Homocon

The text of Prop 22 reads “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California” -- and while we can have debates over the right or wrong of the definition of marriage so espoused (and the issue of the federal government recognizing relationships in the first place), it really is unheard of for a legislative body, whose sole purpose is to represent its people, to move so blatantly against the will of its own people in a bid to reorganize a social structure via fiat.

I believe this would be considered "an unjust or excessive exercise of power", which is the definition of oppression. Funny, that -- how the side that claims it's being oppressed via the marriage-thingy so willingly pushes to use its legislative influence (in the form of gay California Assemblyman Mark Leno) to force a social change that benefits only itself.

While gay organizations delight in touting the Gay Every Day ethos as a Civil Rights issue, there's actually a very spirited debate among the actual beneficiaries of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as to whether indulging in a homosexual lifestyle has more to do with personal preferences than with innate rights, civil or otherwise.

There is presently scant scientific support for a genetic trigger for homosexuality, despite decades of painstaking research -- which, of course, doesn't stop the politicos from declaring that the evidence is incontrovertible, much the way they do with global warming. There's a lot of maybe's and could-be's tossed about by researchers and gay groups eager to convince a skeptical population that "really, it's not voluntary -- we're born this way," but researchers themselves even admit to a need for a far deeper understanding of what sexual orientation is in the first place before they can even begin to determine where it comes from -- which is why it's disturbing when a state legislative body takes it upon itself to leapfrog past hard science and decide for itself that homosexuality is a biological characteristic rather than the behavioral option it may very well be . . . based on their feelings ("Do what we know is in our hearts," said the bill's sponsor, San Francisco Democrat Mark Leno).

When an identical twin study shows that if one twin is gay, then the other has a 52% chance of being gay as well, this is trumpeted as proof of a biological equation to homosexuality. Yet, as one pundit so cleverly pointed out, try telling an Asian woman that one of her identical twin children has only a 52% chance of being Asian like the other, and she'd laugh you right out of the room . . . and with good reason. Tendencies and predilections are not evidence of a biological blueprint, and as such, do not require legal protection, minority status or the usurpation of a legislative body, and this is where the Anti-Choice crowd must confront their own demons, because they can hardly continue to use tar and feathers as political weapons should they be required to accede to the very real probability that maybe gay men and women just like to be gay.

Not that there's anything wrong with . . . oh, never mind.

Look, I obviously have nothing against homosexuality, as I very much enjoy my own gay life with my very own gay boyfriend and our deepening circle of heteronormative friends, but I believe it's important for gay men and woman to harbor no compunctions against admitting that being gay is our choice to pursue, and not some twist of fate over which we have no control. The entire "coming out" process is actually the process in which a man or woman commits to a firm decision that what they want is a life that will make them personally happy as opposed to socially popular. Choosing personal fulfillment over social tradition, then claiming that somehow your biology trumped you when you weren't looking, seems disingenuous at best, and outright deceptive at most.

Coming Out requires a level of personal responsibility that has been abandoned since the advent of biology politics, and I do wonder if, by attempting to remove any and all consequences from what can only be considered socially revolutionary behavior, we're dooming present and future generations of gay men and women to lives half lived, or, lives in which they follow some fantasy of genetic pre-destiny rather than personal responsibility (and we wonder why disease rates in the homosexual population just keep going and going and . . . ).

In mythologies across the board (Western/Greek mythology, especially) there's a point where the hero or the heroine of the tale is confronted with a choice he or she has to make, and it's usually a difficult choice, fraught with peril and involving intense personal sacrifice. But once the choice is made, the task faced and the sacrifice accepted, the reward is a deep enrichment of character and the attainment of a much wiser and broader happiness than had existed beforehand (though often tinged with a subsequent loss of innocence or the relinquishment of a deeply cherished belief).

Gay advocates delight in pointing out examples of lauded gay artists and thinkers of the past who have contributed so much to our contemporary ideas of who we are as a culture and a society, yet these same advocates proceed to steadfastly ignore that the very reason the Michelangelos, Tennessee Williams's and Willa Cathers of the time produced works of art that were deeply influential and near stunning in the depth and breadth of human experience portrayed was precisely because each of the artists faced their options, made their choice and lived with it.

I mean, that's why it's the road less travelled, and not the super-frickin-highway.

The more rational approach to human sexuality, it seems, would be to stop biologizing it altogether. There are researchers who argue that the brain develops as part of a social system and that early social learning is likely more powerful an influence on the development of our sexuality than genetics ever could be. The course of research on human sexuality has long been shaped by the current of cultural attitudes and the shifting of ideological trends, unsurprisingly resulting in support for those same attitudes and ideologies -- which is plainly evidenced in much of our current sexual research. Adult bisexuality, homosexuality and heterosexuality are more than likely three fully natural behaviors that are variations on the same theme, yet sex researchers (and gay advocates) have chosen to push a "biology as the main determinant of sexual orientation" meme rather than recognize a more flexible view of sexuality, a flexibility which allows for behavioral choice and encourages tolerance, but doesn't condemn a social model that may value and reward one type of socio-sexual behavior over another.

