For example, you claim to support monogamy…..but then write that you side with people who oppose monogamy and think it “authoritarian”.

You claim to oppose promiscuity as personally irresponsible, but then write that society is to blame for promiscuity, not the person who practices it.

This contradictory attitude is what manifests in the young men who want marriage, but who see nothing wrong with practicing promiscuity in it.

You are a complete asshole, NDT

You clearly have no idea about what you’re talking about. Try actually reading things that people write instead of filling in your asinine stereotypes for a real human being and deriding me based on the universe that is contained only (THANK GOD) in your head.

I could (and have) proclaim(ed) my beliefs until I am (was) blue in the face. It has made no difference. You still want to just simplify me into a “gay leftist”, and now, apparently, a “slut”.

You have no idea who I am, and yet you’ve already accused me of sleeping around. Why? There’s certainly the fact that the anonymity of the internet allows you to feel big and tough instead of embarrassed when you’re nasty and arrogant toward another person on a very personal level.

But aside from that, as far as I can tell, your “reasoning” is based on the fact that I’m gay, and apparently that automatically makes me a “slut” in your view. Gee, what, exactly, was this post about again?

Of course; gay promiscuity is never the fault of the gay person, but of “society”.

So when you cheat in your “monogamous” relationship, PSUdain, you can just blame “society” and claim that it forced you to be a slut.

How utterly convenient.

The problem with your argument is that heterosexuals can be promiscuous and not lose the right to marry.

But you fully endorse and support promiscuity in marriage, Brian, even claiming that monogamy is “authoritarian”.

Unlike gay culture, heterosexual culture does not actively encourage and support promiscuity, nor does it call monogamy in marriage “authoritarian”. To espouse the belief that you have that promiscuity in marriage is fully acceptable is far outside the heterosexual mainstream, and greatly cheapens and diminishes the point of marriage in the first place.

We wanted them to know that we were a stable family.

Children learn that from parental behaviors, not from a piece of paper.

And that really is the problem here; gays and lesbians who substitute pieces of paper for responsible behavior and blame their refusal to control themselves on society’s not giving them said pieces of paper.

I think people will change. The funny thing is that couples like us disappear from view because we are busy raising our families. There are a lot of couples like us out there. We are just not highly visible.

I have discovered that life is often what a person makes it (within the confines of societal possibility): those gays who want quiet, stable lives have them. Those who want dysfunction, manufacture it by the barrel.

If society is to ever soften its view about gay marriage it will be because people like you showed them by example.

The problem with your argument is that heterosexuals can be promiscuous and not lose the right to marry. The state does not demand proof of monogamy when heterosexuals marry. Nor does having sex outside of a heterosexual marriage immediately nullify the marriage. It is up to the people involved whether or not to use such an incident to end the marriage. The state cannot end the marriage even if it is aware of the act of infidelity. One of the spouses must petition the state to take such action. I presume that such a course of action will hold true for same-sex marriages as well.

By what logic can homosexuals be compelled to be monogamous when their heterosexual brethren are not? If heterosexuals are not punished for promiscuity, why should homosexuals be?

Vince:

I agree with you that court action is not the ideal way, but sometimes the legislature refuses to act (take New York State at the moment). Should people’s rights be held captive to a reluctant legislature? The Founders wisely created a tri-part governmental structure so that stasis in one area did not impinge on the rights of citizens. They gave us three avenues to make sure individual rights were respected. Activity in one branch balances gridlock in another.

As for monogamy, it is present in my marriage with no problem and in several others that I know of. I do not have to look hard to find them (but maybe living in New York City makes them easier to find). Again, to make monogamy an unalterable condition of marriage is an excessive intrusion of the state into private matters. In my opinion, we need less state interference, not more.

Also, monogamy was originally thought to be for women only: as the property of their husbands, their fidelity was thought to be an instrinsic part of their value. Men were free for centuries to whore as they may, while women were made to keep chaste.

