« April | Main | Remember, Remember the Fourth of November »
May 18, 2006
Gay Marriage: An Incitement to Poor Argumentation
I have an automatic search engine in my consciousness that highlights anything in the media about gay marriage, and was keenly anticipating this week's episode of "Insight"http://news.sbs.com.au/insight/ on SBS - Australia's multicultural broadcaster. While I'm delighted to see such issues being broached in the media, I have to say that I was a little disappointed by the way the debate - if I can call it that - was handled. For example, one participant on the panel
I found this good summary of the (many) psychology-based studies that have been done on gay and lesbian parents, which highlights (I think) some of the implicit homophobia of the way the question is handled in public discourse and the media. I'm talking specifically about the paragraph that discusses the assumption that when courts express anxiety about the instability of these relationships, they might actually mean 'mental instability'. Which contention has been quite persuasively dismissed by the American Psychological Association and subsequent research (not cited in this brief survey).
This harks back to what I was saying that it's important when looking at these debates to examine how they're even being talked about, and at a more basic level, why the question is even being asked. Hence for example my assertion that making suitability for parenthood a criterion for either awarding or denying gay couples marital rights and/or adoption rights (and I believe these questions are quite intimately linked) is in itself a homophobic proposition, placing the burden of proof on gay parents, and in sense naturalising the idea that heterosexual parenting is somehow 'naturally' 'healthy'. Both these terms are problematic for reasons I won't go into here, but suffice to say that this view obscures if not discounting altogether the obvious fact that many straight couples abuse the privilege of parenthood. This abuse, however, is seen as an aberration from the natural way of things, which still means that straight parents are automatically good, and that courts, family services, etc, must prove that they are bad to remove children from damaging situations. Gay families, on the other hand, are asked to first of all prove their right to exist, and then argue a case for their abilities as good parents.
Posted by len at May 18, 2006 12:14 PM
Comments
Hey Len, while you were being intellectual watching insight I saw a bit of big brother were David (who is gay) said this...
"When we had that wedding the other day, that was definitely one of the worst days of my life, because on the outside world I don't have the right to get married. I don't have a lot of rights. Rob and I are both in the situation whereby we live in a western democracy where we are second class citizens and no-one knows at this table what that's like except for homosexuals, because we are the only people in this country that are barred from rights that so many of you just take for granted. One of the fundamental problems with this country is that rights are taken for granted, and that's why they're not given to everyone, because too many people take simple rights like to fall in love and being able to spend a legally recognised relationship with someone for the rest of your life, for granted. So I came in here on a mission to try and change that. When that mock wedding went on I felt hurt that straight people could be mocking something that I don't have a right to, I realised: 'F**k the outside world'. That's their laws that's the bulls**t that goes on out there. In here no one gives a toss what sexuality you are, what race you are, what religion you are, what anything you are. It just comes down to an individual. I'll never be able to get across to you guys how much that's made me feel like a decent human being, for the first time in my life."
Is it possible Big Brother has handled the issue better than Insight?
Posted by: Chris S at May 18, 2006 07:49 PM
Hence for example my assertion that making suitability for parenthood a criterion for either awarding or denying gay couples marital rights and/or adoption rights (and I believe these questions are quite intimately linked) is in itself a homophobic proposition, placing the burden of proof on gay parents, and in sense naturalising the idea that heterosexual parenting is somehow 'naturally' 'healthy'.
The parenthood question is a regular "muddying the waters" tactic employed by the anti-same-sex marriage crowd. All of a sudden the sole purpose of state-sanctioned marriage is "to rear children," even though this has no basis in law (infertile couples are allowed to marry, childless couples are allowed to remain married, heterosexual couples do not have to sign some form of official undertaking that they will produce children before they are allowed to marry, etc.), nor has it even been a feature of the cultural imagination for decades.
The entire anti-SSM side of the debate is mired in truthiness, if you ask me--particularly as it can point to no reliable evidence to support many of its claims (such as, for instance, the claim that heterosexual parenting is "naturally healthy" or that same-sex parenting is "naturally unhealthy").
Posted by: AV at May 21, 2006 08:36 AM
(Damn! Should've warned me that html tags don't work in the comments field. The first par of my comment above is from len's post.)
Posted by: AV at May 21, 2006 08:38 AM
too right! why do queers have to justify or even explain 1) their existence, 2) the right to marry and 3) the right to have children when straight people don't have to!
Posted by: duda at June 2, 2006 03:11 PM
If anything, heterosexuals are far worse at raising children than gays. Which is why I never want to get married. It's better to become a spinster than have to go through the things that my parents went through.
Posted by: CeLiA at June 29, 2006 03:13 PM