> From the point of view of someone who is against State privileged marriage, this is ass backwards. It's not removing restrictions---it's granting privilege to a larger class of people (at the expense of those without that privilege).
This is a cynical and short-sighted view.
It is cynical because it sees civil rights as a zero-sum game.
It is short-sighted for a closely related reason. Most opponents of gay marriage don't even want to draw a distinction between the religious institution of marriage and the civil institution. In their minds, marriage is divinely ordained, and its earthly recognition in the law is completely natural. "The family" -- meaning their particular conception of what families should be -- is all but sacred.
The gay marriage movement chips away at this belief system in several ways. First, it gives people reason to distinguish between religious and civil marriage; to see that whatever their personal religious beliefs may be, the law is about civil marriage. Also, it presents a picture of marriage as a human creation, rather than divinely ordained. It brings people into contact with unfamiliar family structures. And it makes ideas acceptable or at least debatable that previously were generally rejected. You can see this already with the debate over poly marriage.
In short, if you want to start a singles' rights movement, you should support gay marriage, because emotionally it is moving society in the direction you want, even if it is not yet doing that structurally.
I don't know why you're talking to me about divinity and sacred families. Its relevance eludes me.
You still haven't really addressed my central point, which is that one can be against gay marriage without being anti-gay.
> This is a cynical and short-sighted view. It is cynical because it sees civil rights as a zero-sum game.
I'm not talking about civil rights. You are. I've consistently used the phrase State privileged marriage. I use that instead of just "marriage" to specifically mark privileges that are given to some and held back from others. This isn't zero-sum. People who can check all the boxes get a marriage license plus special privileges. Nobody else can.
> In short, if you want to start a singles' rights movement
Now you're taking my comments in bad faith. Singles' rights? What is that? Do singles have special rights that other people don't have?
Sure, singles lose out on State privileged marriage. But so do couples that aren't married. And so do polyamorous cohabitants.
Ah, but that doesn't paint me as a selfish asshole, so it's not as catchy of an insult. I get it now.
> because emotionally it is moving society in the direction you want, even if it is not yet doing that structurally.
No. I would like society to move in the direction where it doesn't have to exude unquantifiable amounts of effort just to get government to permit them to associate in any way they want.
Your direction is just more of the same: "Oh government, can you pretty please let us make decisions for ourselves?"
This is a cynical and short-sighted view.
It is cynical because it sees civil rights as a zero-sum game.
It is short-sighted for a closely related reason. Most opponents of gay marriage don't even want to draw a distinction between the religious institution of marriage and the civil institution. In their minds, marriage is divinely ordained, and its earthly recognition in the law is completely natural. "The family" -- meaning their particular conception of what families should be -- is all but sacred.
The gay marriage movement chips away at this belief system in several ways. First, it gives people reason to distinguish between religious and civil marriage; to see that whatever their personal religious beliefs may be, the law is about civil marriage. Also, it presents a picture of marriage as a human creation, rather than divinely ordained. It brings people into contact with unfamiliar family structures. And it makes ideas acceptable or at least debatable that previously were generally rejected. You can see this already with the debate over poly marriage.
In short, if you want to start a singles' rights movement, you should support gay marriage, because emotionally it is moving society in the direction you want, even if it is not yet doing that structurally.