means gay people wants the holiness people normally associated with the word marriage. But that they can’t have! Because the holiness is ultimately in the act of procreation. It’s love too, but not any kind of love, only love that fulfills the divine purpose.
If you call this marriage, then all you have succeeded in doing is taking away the holiness from the word, and that upsets a lot of people.
As I’ve said in another post:
Some insist that marriage was meant for procreation. In that case, everyone from my birth family, except for my brother, would have to get divorced immediately. My father and his wife, whom he married late in life, never had children. My mother and her husband married in their 60’s. I’ve suffered fertility problems, myself. My brother, who sired three children, is the only one who’s safe from these folks.
So how is hetero marriage more holy?
If two people are happy, treat each other with love and respect, I cannot see the problem, People make it a problem. I’ve seen same sex unions work out far better than SOME hetro relationships, they have the same probs we do, the same fights, they just have the same sex. Gay marriage does not hurt anyone. I don’t understand why people are selfish and force others to live according to your beliefs?” I see no point in taking away their ability to get married. In fact, this law takes away from their right. Heterosexual couples have the right to get married and experience the joys and the downfalls of marriage. Homosexuals should have the same rights. They should be able to experience the good times and the bad times as well.
In our multicultural society, the role of the institution of marriage is to make official the fact that two persons have vowed to be committed to each other. Freedom of religion is recognized by our constitution and marriage is not viewed as a religious sacrament by everybody. The goal of marriage can be to start a family but it is not in the mind of all people who get married. Marriage may include the idea of sharing resources but it is not always the case. Some married people may have financial agreements and file their taxes separately. Married people usually live under the same roof but not always. If married people realize after a while that they made the wrong choice, they are free to ask for a divorce: so there is a lot of freedom in the institution of marriage in our country, except one freedom “Marry someone of the same sex” and the Supreme Court will certainly have to come with strong arguments to convince the majority of American that homosexual marriage hurts our institutions. Among our friends we have a couple of gay guys who got married in San Francisco during the short time when it was legal, about 8 years ago. They are a wonderful couple and I really can’t see how the fact that they are married could endanger our institutions. They never mentioned their intention to have children but they both have degrees in education and would certainly be very fit for parenthood if they decided to adopt children. When heterosexual couples get married, is there an imposed training for them to learn how to raise the children that may be conceived during their marriage? No, our laws trust the fact that because they are male and female their natural instinct will kick in and make them become good parents… Ask the social workers or the foster care children what they think about it!
The stereotype of one man in a tuxedo and one woman in a wedding gown on the top the wedding cake is more than obsolete but a lot of people are still shocked at the view of 2 men or 2 women kissing so they hide behind false arguments like religion or the sake of the children…
Some argue that procreation is necessary for the preservation of our species but the link between marriage and procreation is just a social construction. The institution of marriage has evolved and will evolve…but not with cats and dogs. God forbid! We have insisted so much on spaying and neutering them that we could not produce offsprings!
i’m ok with gay marriage- it’s i just feel that hetrosexual relationships have become meaningless and competitive , with everyone wanting some fictitious mr or mrs. perfect.!