Finally, I find PSUdain’s analysis of the developmental delay experienced by gay men to be spot on. Gay or straight, people have to go through the awkward, figuring-out-how-to-relate stage. Now that gays are going through it at a younger and younger age, they are prepared for monogamous lives. The younger gay men I know are “over” hanging out at much earlier ages than the men of my generation. I was just weird — I wanted to be married from the get go.

As for that piece pf paper: it was transformative for my husband and myself. Even though we had been together for years, monogamous, lives melded, going through the ceremony and receiving that certificate brought us to a new dimension.

I had not expected it. We got married to show our childen that we were committed and had gone as far as possible to affirm that commitment publically and legally despite all the hate and all the obstacles. We wanted them to know that we were a stable family.

But I will never forget the six minutes it took to get married. I recommend it for all gay men. Those who never do it will miss out on one of the greatest events that can happen in a person’s life.

To Vince: I think your conclusions about the inherent nature of gay men is not about something that is so much inherent as it was taught.

I never gave much thought as to where the impulse comes from otehr than perhaps grabbing my crotch and like Mt Everest proclaiming.. “Because it’s there!”

Promiscuous nature is not really so much a part of male homosexuality as it is a part of maleness.

I agree, which is why I spoke specifically of gay men in the latter part of my comment.

But many (most?) men seem to be able to control themselves in committed relationships.

Perhaps, or perhaps not I seem to remember during the Clinton saga in order for people to defend him they had to trash the entire soceity, it being said that most men cheat on their wives. I don’t know if that’s true.

As other people have said in other comments, the thing about marriage is that the woman constrains the man and they both mature and become responsible with coming of children.

Well there isnt’ any of that with gay guys.

I don’t think that being gay makes you any more promiscuous. It just increases the chance to act on it, through all the outlets available.

Being male makes you a slut especially when you’re hunting for prey who are sluts. Especially when you remove pregnancy as a consequence.

(Nothing wrong with being a slut, i’m just using shorthand)

Because society wasn’t accepting and didn’t recognize them, people felt more of a license to engage in certain behaviors. If they were seen as “the other”, they might as well give into temptation and be “the other”. What incentive was there against it?

I dont really buy that. People seem to be behaving more extreme than ever and they have never been more tolerated than they are now.

I’m not trying to blame or excuse, just observe. This was something my campus pastor and I had talked about at some length a few times when we’d sit down to talk

I’m familiar with the arguments you made. I volunteered at a community center in my youth and got the usual training of Oprah values. I’m skeptical of these explanations because they all seemed designed to blame the entire world for the actions of one person , who the person coming up with the theory does not want any blame to go to. I’m not saying you’re doing that, I think you’re sincere in those explanations.

So, if you look at the change in climate, the biggest being the fact that in several places, gay kids can look forward to a future of equality, where they are recognized as equal (and not “other” or “less than”) by society.

I dont accept the premise lurking in here, because it’s sort of ahistorical.

If you’re talking about individuals being equal .. then yeah I agree with you.. i never heard it be argued by anyone credible that gay people were not equal to straight people. As an aside , Left-leaning gay folks seem very determined to believe they are being denied rights. That they are subordinate or somehow oppressed and I really don’t see it all. Most of the guys I know are single, so why this gay marriage issue is so important to them sort of baffles becuase I tell them “You can’t even keep a boyfriend, marriage should be the least of your problems”. I think the Left Wing Activist Inc, just needs to find new crusades to go on to justify their solicitition of donatios.

But if you’re talking about relationships, You are assuming the world will spin on an axis of ever-increasing progress. Perhaps in early 21st Century America/Europe where all hardship is gone and people are born into lands that have wealth uninmaginable 100 years ago these notions that gay relationships are of equal value of heteo ones perhaps that can fly.. but even then I have my doubts.. Like i said before, I really doubt that the hetero-model is realyl appropiate for most gay guys. (Plus I think the social experiments of the mid 1990s onwards are actually destroying our civilization and we aren’t even aware of it yet.)

Perhaps for some it works. Great.. But forcing this paradigm on gays may not be in their interest.

