Did Gay Marriage Provoke A Conversation About No Marriage At All?
The link to the editorials are farther below. I wanted to take this moment to remind folks of something I think I’ve blogged about here before (well, it’s crossed my mind, though I don’t know if I’ve typed it up).
When Christians drop the ball on HETERO celibate adult singles, and they really, really have, much to their shame, it creates this dynamic for it to make the church wide open to the homosexual agenda.
If Christians stopped portraying hetero marriage as the one and only thing that makes a person a true adult, or godly person, and if they actually acted like singles are equal to married people, and that there is nothing shameful about being single…
If Christian preachers and culture stopped with the wrong assumption that sex is such a powerful urge that NOBODY can resist it past the age of 25 or 30, this would really make it easier to cut down on the amount of militant homosexual attacks made in Christianity today.
It would also, I suspect, serve as a means of encouragement for any Christian who is struggling to remain celibate despite having SSA or homosexual urges.
Instead of holding older (older being ‘past the age of 25 or 30,’ I do not mean to imply senior citizens) Christian virgins up as examples worthy to emulate, many times, Christian culture either ignores them, or mocks them and blames them for failing to marry and reproduce, never mind that getting married and/or having children are not commanded of believers in the New Testament.
Here are links to stories that discuss how discussions on legalization of homosexual marriage is causing some people to question marriage altogether (even homosexuals).
(Link): Gay Couples Choosing to Say “I Don’t”
(Link): Did Gay Marriage Provoke A Conversation About No Marriage At All?
Excerpts from (Link): Gay Couples Choosing to Say “I Don’t”
-
By CARA BUCKLEY
Published: October 25, 2013
… They are not unique. Now that same-sex couples in 14 states have all the rights and responsibilities of straight married couples, gay couples are rushing to the altar, right? Not exactly. Plenty of gay couples do not want to marry, and their reasons are as complex — and personal — as any decision to wed.
For some, marriage is an outdated institution, one that forces same-sex couples into the mainstream. For others, marriage imposes financial burdens and legal entanglements. Still others see marriage not as a fairy tale but as a potentially painful chapter that ends in divorce. And then there are those for whom marriage goes against their beliefs, religious or otherwise.
“It’s a very, very archaic model,” said Sean Fader, 34, an artist in New York who is single and asked to be identified as queer. “It’s this oppressive Christian model that says ‘Pick a person that’s going to be everything to you, they have to be perfect, then get a house, and have kids, and then you’ll be happy and whole.’ ”
“There are many heterosexuals who feel the same way,” he added. After all, not all heterosexual couples choose to marry. But same-sex couples do seem more inclined to be marriage holdouts. According to a Pew Research poll released in June, 60 percent of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender adults are married or said they wanted to marry, compared with 76 percent of the general public.
Some of the opposition among gay men and lesbians is rooted in a feminist critique of marriage, which sees it not as a freedom to be gained but as an institution that has historically oppressed women.
[Caption under photo of lesbian couple:]
Stephanie Schroeder, left, and Lisa Haas on the roof of their home in Bushwick, Brooklyn. They do not believe in marriage, saying it stigmatizes single people.
… But some gay couples still see marriage as inherently unfair and out of date. Stephanie Schroeder, 50, and her girlfriend, Lisa Haas, 49, who live together in Bushwick, Brooklyn, said they believed marriage privileges couples and stigmatizes singles.
“I don’t want to deny anybody the right to marriage,” Ms. Schroeder said. “But I don’t really want it to exist.”
And Jack Halberstam, 51, a transgender professor at the University of Southern California, said he viewed marriage as a patriarchal institution that should not be a prerequisite for obtaining health care and deeming children “legitimate.”
“The couple form is failing,” he said.
After coming out, Mr. Halberstam said he was “frankly relieved” he would not have to get married and enter into a conventional family. This holds true even though he lives with his partner of five and a half years, a fellow sociology professor in Los Angeles.
“I don’t feel the pressure” to marry, he added.
The absence of that pressure is also shared by older same-sex couples who grew up in more homophobic times and embraced their role as social outliers. Catharine Stimpson, 77, a former dean at New York University, said one delight of being a lesbian was sometimes feeling like a quasi-outlaw. Though she has been with her partner, Elizabeth Wood, for 38 years, getting married, she said, would betray her “edgy nonconformist streak.”
“Having the choice doesn’t meant you have to do it,” she added.
…John D’Emilio, 65, a gay-studies pioneer and professor of gender and women’s studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, argues that same-sex marriage is elitist, and was championed by more-affluent gay men and lesbians who wanted cultural approval and the bourgeoisie rewards of marriage.
“After people with good health insurance could have treatment for H.I.V., the community sort of abandoned AIDS as a priority,” he said.
… Or as the filmmaker John Waters once said: “I always thought the privilege of being gay is that we don’t have to get married or go in the Army.”
…Longtime same-sex couples also have practical reasons for not marrying, Ms. Bernstein said, as their households and finances are already intertwined.
.. Not only are some gay couples rejecting marriage, they are also choosing to live apart. Erin McKeown, 36, a singer and songwriter, lives in a cottage in a rural hill town in Massachusetts; her girlfriend of three and a half years, Rachel Rybaczuk, 36, lives 17 miles away in a one-bedroom apartment. They relish the time they spend together, but they also like having their own spaces.
For Ms. McKeown, an integral part of identifying as queer was creating an alternative family, rather than following the well-worn path of pairing off, cohabiting and having children. But as more of her friends do just that, she feels that alternative group dwindling.
… The sentiment that marriage is not the end-all is shared by other millennials, even those whose parents remain together.
Excerpts from (Link): Did Gay Marriage Provoke A Conversation About No Marriage At All?
-
By Amanda Marcotte
Monday, October 28, 2013 11:37 EDT
…I think it’s safe to say that because gay marriage is, in fact, a challenge to “traditional” marriage, the growing acceptance of it has contributed to a strange both/and situation. Marriage is being romanticized and questioned more.
This isn’t just because of same-sex marriage, either. There’s a volatile shift in what weddings and marriage mean in our culture overall.
There’s explosive growth in the wedding-industrial complex, but that, too, is causing people to think harder about why we get married at all. Like this Aziz Ansari clip from his upcoming Netflix show that posits that, without the romanticization of weddings, we would be more able to see how creepy and frankly sexist the institution really is:
The conversation is spilling out of the queer and feminist circles that it used to be exclusive to and is coming into the mainstream. That has to be a good thing, and it’s funny that the gay marriage debate laid the groundwork to question the existence of marriage itself.
———-
Related posts this blog
(Link): Article: Our Born-Again Virgin Bachelor – Secondary or Spiritual Virginity
(Link): When Adult (Hetero) Virginity and Adult Celibacy Are Viewed As Inconvenient or As Impediments
(Link): Why So Much Fornication – Because Christians Have No Expectation of Sexual Purity
(Link): (Articles) Marriage Rate At All Time Low
(Link): Utah: Homosexuals Shouldn’t Be Able to Marry Because They “Cannot Procreate”
Christian Pundit 