In this assignment I
plan on debunking the idea of gay marriage as a true desire of gay
people and prove it has absolutely nothing to do with equality but
instead the continued assimilation of cultures by the white male
anglo saxon view point that engulfs our society today. The
Imperialist European cultures of the West have removed the traditions
and displaced the harmonious lives of indigenous people across the
globe and the argument for gay marriage is just another attempt to
coerce conformity instead of enhancing the individuals rights to be
other and equal.
The marriage that
will be discussed in this paper will not just take into account what
we in the Western world believe to be marriage, but will include the
many types of marriage that have and still exist in other cultures.
In the Western world we usually suffer from androcentic ways of
thinking that have christian morals applied for good measure. We very
seldom ask what else there is in the world other than a
heteronormative marriage, child producing, monogamous partnership
paradigm. Gay men; for example; since time began have been known for
a less ridged life style. The act of cross dressing leads back as far
as Quan Yun in early China. This cross dressing poet is credited as
one of the fathers of Taoist thought and was said to have many lovers
but was married to the King who was also married to a woman.
Other Asian
cultures such as India have arranged marriage where it is more of a
transaction between families to secure status and the woman*s family
must provide a dowery. The Hindus even have a third gender dynamic
the Hijras that are traditionally exhaulted as spiritual ties to the
Gods. Many native American tribes also have this dynamic in the two
spirited people who could marry same sex or opposite sex partners. In
several Native American tribes the men moved in with the women*s
family and if he misbehaved he would come home in the evening finding
his clothing outside of his wives house letting him know he was
divorced. A number of West African hunting gathering tribes have
what is known as woman marriage and permit homosexual partnering as a
way of life and even encourage same sex play in adolescents. In the
Andes women who seek wealth and control of their destiny marry other
women who then go and get pregnant so that they raise a large family
to have many hands to work the fields and sell crops in the market.
This marriage can be sexual but does not have to be anything more
than a financially beneficial arrangement.
With all this in
mind I will choose to use marriage as a word that means a cultural
and/or sexual union between two or more individuals. This will allow us
the freedom to include polyamorous couples who live together as well
as more traditional views. I will argue through the Utilitarian and
Kantian views that the idea of marriage should be left only for those
who choose to call themselves married but no special privilege should
come with with this title and governments should not be dealing with
the creating of uniformity in the unions that any of us make be they
same or mixed sex or other.
Kantian theory
realizing morality based on God is problematic because it is a
poor motive for action and very hard to get past the fact that Gods
existence may indeed be a fallacy itself. We must rely on our reason
or gut instincts to tell us what actions are morally based. These
actions should create good will and follow the categorical
imperatives. Creating moral agents, acting as moral agents, towards
the moral agents that are our fellow man. It asks us not to justify
our actions because when we justify how we are acting then we are
more than likely not treating our fellow man as an equal but instead
as a means to an end. To do so we compromise both their and our
integrity and violate their moral autonomy. If you would will it to
be moral law then you are on the right track.
Does marriage need
to be moral law? Are we as Queer peoples really saying that we would
rather give up our culture instead of preserving our traditions and
duality? Instead we should heartily call out the idea that Gay
Marriage is a Gay problem and instead say the very idea of marriage
is a heteronormative nightmare created by western christian minds. A
forced belief, along with the rest of our culture; as moral law for
all who would be conquered by Western appetites for wealth and
control. Although the west has been quite good at erasing the
evidence of our natural instincts; what we have seen in the
indigenous peoples of the world is varied and extraordinary relations
that have involved every sort of coupling and sexual expression with
very little moral consequence.
To will marriage as
moral law is to destroy the essence of variation that is innate
within nature and all her creations. To act that marriage is somehow
to save women from the terrible man or to pass her his wealth after
his demise is also a fallacy of the West. When ever we enslave a
minority; or in the case of women a majority; we do so for control.
This control is used to justify the need for this control and
violates the principals of the categorical imperatives. Instead we
should release the special hold our governments have over the value
of marriage and rely solely on the individuals who want to get
married to provide the legal documents that they feel are valued and
needed in their chosen form of relationships. The government can deal
with those legal documents and stop glorifying the christian value
system and allow the idea of marriage to die the death it deserves.
Thus applying Kantian ethics to our dilemma of Gay Marriage we see
that it is not in the best interest to stop marriage or approve it
but to remove the privilege that comes with it.
We will come to the
same educated conclusion after applying the theory of Utilitarianism
or Mill*s *Happiness Principal*. Utilitarianism is at its core a
numbers game and the idea is to act in ways the are for the greater
good and create the greatest happiness. The greatest happiness is a
hard one to define since it asks us to speculate on the future and be
accountable for people we can not truly comprehend being involved in
our actions or inactions. This creates an undue burden on the person
trying to reason on how to morally act. However if we were to simply
act in ways that create happiness to the greatest extent we could
arrive at exploitation of minorities. This suppression of minority
culture would lead to the suppression of non dominant cultural
thought and new and original solutions and ideas would cease to
exist. Homogeny and assimilation bring with them a natural greying of
ideas. This exploitation would lead to only one; or a limited few;
predominant ideas being expressed as dissenting views are absorbed.
Moral programing by majority. This stagnation would certainly not
bring the greatest happiness.
Thus for reasons
stated before we can see that abolishing the authority the word
marriage brings with it is the only way to preserve ideas and
cultures that differ and our greatest happiness. It is again the fact
that marriage, be it gay or not, is not in the best interest of the
general population. It is truly our forced Western christian
homogeny that has created speculation that other points of views on
family and sexual practice is wrong when indeed the privilege that
comes with marriage is the problem. Certainly the social pressures
and anxiety around marriage and the effect on couples; as well single
people; is not creating the most happiness possible. Being forced to
ad hear to a moral judgement about what signifies a union that
creates happiness is in clear violation of Utilitarian practice.
It is easy to see
that only Judeo-Christian and a forceful Western influence on the
world have created a debate about marriage not because it cares about
the moral state of the world but instead because it wishes to enforce
its practices on a global scale. When we have everyone believing the
same thing we can more easily control their desires and sell them the
ideas and products of the wealthy puppet masters. Gay people don*t
need marriage and all the trouble it brings as this will not truly
make us more equal. It simply makes us more alike or normal and
continues to march the world towards homogeny and away from being
free thinking individuals. It is the latest in the assimilation of
cultures and varied points of view in the name of greed and power.
Marriage is not the issue that begs to be morally dissected in the
name of my Gay brethren but the question is actually, Can a
culture retain its character and ways of life in the onslaught of
forced morality? Gays should not be being asked to be the new
normal but the heternormative majority should allow us to be
different but equal and do away with marriage all together.