Has anyone ever studied the effects of positive reinforcement of alternate models? The straight model is the only model society has.. and so that’s what gays want.. even though there are so few examples of long term success with it.

And I dont buy the excuse that a piece a paper by the State is the critical ingrident in long term gay relationships.

I would like you to admit (as I did to your statement) that while some are as you state, there are many who are not motivated by antipathy towards jurisprudence as much as antipathy for the conclusions made therein, regardless of who might make them, judges or legislature.

Definately there are people who are revolted by the concept of gay marriage… which of course makes them even more angry when its’ done by a court.

You seem like a pleasant guy, and I’ve enjoyed going back and forth with you. I obviously disagree with you, but you don’t leave me exasperated when I do so, so thank you for the lively discussion and for keeping it civil.

Well thanks.. I had thought I was a bit harsh with you in the past. Thanks for your kind words. and i agree that there’s no reason to be angry just because we totally disagree.

Really? Demonstrate it.

Say that the couple I quoted is wrong and that their promiscuous behavior within marriage is wrong.

I already have. And you take my syntax and play with it. Like this:

“Expect”?

Why? Because you know that if you DEMANDED monogamy in marriage, as any person with any self-respect would do, you’d never get it, since other gays would call you “authoritarian”?

Playing games with my words does not count as argument. I meant the same thing, and I think that was clear. Perhaps not. But if not, then I’ve made it clear now.

And then you continue in the same vein, by telling me what “other gays” would do. Clearly the other gays here would not call me authoritarian, nor would any of the ones that I know. But clearly you, who would appear to not have any personal relationships with gay people, can judge the people I’m in community with better than I can.

I wouldn’t have pegged you as one who believed in mind-reading, but hey, whatever floats your boat, NDT.

To Vince:

I think your conclusions about the inherent nature of gay men is not about something that is so much inherent as it was taught.

Promiscuous nature is not really so much a part of male homosexuality as it is a part of maleness. But many (most?) men seem to be able to control themselves in committed relationships. I don’t think that being gay makes you any more promiscuous. It just increases the chance to act on it, through all the outlets available.

Because society wasn’t accepting and didn’t recognize them, people felt more of a license to engage in certain behaviors. If they were seen as “the other”, they might as well give into temptation and be “the other”. What incentive was there against it?

And along with that, many gay men did not get the same relationship practice that heterosexual people do in their early lives. Just now is it getting to the point where gay kids are coming out in late middle school or early high school, so they can finally access the opportunities that provides. They can go through the silly, awkward phase of middle school dating. The can go through the less silly and awkward phase of high school dating. They establish who they are at a younger age.

Even I missed out on these two things, when I finally came out only once I’d reached college.

The denial of this practice has left gay people behind their heterosexual peers for years as far as relationships go. Now sure, there are counterexamples, but if you’re trying to take a whole cross-section, I believe that that’s accurate according to what I’ve read and seen.

Now that society has become more accepting (resulting in the aforementioned earlier coming-outs, etc.) gay people are not born into that same sense of total “otherness”. This allows us to grow up more similarly to our heterosexual peers, and adopt (by a more traditional path to maturity, one not marked by hiding or “beards” or fake relationships with the opposite sex, etc.) a more traditional way of living our lives in relation to others.

I’m not trying to blame or excuse, just observe. This was something my campus pastor and I had talked about at some length a few times when we’d sit down to talk.

So, if you look at the change in climate, the biggest being the fact that in several places, gay kids can look forward to a future of equality, where they are recognized as equal (and not “other” or “less than”) by society. If you look at that difference, isn’t there bound to be some difference in the ideals of young gay people?

Also to Vince:

You seem like a pleasant guy, and I’ve enjoyed going back and forth with you. I obviously disagree with you, but you don’t leave me exasperated when I do so, so thank you for the lively discussion and for keeping it civil.

However, I feel that you haven’t addressed my point about legislative action. I don’t disagree that court action has the potential to create more of a reaction for some people. But I think it is also used as a convenient argument by polarizing forces to further ends not motivated by their commitment to a legislative process. I would like you to admit (as I did to your statement) that while some are as you state, there are many who are not motivated by antipathy towards jurisprudence as much as antipathy for the conclusions made therein, regardless of who might make them, judges or legislature.

