My honest thought is that when people vote, or talk about voting, or poll on the issue of, gay marriage, all they are doing in essence is giving an up or down vote on whether they "approve" of homosexuality. That's all. When straight people go down on voting day and stick it to gay people on a ballot issue to recognize civil unions or gay marriage or same sex domestic partner rights, they feel they are drawing a line where as a society we are saying no, we don't like this, we don't want this to reflect on who we are. And yes, a lot of that goes back to the ick factor, and a lot of it to sexual hangups and neuroses we have as a society.sunnyside wrote:But a key thing to remember is that there are a large number of people who have a serious issue with gay marriage.
Some maybe do just have some weird aversion of it that they don't want to let go of.
Many have religious reasons.
Some apperantly hate some of their own feelings on the issue and so lash out.
Some feel that it will result in a degredation of regular marriage, grandkids and/or other traditional stuff they hold dear.
Some fear it'll lead to a general increase in promiscuity in the culture at larger (personally I think that ship sailed in the 60's and has just kept going)
And others fear reverse discrimination and being looked down upon in a "metro" culture. (I've felt a bit of the sting of this in Philly, I can see where the temptation is.)
And some maybe just because it was how they were brought up, including all the gay jokes they hear in the gaming culture.
Anyway what I'm saying is that despite the tolerance generally shown out here in the intertubes, back in the real world people who dislike homosexuals/homosexuality to varying degrees make up the majority.
They are not "protecting the sanctity of marriage", because they still recognize the right of Britney Spears to marry, pop out kids, etc.
They are not "protecting a religious definition of marriage" because there isn't one; churches could still decline to perform any marriage ceremony they wished, and marriage is a legal contract, not a religious one. Plus people are generally stupid and don't even think that deeply into the issue.
What it really comes down to is that gay people are one of the very, very last groups in the U.S. that it is still socially and institutionally acceptable and validated to discriminate against. We've lost the ability to do it, formally and overtly, to blacks. And to women. And to Jews, Catholics, the disabled, etc.
But you can still do it to gay people. There is still that formal, official, legal recognition that you are something a little bit more, and someone else is something a little bit less, because you are straight and they are gay. I won't go quite so far as to say second class citizen but a lot of that is in SPITE of society rather than "because" of society-- gay people can live in the closet, or be very discreet, and "infiltrate" any sort of job that ordinarily people would not feel comfortable allowing a gay person to have, be that teaching, being a "heartthrob" actor or model, being a counselor, a member of a church community, etc. But in a legal sense absolutely gay people in the U.S. are second class citizens, and your typical bellybutton picking Wal Mart shopping Joe slob out there LIKES that, because it makes him something "better" regardless of any merit or TOTAL lack thereof he has achieved in his own life. The very same mentality fueled segregation and continued de jure discrimination against black people for so long in our country.
