Breaking the Spell: Rethinking queer community

[Toughy]

By sacred spiritual bond I am talking about pair bonding and a religious or legal aspect is not required to have that bond. I'm so not a believer in a personal god.

Holding tightly to the tools of the patriarchy will never change the patriarchy. Civil and religious marriage are tools of the patriarchy used to control girls and women. Slavery was (and still is) a tool of the patriarchy and was so ingrained in all societies and cultures and endorsed by the law and religion. One probably heard the same arguments when the idea that slavery was wrong started permeating society and cultures around the world. Slavery was centuries old and appeared to be critical to the social structure of the entire world. Guess what...........it wasn't and isn't.

All those legal benefits civil marriage gets don't have to be connected to civil marriage.

There is no reason to believe that social structure is stagnant. Obviously it's not and there is no reason to keep defending the structure of marriage. It's no one's business how I order my life and what kind of family I create and live in.

As long as we keep arguing for our limitations and hold fast to how the patriarchy runs the world, we will keep having those limitations and the patriarchy. Paradigm shifts do happen and it always starts with one person.

[SecretAgentMa'am]

Toughy,

I've been reading your responses here with absolutely no clue how to respond. At first, I thought you had to be joking, then I realized you were in fact very serious. I'm really having some trouble wrapping my brain around your ideas here.

It looks to me very much like your idea of how you think society should be structured involves the end of religious freedom for anyone who disagrees with you. It also appears that you're in favor of only the rich being able to gain the benefits that currently come with marriage (since poor people generally can't afford lawyers to draw up contracts for them). Now you're comparing marriage with slavery, which I honestly find offensive. If this is your vision of life without the patriarchy, I want no part of it. It doesn't sound even remotely revolutionary or utopian to me. Or have I misunderstood you?

[Toughy]

Originally Posted by SecretAgentMa'am

Toughy,

I've been reading your responses here with absolutely no clue how to respond. At first, I thought you had to be joking, then I realized you were in fact very serious. I'm really having some trouble wrapping my brain around your ideas here.

It looks to me very much like your idea of how you think society should be structured involves the end of religious freedom for anyone who disagrees with you. It also appears that you're in favor of only the rich being able to gain the benefits that currently come with marriage (since poor people generally can't afford lawyers to draw up contracts for them). Now you're comparing marriage with slavery, which I honestly find offensive. If this is your vision of life without the patriarchy, I want no part of it. It doesn't sound even remotely revolutionary or utopian to me. Or have I misunderstood you?

I'm not sure why you think my comments about civil marriage have anything to do with religious freedom or religious marriage. However, I am always wary of the religious freedom meme. Religious freedom is used as a reason to perform genital mutilation on girls all over the world. One could even make the case of male circumcision being mutilation and it's roots are in religion. Religion is what is driving much of the sexism and homophobia is this country (and other countries). Religions can do good for society and they can do harm for society. When religion is harmful, it should held accountable. Religion is not particularly sacrosanct for me.

There are many ways to deal with how contracts are drawn up without using a lawyer. You don't need a lawyer to have a medical or legal power of attorney done. You can do a will and testament without a lawyer. There are standard forms available for just about any legal agreement. There are also free legal clinics across the country.

The real issue has to do with how the US democracy is ordered. Ours is not the best model out there. There are plenty of other ways to do democracy and have it work for everyone. Our social safety net needs a ton of work because it's not a safety net, particularly if we continue to punish those less fortunate. Giving corporations welfare is far more important than taking care of people.

I did not compare marriage and slavery, although marriage certainly was a form of slavery in the past and still is in some places today. I used slavery as an example of what was considered the normal paradigm and that paradigm shifted.

Dismantling systems takes time and will generate problems that can be dealt with. Digging in and saying it can't work just stifles growth and the opportunity to create a better society.

[SecretAgentMa'am]

Originally Posted by Toughy

I'm not sure why you think my comments about civil marriage have anything to do with religious freedom or religious marriage.

You mentioned in an earlier post that in your vision, Benny Hinn would not be on TV. How would that work, exactly? It seems to me that the only way to stop the Benny Hinns of the world from doing what they do is to make their religion illegal.

However, I am always wary of the religious freedom meme. Religious freedom is used as a reason to perform genital mutilation on girls all over the world. One could even make the case of male circumcision being mutilation and it's roots are in religion. Religion is what is driving much of the sexism and homophobia is this country (and other countries). Religions can do good for society and they can do harm for society. When religion is harmful, it should held accountable. Religion is not particularly sacrosanct for me.

Abuses do happen within the context of some religions, but that doesn't mean that ending the religion would end the abuse. Those abuses would happen whether a religion were involved or not, the people doing the abusing would just come up with a different excuse if they didn't have religion to fall back on. Abuse is wrong regardless of context. Blaming the context does nothing to stop the abuse.

There are many ways to deal with how contracts are drawn up without using a lawyer. You don't need a lawyer to have a medical or legal power of attorney done. You can do a will and testament without a lawyer. There are standard forms available for just about any legal agreement. There are also free legal clinics across the country.

Have you ever been to one of those free legal clinics? I have. Hours and hours of waiting to spend five minutes talking to a lawyer who doesn't really have the time or the inclination to tell you anything beyond "you need to hire a lawyer" or "you have no legal standing, hiring a lawyer won't help you." And I was just looking for help with a simple name change. That system isn't capable of picking up all the slack that would result from the end of marriage while people still want or need to blend their lives with their partner's. Yes, legal forms are available. They're also difficult to understand, especially for those who don't have a lot of education. Filing fees can run into the hundreds of dollars. Just because it's possible to do it without a lawyer doesn't make it feasible for a large percentage of the population.