- inablity of either or both of the people dating to maintain monogamy

- mental derangement caused by possessiveness, jealousy, insecurity, fear of being abandoned etc.. which resulted in a sort of police state relationship where one of them , out of fear the other one might “cheat”, made life miserable for the other… out of devotion to monogamy.

- due to inflexiblity of monogamy expectation that one of them really couldn’t live up, created a situation where one of them would cheat but then had to lie about it because it was impossible for the other person to have rational discussion

I concluded years ago that there is a human nature compondnt of male fagness that works against monogamy. And that it is better for the mental health of both persons to at least recongnize that and set up a framework to deal with the situation if one of them cheats if they have agreed before to be monogamous.

What is more important? Truth or lying? Why would one person create such an emotionally disasterous framework that is an incentive for the other person to lie?

Sometimes I think the “cheated on” deserve to get lied to by the cheater.. that is the sort of framework they establashed by letting it be know that if he ever found out the other was cheating that very bad consequences would result.

One of the things that normal marriage was meant to do was secure the place of the wife by constraining the male from going with other women , possiblity getting them pregnant and then franchsing offspring all over the place, destablizing all those families and children. And most of all leaving the wife extremely vulnerable since more often or not she surrernered her self-sufficency by not working and staying home to raise the kids.

Well none of those consequences pertain to gay males.
The instablity wake of cheating is minimal, other than to burst the bubble of some naive person who thinks they can forever control the other person. And also by creating the incenctives for the cheater to lie to the cheated on, the cheated on exposes himself to greater disease risk since the cheater is now placed in a situation where he can’t be honest about the risks of sex based on his sluittiness.

I think the irrationality of the gay monogamy-or-else model is one of the underlying forces of the gay-marriage movement. It’s one more layer of control that gay people are wishfully thinking will restrain the apittute of sleeping around by a guy in a relationship.

If gay men have it in their genes to form life-long monogamous relationships then I say we would have see them in our societies all along in great numbers.

There would be no commonly-understood joke between gay people that our relationships are on a super-accelerated timeline. Well gay marriage isn’t going to change that.. it’s going to increase the emotional harm as more people fall into inflexible model and thus pave th way to incentivizing being lied to.

What happens when a court imposes such a thing is that the voters feel they have no control or say about the laws that this country always said that they were the ultimate boss.

The abortion decision pertained to one of the most sacred areas of family life… new life. Now soceity is bitterly divided on this issue because each side now has to go through a uncertain court processes to try to have successful impact on the policy.

Adding gay marriage to this type of thing can only divide society further and also increases the contempt for courts.

I wish the supporters of court action would recognize that. The purported benefits or unjustices that you want to fix aren’t worth it in the long term, IMHO.

Really? Demonstrate it.

Say that the couple I quoted is wrong and that their promiscuous behavior within marriage is wrong.

Say that Brian, who believes that promiscuity in marriage is completely acceptable and that monogamy is “authoritarian”, is wrong.

Or blab on about how it’s their choice, that they should be allowed to do whatever they want, and that there should be no standards or enforced rules for marriage because that would be “intrusive”.

Polls repeatedly show that gay marriage is sufficient grounds to throw out a legislator for only a small portion of the population. However, when these initiatives are put directly to voters, they invariably pass.

Of course, the stupidity of Massachusetts’s constitution is that it emasculates the voters by requiring the gerrymandered legislature to sign off on and approve a constitutional amendment — twice — without any course of redress to the voters. That perverts the entire point of an amendable constitution as a protection against governmental overreach.

The amendment was never put to the vote of the people, as it should have been. Even you admit it won once.

Now while I do think there are “strings attached” to marriage, so to speak, I think that the government can’t regulate monogamy. That would be completely and totally intrusive. You want marriage police running around? How about a few sex police and a troop or two of thought police to round it out?

