Gay marriage column continues to attract responses

As I read your comments, you are in favor of “diluting and/or distorting” the institution of marriage. You are opening the door and paving the way for what many hope will eventually be legal recognition for plural marriages.

I am an old-school conservative. I have nothing against gays, but I object to an “in-your-face” attitude. I don’t shout my heterosexual preferences from the rooftops, and I don’t appreciate having to explain to my young grandchildren why some gay individual is proclaiming to the world that he is inclined to someone of his own gender.

You suggest the gays have already won. I believe the issue of gay marriage will always be a states’ rights matter and some states, governed by religious convictions, will never accept what you claim is already “lost.” If the people are largely from a religious community, they elect (representatives) who reflect their moral viewpoint, and the laws will be drafted accordingly.

I use your own words: “So, if two women or two men decide to enter upon a life partnership of love and fidelity wrapped in a symbol, and if they call that symbol ‘marriage,’ then it follows logically that the symbol would have to be in some ways deconstructed and reconstructed.”

What a perfect definition and argument in favor of bigamy. Can you favor gay marriage but not support bigamy for the same reasons? — D.B., Las Vegas

I double-dog dare you to find one word, one phrase, one sentence in that column that says I am in favor of diluting or distorting the institution of marriage. Let me save you some time: You won’t find it. Because it’s not there.

What the column said in spades was that the word “marriage” has a very specific theological meaning for Jews, Christians and Muslims. In the column, I counted myself (you silly person) as one of those folks with said theological sensitivities. I described how including homosexual union in the word “marriage” must needs deconstruct and reconstruct the symbol of marriage. How, D.B., does describing something mean that I am in favor of that “something” happening?

Hmm?

Listen carefully now: I ... am not ... in favor. I said two things and two things only: 1) that religious people are going to lose that argument and 2) I understand how we lost that argument. We lost the argument the same way Rotarians lost the argument to be male-only. You can’t have it both ways.

On a separate subject, may I suggest there’s an obvious reason you don’t “shout your heterosexual preference from the rooftops.” To wit, the culture of your birth does not render you or require you to be invisible because you are heterosexual. Like you, I find it off-putting when sexual identity is stridently advanced into conversation as non sequitur. But I understand it. It’s a predictable, albeit awkward, sometimes tantrum protest against the injustice of remanded invisibility.

We agree that it will be a states’ rights matter, if by that you mean it’s unlikely the feds will intervene with FBI, Supreme Court orders and military presence as the feds did when individual states refused to protect the civil rights of black American citizens, circa 1960s. But let a gay couple marry in Massachusetts and then move to a state (as you say) “with largely a religious community.” That religious community is free, of course, not to recognize the Massachusetts marriage as marriage, to judge and scorn, etc. But should the state refuse to protect civil rights, there will be federal lawsuits the state simply can’t win. And won’t.

By the way, there’s a distinction between polygamy and bigamy. I don’t think gay marriage opens the door to bigamy. But I think it does force us to rethink how and why we argued against polygamy. Christians are uncomfortable to admit this, but strictly speaking, the Bible doesn’t teach monogamy. The Bible teaches marital faithfulness. Biblically speaking, there is such a thing as faithful polygamy. Moderns are a little stunned to wrap their heads around that fact.

American homosexuals are themselves all over that map on this issue. Some want no part of the heterosexual, largely Judeo-Christian view of marriage. They see themselves as distinct and different and don’t give a rip about this discussion. Others have no investment in the word “marriage” but definitely feel they deserve some legal recognition as they manage their estates, health insurance and in some case qualifications to adopt or foster children. But some gays and lesbians are convinced that until and unless they can share the word “marriage” with their heterosexual brethren, they will be forever cast into second-class citizenship.

I think they will eventually win that fight. State by state.

Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Las Vegas Psychiatry and the author of “Human Matters: Wise and Witty Counsel on Relationships, Parenting, Grief and Doing the Right Thing” (Stephens Press). His columns also appear on Sundays in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Contact him at 702-227-4165 or skalas@reviewjournal.com.