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Gay Marriage and Human Love

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Gay Marriage and Human Love

ms anthropist
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Posted 05/22/09 - 01:13 PM:	#101
What does morality have to do in relation with the sexual orientation of a person? Do you implay for heteronormative behaviour to differ from other sexual orientation? Also, is this just refering to romantic love? When I think of "Romatic love", I think of a combination of Passion, Commitment and Intimacy (Stemberg) or of Eros (Passion), Ludus (Play), Storge (Friendship). I think that this type of love enables the individual to have moral agency. But it is true that sometimes people can be a little deluded when they have a romantic interest. However, I believe this not to be love, just a petty infatuation. That is the Passion without the backup of the commitment or intimacy, or the Eros without the play and frienship. This type of infatuation is inmature and shortlived and it would hardly lead to marriage. If it does it is bound to end up in divorce. So I believe that gay or otherwise marriages are more than an "out of control" action. Excluding impulse marriage, that is, but ones again, i see no distinction between a gay or a non gay marriage category.

Angie
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Posted 05/22/09 - 06:36 PM:	#102
Marriage what is it? First is it not a contract between two people who vow to love each other for the rest of their natural lives? Does it not create a kinship between two family groupings? If marriage is the union of two people than why do we question who can marry and who cannot? Love is usually the main reason two people want to form a union and with this union they are requesting that family and friends accept the desire of these two individuals as a family. Thinking in this form you can understand why two people want to form this type of union. They are first, promising each other to only have sexual relationships with the other. Second, they are requesting family and friends to accept them as a family grouping with or without children. Third, they are requesting equal treatment when time comes for insurance or emergency situations arise. There are many times when illness strikes and the physician will not allow same sex couples to speak for each other but they will let a heterosexual couples discuss the others illnesses and this is fine. Insurance benefits will not be paid out to same sex couples nor can they adopt children together. This is sad because there are many couples who would make great parents and want children but because they are gay are not allowed or discouraged and there are children who need good parents. I am a woman who has a female partner and we are saddened because we cannot have a union because it would be imperfect even though we both have been in heterosexual relationships in the past. We found we did not love our male partners but were doing what society dictated we were supposed to do and how we were supposed to live. And as for our eight children they love both of us even though we are two women and they are all at present not gay.

ms anthropist
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Posted 05/23/09 - 01:55 AM:	#103
Now, I think we are being a little idealist about love. In fact romantic love is only a few generations old and a western sensitivity. For much of history and for still many cultures marriage is but a transaction. Economic, political, etc...

Angie
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Posted 05/23/09 - 04:33 AM:	#104
Well, lets see though if we leave out the hope of love than are we not lost to what everyone wants and that is to not be alone. I know many people who would simply die if they were alone for any long period of time. As a matter of fact if you look into the lives of many men and women who have died shortly after their spouses death they have died because of loneliness. Many times those unions for economic purposes the men or the women did indeed fall in love and remain so until death. From Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem In Memoriam:27, 1850: I hold it true, whate'er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all. So love is a part of every equation it will happen eventually or it will happen by habit but it is sure to happen.

tfsalomon
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Posted 05/23/09 - 10:55 AM:	#105
Hey! I'm so glad that there's a forum about this, I'm currently writing a magic realist novel about gay love. Anyway, many have said that gay marriage is intrinsically narcissistic because of the impossibility of potentials beyond the couple. This statement refers symbolically to children which I believe is an assertion that is highly flawed. In relation to this statement, it is almost assumed in this argument that I have been dealing with that love's potential is only realized in children which is contestable in so many levels. Love is something when realized is a good on its own regardless of children which many throughout the course of history have died and lived for. I use the argument that meaning is not always revealed by its seeming expressions in the cosmos which in this case that gay marriage seems "Abnormal" because of its evolutionary impracticality. The initial protest of mankind against gay marriage is more of an evolutionary dissonance more than an actual question of ethics, morality, nor epistemology. Love is beautiful, good, and real and it cuts across demographics. Its power to bring the human person to its fullness has gotten considerable testimony which whose fullest experience in marriage when denied of gays is just plain injustice. Edited by tfsalomon on 05/23/09 - 11:02 AM

