A FACEBOOK RESPONSE TO SAME-SEX MARRIAGE VERSUS TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE

A FACEBOOK RESPONSE TO SAME-SEX MARRIAGE VERSUS TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE

Dear Randy and Bob:

Bob your original post dealt with a silly comment about Democrats and Republicans and the same-sex marriage topic was an ancillary posting.  Yet, since the two of you have now thrusted the subject front and center and since the two of you have reference the imagery of me giving myself a prostate examination I will respond with some emotion.

Bob, let me start with you.  In circa 1977 you told Bill Shannon and me that you were a confirmed heterosexual and all that talk about homosexuals needed to stay away from you.  Basically, let the gays do what they do over there and away from you. 

In addition in 1983 I mentioned to you that I had just finished reading a biography on Oscar Wilde and I enjoyed it very much.  Apparently, my brother Herb was nearby and after I left the room you said to him: “Too bad Oscar Wilde was gay.”  In 1983 I thought your comment was thoughtless, cruel, and clumsy.  Wilde’s plays are to this day the epitome of highbrow humor and he remains one of the great wits of all time.  Just listen to his take on the progressive agenda towards drinking: “Drink is the curse of the working class.”  Of course this meant the Italians and the Irish.  Wilde saw this type of patronizing rhetoric for what it was – sentimental dribble by well-educated women with too much time on their hands.

Wilde responded: “Work is the curse of the drinking class.”

Bob, either your opinion about Wilde was that of an immature young adult with a malicious streak or today you are following the latest fad while trying to be sophisticated.  I am learning toward the latter point of view.  Your arguments are old and tired and not very convincing.  What’s wrong with two people falling in love and getting married in a same sex setting?  Well, let’s see:
1. It is literally unnatural, gays can never have children without artificial intervention.

2. At 3%-5% of the population gays have given new life to the term the tail wagging  

    the dog.  Remember that 4% of our population is still 14 million people.

3. Where does the “If it feels good, do it.” End?  How about honoring incestuous marriages.  Does anyone condone Randy’s son and daughter marrying?  Remember, they would be consenting adults who in this scenario would be in love.  The answer is of course neither of you would consider this union to be wholesome and neither one of you would vote for such enabling legislation.

4. Of course someone of the left would say this union could produce children with devastating birth defects.  Well then, let’s change the incestuous role slightly to homosexual incest.  No fear of birth defects and yet two consenting adults who love each other could be granted the dignity of holy matrimony.  So Bob in this instance you and your brother Tom could theoretically throw convention to the wind and marry.  Bob, are you ready to make this leap in order to maintain a consistent argument, that love makes a family?  I bet the answer is no.

Bob, it seems like you’re an unknowing phony, but a phony nevertheless.  Why in the world would you through 3,000 years of tradition out the window, and defy the teachings of the Christian bible.  Is it that important to you to run with the groovy people?

And Randy…I am at a complete loss as to your rhetoric since you never uttered one word of homosexuality when I knew you in college.  What I saw was a well balanced 19 year old who embraced the life of the “working class” intellectual a la Jack Kérouac of the Beat Generation, and Glenn Gould.  You strove (successfully) to project an authentic profile the iconoclastic young gentleman which is why I find your rhetoric now so out of character.

Take this statement: “…when language used assumes particular male or female roles; these make lasting impressions on children.  My response is so what?  This statement sounds straight out of a Jane Fried workshop from 1974.  Men and women are different and that’s a good thing in my opinion.

More Semagin rhetoric: “Traditional marriage is a contract where the husband acquires ownership of his wife (traditionally called mistress) from her father.  Really?  Randy was your mother a slave because I know that Mrs. Jones was not a slave nor was my mother.  Remember that women who maintain their maiden names actually are maintaining their father’s name.

   

And the crowd pleaser: “You both really have your heads up your asses on equal rights for gays and lesbians.”  Randy, this is more than just tawdry language, it smacks of a lazy intellect.  Although, I do not accuse you of switching positions on homosexuality, I do accuse you of jumping on the current bank wagon of fashion.  When the author of DOMA and his wife suddenly endorse Gay marriage I smell opportunism which of course is a mainstay for the Clinton’s or as Randy would say, Bill Clinton and his slave.  (WORD COUNT: 844)

Best to both of you, Geoff