Demosophia

A Shift in Strategy on Gay Marriage

It's just way too easy to portray the opposition of religious conservatives to gay marriage as bigotry. That may be why, as this article points out, gays have been vastly more successful in the PR battle over gay marriage than have their opponents, including fundamentalist Christians. So maybe it's time for a change in strategy. A big change.

The fact is that gays have been enormously successful in the PR battle, and people just aren't shocked or dismayed by homosexuality much any more. Well, good for them. Except fundamentalist Christians, who clearly don't deserve the slightest consideration... compared to fundamentalist Muslims, for whom homosexuality is a capital offense, but who have somehow managed to achieve mascot status with most S.F. gays anyway. I mean, after all, most of those damned Southern Baptists are also damned Capitalists... probably. And, being Capitalist, or even worse "ideologically American" (Lockean, anti-statist, religiously sectarian, etc.) is the real sin from the perspective of the gay "movement." (Meaning, as one conservative gay observed recently on Roger L. Simon's blog: "those sad, bitter queens on the coasts.")

So here's a little:

Advice to conservatives concerned about gay marriage: OK, so just split the gay vote. Support gay marriage for homosexual women, and oppose it for homosexual men. I mean physiology being what it is Richard Simmons is a lot less likely to get pregnant than Ellen Degeneres anyway, and it'd make a lot more sense to observe that marriage is about motherhood than about indulging the noble '60s tradition of "open marriage" practiced by most "committed" gay men. (Gotta be studies on this, because it's sure common knowledge with most of the gay men I know.) That'll throw a monkey wrench into things, huh?

Old, slightly politically incorrect, joke:

Q: What does a lesbian drive to her second date?
A: A moving van.

The point being that there really are gender differences that matter. I don't really know why no one has thought of this, frankly. I'm sure it'd be fought tooth and nail through the courts over gender descrimination issues, but in doing so it'd make an enormously important point that currently isn't being made at all, by anyone: Marriage is about child raising, not indulging romantic whims. And even if the opposition to gay marriage isn't ultimately successful, that's still an important point to make..., and keep making..., and keep making... again, and again, and again... until it starts to sink in... even with gays (most of whom were raised by somebody, probably).

Winning a PR battle isn't often a straightforward matter of doctrinaire conviction, especially when that conviction is so open to a charge of intolerance. But that doesn't mean the PR battle isn't worth fighting, either.

Posted by Demosophist at July 9, 2004 04:59 PM | TrackBack