Hanover
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Posted 05/24/09 - 08:16 AM:	#106
tfsalomon wrote: Anyway, many have said that gay marriage is intrinsically narcissistic because of the impossibility of potentials beyond the couple. I'd agree that that argument is weak and really a strawman with regard to why people find homosexual marriage wrong. If it were the case that a child must result from all marriages, then you would be forced to condemn marriages between couples who could not pro-create, which would include those with physical reproductive problems and older couples who can no longer have children. Anyway, I think it's safe to say that most instances of sexual intercourse are not being performed for procreation, many of which are being performed while using some form of contraceptive. I also think that the term "narcissistic" wouldn't apply to a relationship between two people. Narcissism is self-love, while marriage is love for another. The myth of Narcissus concerns a young man who rejected loving others and therefore was forced to fall in love with his own image.
"Nothing is impossible for the man who will not listen to reason." John Belushi, "Animal House" "I have opinions of my own --strong opinions-- but I don't always agree with them." G.W. Bush

ms anthropist
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Posted 05/24/09 - 02:16 PM:	#107
Angie, that is preciesly the point that Fromm makes in "the art of loving", where he defends arranged marriages against romantic love. If people make the commitment to stay together they probably will and might even end up liking each other, loving some would say. Whereas romantic love is idealistic, infantile and shortlived for its expectations are too high and borrowed from fiction (mainly television) and the involved parties are unwilling to compromise. Still, Love? companionship maybe, but love. Matriarchal, patriarchal, fraternal?

wuliheron
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Posted 05/24/09 - 06:56 PM:	#108
tfsalomon wrote: I use the argument that meaning is not always revealed by its seeming expressions in the cosmos which in this case that gay marriage seems "Abnormal" because of its evolutionary impracticality. Homosexual behavior is common in nature. Among human males, a large percentage of them have several older male sibblings and a modern theory is that by them being homosexual they help to prevent inbreeding. In other words, homosexual behavior often makes perfectly good evolutionary sense.

Hanover
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Posted 05/25/09 - 06:32 AM:	#109
wuliheron wrote: Homosexual behavior is common in nature. Among human males, a large percentage of them have several older male sibblings and a modern theory is that by them being homosexual they help to prevent inbreeding. In other words, homosexual behavior often makes perfectly good evolutionary sense. It has also been argued that the spread of AIDS was made possible from the lack of evolutionary protections against viral infections in the rectum. The rectum, unlike the vagina, is made of very sensitive tissue that can easily tear, and the tissue itself was evolutionarily designed for the absorption of fluid. That is not to say that the spread of AIDS cannot occur through vaginal sex, but it is a less reliable means than anal sex. The spread of AIDS very rarely goes from female to male, so, if all the world were heterosexual, AIDS would probably not exist as the epidemic it is. I'm not suggesting that there is something immoral about doing that which our bodies were not evolutionarily designed to do, but I think you tread in very dangerous waters to argue that something is "natural" and therefore moral. I would steer clear from the argument altogether and not tie the words "natural" and "moral" at all. So, even if it could be proved that homosexuality were counter to the survivability of the species, I would not declare it immoral.
"Nothing is impossible for the man who will not listen to reason." John Belushi, "Animal House" "I have opinions of my own --strong opinions-- but I don't always agree with them." G.W. Bush

wuliheron
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Posted 05/25/09 - 06:08 PM:	#110
I am not arguing that because something is natural it is moral. Not once have I mentioned the concept of morality, as far as I am concerned that is something for the individual to decide. In addition, among humans AIDS is also commonly spread by intravenous drug use as well as anal sex. And, last but not least, HIV is common among apes, but they have adapted to the disease and it does not progress to AIDS. Therefore, the epidemic of AIDS was probably inevitable even if homosexuality did not exist among people.

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