Sure it can. It can regulate child sex, it can regulate Internet porn, it can regulate incestuous relationships, it can regulate polygamy, and it can even regulate spousal sexual abuse, all of which involve “private conduct”.

If you want public benefits, i.e. marriage, you accept public regulation. The problem here is that gays and lesbians want marriage benefits without having to accept any of the conditions of marriage or enforcement of them, which are considered to be “authoritarian”.

In short, gays and lesbians want to be married, but act as if they were single, including having promiscuous sex, and insist that the government should have no right whatsoever to regulate their behavior or enforce rules; it should just hand over the benefits.

Or, hell, take me as an example. I expect monogamy.

“Expect”?

Why? Because you know that if you DEMANDED monogamy in marriage, as any person with any self-respect would do, you’d never get it, since other gays would call you “authoritarian”?

I didn’t mean court action in their own states but the court actions in other states.

I cede that there was a relation. (I do still hold that there is a difference between reaction and preemption, though.) However, you still fail to explain why the backlash from the gay non-supportive groups is just as vociferous (if not more so at times) when actions are taken by the standard legislative process.

If it’s the involvement of courts that are polarizing people, why doesn’t a legislative process placate the opposition even a mite? I still hold that there are many who are motivated by primarily by an animus towards “the gays” (or other viewpoints or reasons (yours being a rather obvious case of that), but those are a minority as far as I have seen), not a judicial philosophy, regardless of how they publicly frame them.

A history lesson for NDT:

Well, actually, it never failed, per se, inasmuch as the leftists in the Massachusetts Legislature refused to allow it to be put to a public vote.

Mainly because they knew it would win when voters were allowed to choose without having to toss their legislator to do it.

Actually, it failed. It did not go before the public. There was one vote held in the legislature. It was sucessful. There was AN INTERVENING ELECTION in which every legislator who voted “no” was re-elected, and at least one new one (a gay man at that) was elected who promised to vote “no”.

After the intervening election, the MAIN SPONSOR of the amendment (a Republican) dropped his support, because he no longer thought it was the proper thing to do, and not because he thought the voters would pass it, but because he thought they wouldn’t and that it was a waste of time. Many other former supporters of the amendment did the same.

The amendment was not passed. (We normally call that “failing”, when you don’t succeed after beginning the process.) But just conveniently slap the label “LEFTIST” on all of the participants and you can discount whatever happens.

You should read up on the history there before you talk about it. Try the documentary Saving Marriage. We had it at our film festival this year, and it was very informative.

And, lastly, a response to NDT’s incessant assumptions:

So you see, PSUdain, gays and lesbians who demand marriage at the same time consider monogamy “authoritarian” and reject it in favor of “freedom” to be promiscuous.

No, “gay people” don’t think that. ONE gay person thinks that.** There is an ENORMOUS difference. Are you honestly that blind to that? I can kick ten counterexamples back in your direction, like the couple I know who have been together for forty-five years. Or, hell, take me as an example. I expect monogamy. So do most of the gay people who comment here. So why do you persist in telling US what this mysterious bloc you call “gay people” thinks?

We are not a hive mind. There is room for disagreement and dissent. Recognize that, for once!

Now while I do think there are “strings attached” to marriage, so to speak, I think that the government can’t regulate monogamy. That would be completely and totally intrusive. You want marriage police running around? How about a few sex police and a troop or two of thought police to round it out?

The fact is that straight people often don’t have monogamous relationships, either by consensual design or through one partner’s straying. And we don’t withold that right from them. So, while I do believe marriage to be a commitment, I wholeheartedly agree w/ Brian. What you propose is not enforceable except by pure, unadulterated, heavy-handed statism. Give the government that much power, and you’ve pretty much handed over the keys to the kingdom.

**I do not deny that this is not a unique belief, just that it is a universal or even prevailing one. My point is that the statement you cite is proof of the beliefs of one person, and one person only: the one who made it.

Well, actually, it never failed, per se, inasmuch as the leftists in the Massachusetts Legislature refused to allow it to be put to a public vote.

Mainly because they knew it would win when voters were allowed to choose without having to toss their legislator to do it.

