Hatred on the Right

The vitriol coming out of the Blogging Tories over today's vote is both predictable and sickening. I've said many times that the best part about the Blogging Tories, and indeed the blogosphere in general is that it provides a grassroots-eye-view of how conservatives really think, the things you won't hear during an election campaign. It serves as a reminder that this issue won't truly be dead until the Conservatives accept it, or at least get over it. So what do our modernity-challenged friends have to say?

"Marriage is dead," proclaim the Toronto Tories, whom I'm sure will now either never get married or will proceed to divorce their wives as soon as possible, because the idea of two men enjoying the love and nurturing they can provide for each other in a stable marriage is simply too horrible a thought for straight marriage to endure. (They also erroneously claim that Stephane Dion opposed gay marriage last time; he obviously didn't, as he was in cabinet, and the entire cabinet supported C-38.) "All we wanted was a debate on the issue and a free vote!" they whine. Well, guys, you got your debate (32 years of it) and your free vote, so obviously you want more than that. Why don't you just come right out and say it - you want gays to be second class citizens; your problem with gay marriage isn't the "marriage" part, it's the "gay" part. Period.

"Marriage has never been about love," says marriage expert Shane over at ThePolitic. Really? Never? (I think my recently re-married mother, who deeply loves her new husband, would disagree.) Oh, wait - in the very same post, he then admits that over the past 30 years (actually, it's been a bit longer than 30, but nevermind that) marriage has changed. The purpose of marriage is no longer what it used to be; it is now about love. People today marry because they are in love, not because they want to secure property or have children - this self-evident fact completely decimates this entire argument.

What does Shane have to say about that? Well, in his great wisdom, Shane provides us with this piece of advice: "What if the married couple doesn’t want kids? From a humanist point of view, if you don’t have kids and never plan to, then don’t get married! Why would you want to? What is the point? To tie yourself down to one person? To limit your freedom for what? There is no point in being married, from a humanist perspective, without some reference to offspring."

Yeah. When you get married, you sacrifice your freedom. There is "no point" in getting married to the person you love unless you plan to pump out some children. What a crass and disrespectful way of seeing marriage. Call me an idealist, but I've always seen marriage as two people who love each other deeply committing to love and care for each other, "In sickness and in health, 'til death do we part." Silly me - it's not about caring for each other at all (even though that's right in the marriage vows!) it's about nothing more than a biological process. And these guys have the nerve to say that we who support equality don't respect the sanctity of marriage!? Such misplaced sanctimony.

The comments section over at Defend Canada is brimming with hate. "And the best one can do, which is what I will do, is teach one's children never to accept the concept of same-sex marriage." How nice, trying to force your children to hate the same people you hate. "Future children our (sic) counting on your continued political activism so THEY can still remain sanely grounded in reality." Right, because same-sex marriage will make our children insane. Is there any line these people won't use?

Here's a good one: "slippery slope doesn't even begin to explain where this is going. for those unaware, sex ed classes have been (for a couple years now) teaching that homosexual activity is not only normal, but is lots of fun." Oh no! Our schools are teaching that gay people aren't dangerous freaks! It's a slippery slope! And in response to that from the proprieter of the blog: "I can tell you right now - that if I have children anytime soon, I will be fully investigating the cirriculum before sending them into that nonsense." Wonderful; so you'd deny your children a decent education if the school they are to go to teaches that gay people aren't freaks? Wooow.

And then there's this, which covers all the usual bases, except child molestation: "I'm disgusted by the fact that homo's get to dictate my life. I'm disgusted by them always in my face with the special rights they covent. Put the issue in the next election. Let the people decide who gets to get married and who gets what. Ill bet $1000 that voters tell fags they can't marry." Lovely! Moving on...

I'll leave off with Kitchener Conservative, who incidentally is already accusing the leader of the opposition of being indecisive even though he is only in the middle of his first week on the job! (These guys work fast, eh?) "Changing the traditional definition of marriage was a political wet dream of the Liberal Party and the left to keep it wedge issue for many years," says he. Right, it has nothing to do with equal rights and all that other passe stuff. Then again, I can imagine why a conservative wouldn't attribute equal rights as the motive behind this change - I'm not sure the phrase is in their vocabulary. Moving into the comments, "It seems that the absolute left thinks this an ethical superiority issue, with no regard to the ethics of the impacts which will be forcing the majority of this nation's children to undergo sexual education that MUST be inclusive off all sex acts, not merely those necessary for reproduction." (I didn't write that sentence, I just copied it; direct comments about its horrendous grammar to its original poster please.) Yup, because teaching in sex ed that gay people *gasp* have sex *GASP!* will damage and destroy children forever. Here's a newsflash - the vast majority of grade-school age children both know that gay people exist, and have a pretty good, if banal, idea of what they do in bed. The idea of including homosexual sex in sex ed. is to eliminate misconceptions that children almost certainly have about... oh, fuck it, nevermind, anyone who needs to have this explained to them probably isn't rational enough to get it anyway.

To top it all off, this is apparently where same-sex marriage is leading: "I can't wait to see what happens when the US parks a dozen or so BAttleships in the Canadian Arctic. What then?" Riiiiight.

"We have no idea whether or not children reared in a same-sex environment will turn out okay." Except that we do, a fact which is constantly ignored by anti-gay activists. "Any Christian supporting SSM is what truely disappoints me. Those who shrug their shoulders and believe Jesus would be fine with it. That's what get's me. Those not yet accepted Jesus I can understand... but those who have been born again I hold to a much higher standard." The message: those who support same-sex marriage aren't good Christians.

I'll end with a comment from someone who called himslef "traditionalist," which made me laugh:

"Marriage should be defined based on past religious tradition.

This being the case, the vast majority of religious marriages throughout history have been polygamous in nature. So based on religious tradition, we should legalize polygamy.

Oh, but wait...thats not what you want is it?

Maybe you should state your true opinion on this issue: the government should define marriage as traditional Christian's would like it defined.

Fact Check:
According to the Ethnographic Atlas Codebook (you can search this in google and find the data yourself) derived from George P. Murdock’s Ethnographic Atlas recorded the marital composition of 1231 societies from around the world, between 1960-1980. Of these societies, 186 societies were monogamous. 453 had occasional polygyny, 588 had more frequent polygyny, and 4 had polyandry."