Thursday, August 29, 2013

Greens invoke "love" in gay marriage ad campaign

Walking down Beaufort St yesterday I saw this ad from the Greens. I thought it was typical of their sanctimonious sentimentality. As you can see, it shows a coupla blokes being hitched, and says: "Marriage is about love not laws."



That begs the question: If it's not about laws, then why are the Greens trying to get the laws changed?

There's the other obvious question: Is marriage really primarily about love?

And what about the meaning of love itself? In the words of that great 1980's musical philosopher Howard Jones: What is love anyway?

Well, let's just ignore that wider mystery and assume that everyone knows what the Greens are on about in their ad ...

So, obviously everyone wants to find love. And clearly a marriage without love wouldn't be much fun. Still, many marriages survive without it. Conversely, many marriages between those who do truly love each other ultimately fail. (The course of true love never did run smooth, remember.)

Fact is, marriage has always been about a helluva lot more than just love. It's much more about achieving social stability than delivering personal fulfillment. Among many other functions it's there to keep the ravenous male sex drive in check and to ensure that blokes do the right thing by the kids they sire.

Sure, it doesn't always work out as planned. As lefties love to remind us, life is messy. But it's important to have ideals that the majority of people aspire to, even if many fail to live up to them.

In fact, society wouldn't function without numerous societal norms enforced by laws. Take paying for stuff at the shops, for example. That's a societal norm, enforced by laws. No doubt some lefties would like even that to be given the flick. But imagine if it were. The economy would be stuffed in no time and chaos and violence would reign before too long.

Having blokes marrying blokes and chicks marrying chicks wouldn't be as destabilizing as that. But it would have a huge effect nonetheless. Call me old fashioned, but I really don't think we should throw the codger out with the bathwater when it comes to the definition of marriage. It is one of humanity's most enduring and universal institutions. Radically altering the definition of it looks too much like "policy in the run" to me. If gay marriage becomes the norm it'll be the thought bubble to end all thought bubbles, I reckon.

I'm all for a robust open debate about the meaning of marriage. And if "marriage equality" -- itself a deceptive term -- does come as result of that, so be it. But it definitely shouldn't eventuate because some special interest groups managed to bully pollies using highly emotive tactics and false accusations of homophobia.

5 comments:

  1. Agreed the ad is self-defeating.

    Children have a basic human right to know and have a relationship with their biological mother and father as a default "best practice" position. Penny Wong is not good enough to cover for a positive male role model.

    Insist on real fathers this Fathers day and accept no substitute.

    The piece linked below provides good coverage on the "game plan" for gay marriage via the gay activist movement. It's nice to get some perspective on how we came to this odd piece of left wing social engineering.

    http://proudthinkingaustralian.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/setting-agenda-for-gay-marriage-diy.html


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  2. Two very close friends of my family just happen to be gay and they have been in a long term relationship a lot more stable than a lot of heterosexual marriages. Neither of these two [males] support the concept of gay "marriage" as they see it as flying in the face of accepted religious and societal expectations. What does concern them is the ability to pass on things like superannuation entitlements and property to their partner should one of them quit this mortal coil. Their opinion is that the gay marriage rumpus hurts their more urgent and important legal status being properly resolved.

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  3. I'm not especially pro or anti gay marriage; I'm just confused by it.
    Is it really only ten years since the debut of Queer Eye For The Straight Guy? Whence Priscilla Queen of the Desert? Time was, not too long ago, that we uptight clueless heteros had much to learn from the rainbow brigade. Relax! Add some colour to that wardrobe, mister! LIVE IT UP, DARLINGS!
    Gays were the folk who knew how to make life fun. But today in 2013 - what tha EFF? They want to settle down and get married? That's so grey. So straightneck.
    Christ, I suppose they'll be urging their children to become accountants and lawyers next.

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  4. I posted this on my fb page under the title "Why I don't support Gay Marraige".

    I can’t stand it anymore; I’ve decided to come out. I publicly declare that I do NOT support gay marriage. I expect I’ll be de-friended by many but I can’t hide it any more. I can no longer live a lie.

    Humour aside, let me try and explain why I don’t support gay marriage as one almost never reads the strong arguments against it in the mainstream media.

    So what is this thing called marriage? A good definition is a long term commitment between a man and a woman involving sexual practice.

    Next let’s step back and ask why have human societies (universally) made marriage such an integral part of their laws, values and societal mores?

    Well for a simple reason, because like all ‘entities’ a society’s first priority is to continue to exist into the future.

    Marriage is not some arbitrary set of rules thought up by some religious leader millennia ago, it is the fundamental building block of all human societies: good societies and bad societies. Let me explain more.

    For a society to exist in the future it needs children to be born who will preserve the values, beliefs and practices of that society. So human societies have chosen to encourage behaviour that will lead adults to enter relationships that produce children; and to ensure that these children will be raised so in a way that preserve the values, beliefs and practices of that society.

    Since human children take at least 15 years to be raised to the point where they can look after themselves, it requires a relationship that is built for the long term.

    So human society has designed marriage to encourage behaviour that leads sexually active humans to participate in sexual practice that leads to this desired goal; namely its continuation and the preservations of its values.

    A society such as ours that decides to devalue marriage, redefine it in such a fundamental way and generally discourage it, has put its future in grave jeopardy.

    I think Western society has many good aspects which I want to continue for my children. Not the least of these good aspects is that Western society has given people the freedom to participate in gay sexual relationships without fear or persecution.

    So I hope that we realise before it is too late that we must return to the traditional view and encouragement of marriage.

    Western society’s continuation requires that it continues to encourage people to get married and breed. Supporting gay marriage is killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

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  5. I believe it totally depends on the mindset of the people how they take. If a person is not straight and wants to have same-sex marriage then its up to his own will and choice, everybody has the right to live as he wishes. Love is above all boundaries and laws deals with feelings of the persons among themselves and they have the right to live with each other. There are different venues for wedding receptions in Perth which are known for their hospitality. The wedding receptions Perth
    are best in this business.

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