And this is the crux of the gay-marriage debate, the "How dare you value your relationship more highly than you value mine!" . . . but society does value heterosexual relationships more, and it's undeniably because of heterosexuality's instinctually streamlined approach to procreation and child-rearing. Can same-sex couples procreate and raise children? Well, yes, of course -- but through a much more convoluted process, which DNA, in its waste no time, take no prisoners characteristic, eschews (the more religiously inclined among us interpret this eschewment as abhoration, hence the biblical "abomination" that gets bandied about).

Realistically, the best way to end the entire marriage argument is to remove the government from the business of relationship recognition (which I, personally, am all for). As marriage has been traditionally considered a ceremony with deeply religious underpinnings (which explains the mainstream resistance to gay marriage), there's still yet a good deal of validity to the points being made by same-sex marriage advocates about the unequal treatment of same-sex couples under the auspices of government. We do have Domestic Partnerships, Civil Unions and opportunities under contract law which afford same-sex couples the same opportunities for legal recognition as heterosexual couples, but our Federal Government is not supposed to take sides in religious matters or religious customs, but that's precisely what they've done by rewarding heterosexual marriages with federally funded and federally protected benefits, creating the Pandora's box with which we're now presently faced (and the very nature of a Pandora's box is the you don't know what you've unleashed until it's too late).

Hooray, Federal Government.

While our culture has made impressive strides towards social liberalism and personal freedom, a lot of gay lefties yet insist upon equating their own contemporary battle against social traditions with the black American civil rights movement, but a quick comparison of this and this only reveals the intellectual bankruptcy of such a correlation. The language of victimhood is not relevant to the same-sex marriage debate, as gay men and women may encounter social disapproval for their lifestyle choices, but very little in the way of widespread (note: I said "widespread") persecution (and absolutely nothing like it was for black Americans up until the 60's).

In a perfect world, the federal government would cease validating relationships altogether, perhaps offering domestic partnership benefits to all its partnered employees (though I admit I have a problem with the government using tax money to provide for workers' spouses and families), and allow private businesses the option to offer domestic partnership benefits should they so choose. This would afford businesses and institutions the ability to attract qualified gay employees through the extension of partnership benefits, it would remove the Federal Government from our personal relationships (privacy advocates, rejoice!) and it would force heterosexual and homosexual partners alike to care and provide for one another through deliberate, binding commitments via the legal system rather than lazily shrugging off the future and letting the government take charge (the number of couples I talk to who don't even have basic wills drawn up astounds me).

Simon LeVay, the gay researcher whose studies first provided the biology-queens with the script for their "I was born this way!" production, had this to say about the movement towards biologizing homosexuality: "No one can really prove that the Freudian theory of sexual orientation is wrong. There's a bunch of possibilities . . . (but) there is no question that people who think sexuality is inborn are, in general, much better disposed towards gay people and gay rights than people who think it's some kind of lifestyle choice," which leads us back to Arnold Schwarzenegger, the California Assembly and Proposition 22.

Homosexuality in the United States is increasingly portrayed as something other than the sexual option it may very well be (a fully natural option, but an option nonetheless), drawing heavily on LeVay's self-serving principle that the perception of an inborn sexuality is beneficial for the gay-left's stab at social re-engineering, lack of hard evidence be damned. But this is a fundamentally dishonest argument, and I'm surprised and disappointed at the willingness of academia, the mainstream media and gay members of state and federal legislative and judicial bodies to revamp long-standing social structures out of a desire to change what they've concluded is an oppressive Dead White Man's culture. And when you get right down to it, this, really, seems to be what it's all about -- the far left (incorporating a majority of the gay population) abhors contemporary Western culture, so there's a push in academic and media circles to reinvent it entirely by removing the traditional social foundations upon which it's built (for example: heterosexual marriage). And when those who value the structures upon which our present society has been built speak out against such a dismantling, they're branded as alarmists, extremists, haters and bigots for refusing to drink the kool-aid of gay rhetoric masquerading as science (much like Intelligent Design pretends to be more than religious philosophy in new clothes).

And this is the unenviable position in which Governor Schwarzenegger finds himself -- damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. But the gay marriage bill passed by the California legislature deserves a veto, as it's little more than social engineering by a legislative body unmoored to the will of the people it claims to represent. Gay Marriage cannot be defined as a Civil Right when homosexuality has yet to be proven to be anything beyond a natural behavioral preference, and should the government take it upon itself to revise the concept of marriage to include same-sex couples based only upon what's "in their hearts" rather than the actual merits to the debate, then we'll be the unfortunate recipients of an emotionally driven Congress, funded by ever increasing tax monies ("We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good," says Senator Clinton) and ruling by feel-good policies that incorporate the very latest in fashionable social trends.

*hmph* . . . no thanks.

Hell, if even the Mormon Church could change the behavior of its adherents to better fit within the accepted legal parameters of traditional marriage, then why are our legislators rushing off all half-cocked and fully-baked to change the accepted parameters of marriage to better fit gay behavior?

ADDENDUM:
A classic example of political/social views leading researchers to a 'preferred' result: "Sexism May Shorten Men's Lives"