Yes it had been the case for some member of the community, yes some people still are, but many young gay people expect monogamy and a committed relationship

Uh huh — like this.

You seem to believe that a lifetime commitment demands sexual monogamy as one of its components. I disagree with such an authoritarian stance. I believe that a committed couple are free to determine the form that their commitment takes.

So you see, PSUdain, gays and lesbians who demand marriage at the same time consider monogamy “authoritarian” and reject it in favor of “freedom” to be promiscuous.

What some far-left gay activist does in one state trying to impose thier agenda via a court has ramifications all over the country. I dare say the gay marriage activists are doing more to create anti-gay sentiment than any other force in recent years.

I do believe that marriage is a lifetime commitment as I have written. You seem to believe that a lifetime commitment demands sexual monogamy as one of its components. I disagree with such an authoritarian stance. I believe that a committed couple are free to determine the form that their commitment takes.

Also, I never wrote that marriage should be free of consequences. I believe that one consequence of marriage is a lifetime devotion to the well-being and nurturing of the person you are married to. Each couple will work out the terms of such a commitment after their own fashion.

What cheapens marriage is the great ease with which people are allowed to slip in and out of it: for me a vow of devotion is not something that can or should be shrugged off like last season’s fashion.

My problem with your approach is that it is such an authoritarian notion of marriage that it leads to the micro-management of people’s lives which is not what marriage is about.

So from that meager evidence you conclude that the entire gay community is as a group promiscuous? That’s a pretty big leap.

The average gay person I know (and I know many through organizations on campus) is far far far (etc) less promiscuous than the average HETERO sorority girl or frat boy. Maybe we should take marriage away from these people if they can’t hold to its ideals.

Yes it had been the case for some member of the community, yes some people still are, but many young gay people expect monogamy and a committed relationship, and there are scads of promiscuous heterosexuals.

The assumption that gay people are naturally and as a group all abnormally promiscuous is exactly the sort of behavoir that a lot of people are talking about when they say something is “homophobic”.

>The simple fact is that that [marriage amendments are only passed to supersede 'activist rulings'] isn’t true.

Prove it.

I’ll wait (not)

-Vince P

Which of the twenty-six states that have marriage amendments on the books should we go with? How about all of them, as there has never been a pro gay marriage court ruling in any of them. Neither MA nor CA (as of now) has an anti gay marriage amendment in their constitution, and it has failed multiple times after the court ruling in MA.

And I already listed one example, right here in my home state of PA, where there was a (failed) push for an amendment, with no instigatory court case or ruling in the state.

Q.E.D.

I’m sorry, but your claim that they only occur in response to a court decision does not hold water. Twenty six states say otherwise. Twenty seven if you count the failed attempt in PA. Even more if you count all the other states that just have laws against it.

But you don’t consider marriage a lifetime commitment. You consider it as merely a matter of convenience in which a couple can be “married”, but continue to have promiscuous sex with others as long as they both “consent”.

Furthermore, you insist that marriage be absolutely free of consequences, that adultery not be punished or discouraged, and that people be free to have sex with whomever they want, regardless of whether they’re married to someone else or not. You take monogamy out of marriage and legitimize promiscuity, extramarital affairs, polyamory, and innumerable other acts as just being another “choice”.

THAT cheapens marriage. THAT trivializes marriage. And THAT is striking at the very foundation of exclusivity and commitment that marriage is all about.

As for no-fault divorce — I am opposed to it. I think that it devalues marriage since marriage in my opinion is only effective when it is understood as a lifetime commitment. Eliminaing no-fault divorce may give people reason to evaluate with great care the decision to enter into marriage.

As for adultery, the issue with laws against adultery is that they are rarely crafted with enough precision to allow couples who consensually choose to have an open relationship not to have their behavior criminalized.

As for one gay couple speaking against monogamy, I know dozens of married heterosexual couples who are equally disdainful of monogamy. I also know many couples, both gay and straight, who believe that monogamy is a vital element in their relationships. Each couple must choose the path that allows their commitment to function best and flourish.