The real issue has to do with how the US democracy is ordered. Ours is not the best model out there. There are plenty of other ways to do democracy and have it work for everyone. Our social safety net needs a ton of work because it's not a safety net, particularly if we continue to punish those less fortunate. Giving corporations welfare is far more important than taking care of people.

On this we agree.

I did not compare marriage and slavery, although marriage certainly was a form of slavery in the past and still is in some places today. I used slavery as an example of what was considered the normal paradigm and that paradigm shifted.

Dismantling systems takes time and will generate problems that can be dealt with. Digging in and saying it can't work just stifles growth and the opportunity to create a better society.

Similarly, demanding equal consideration for every rainbows-and-unicorns, pie-in-the-sky fantasy that someone can dream up does the same thing. The fact is, some things really, truly can't work. Maybe they could if we were working with some species other than humans, but we're not. Religious freedom may not mean much to you, but it does mean a whole lot to the vast majority of the population. Do you have any kind of plan for how to make religion stop mattering to humans who've been practicing religion in some form for millions of years? Are you advocating outlawing religion? If so, how do you think that should be enforced. If Benny Hinn did get on TV in your world, should there be a punishment of some kind for him?

[Toughy]

I'm gonna make this short.

Don't twist what I said. I never have said anything about eliminating religious marriage. It's not the same thing as civil marriage. I never said religion should be gone. I said I wanted the hate mongers gone. I said when religion does harm it should be held accountable. It never has been held accountable for mass murder and war. I am done talking about religion.

I am not alone in my view that civil marriage needs to be re-thought. Lots of folks feel the same way. It's just not a popular position here on the Planet.

and by the way........I was in a spiritually bonded relationship for 16 yrs. I generally say I was married. Dissolving that bond was not near as easy as getting a divorce in a civil marriage (no children were involved).

[SecretAgentMa'am]

Originally Posted by Toughy

I'm gonna make this short.

Don't twist what I said. I never have said anything about eliminating religious marriage. It's not the same thing as civil marriage. I never said religion should be gone. I said I wanted the hate mongers gone. I said when religion does harm it should be held accountable. It never has been held accountable for mass murder and war. I am done talking about religion.

I am not alone in my view that civil marriage needs to be re-thought. Lots of folks feel the same way. It's just not a popular position here on the Planet.

and by the way........I was in a spiritually bonded relationship for 16 yrs. I generally say I was married. Dissolving that bond was not near as easy as getting a divorce in a civil marriage (no children were involved).

If you interpret someone trying to understand your position as "twisting" it, then maybe you should consider ways you could communicate more clearly. I'm not twisting anything, I'm trying to understand what you said. If my interpretation of your statements was not what you intended, then you're welcome to clarify. So far, all I've seen is you making vague, problematic statements and then refusing to talk about the parts of your statements that are uncomfortable.

[dreadgeek]

Acceptance is turning on the tv, flipping channels and NEVER EVER seeing Bennie Hinn praying over letters and mailing out prayer clothes he prayed over on tv to those who send $19.95 so they can be saved. Acceptance is not having a murder count on the local news every night. Acceptance means Liberty University, Oral Roberts University, Bob Jones University are closed due to no enrollment.

Don't twist what I said. I never have said anything about eliminating religious marriage. It's not the same thing as civil marriage. I never said religion should be gone. I said I wanted the hate mongers gone. I said when religion does harm it should be held accountable. It never has been held accountable for mass murder and war. I am done talking about religion.

Toughy:

I'm sorry but I have to beg to differ with you. The highlighted passage above does not say ANYTHING about holding religion accountable nor does it say anything about wanting the hate mongers gone. What you said is that WHEN Benny Hinn is no longer no TV--without any explanation as to why he is no longer on TV--then and only then can queer people be considered to have been accepted by society. You said that WHEN Oral Roberts and Liberty and Bob Jones are no longer able to stay open for lack of enrollment THEN and only then can queer people be considered to be accepted by society.

You did not qualify your comments nor did you explain what you meant so in the absence of your explaining how, precisely, we get rid of those universities or that preacher (or any like them) it is *entirely* reasonable to interpret the above to mean that religion--or at least the religion you disapprove of--has to go. I see Secret Agent Ma'am's interpretation as being a rather straightforward reading of your words in the absence of explanation or qualification. And given that, at present, approximately a third of the *species* practices some variant of Christianity that means it is likely to be around in some form for a very, very long time.

As far as the relative popularity of various positions here or elsewhere, so what? I keep going back to how do you get people who might not agree with your vision of how society *should* be to go along with it? Again, I do not necessarily disagree with you that perhaps government should get out of business of designating certain types of households as being significant. Perhaps that is the case but as Citybutch pointed out a couple of pages back, getting rid of marriage would undo hundreds of years of Western common law.

I don't think that we should overturn a legal tradition *simply* because someone thinks we should. There are reforms I would like to see but complete overhauls require a great deal of consideration because there are *always* unintended consequences. I am not, in fact, making an argument in favor of marriage as it is currently understood. I'm trying to understand how you expect to convince people to go along with your scheme.

I have yet to hear a particularly compelling argument, even a hypothetical argument, put forth as to how you convince people who may not share your particular political or religious world view to uproot and overhaul an entire social system. That may seem like being a wet blanket but as I've said a couple of times now, history is littered with the bodies of people who were broken on the altar of this or that utopian vision espoused by some group of people who said to the rest of society "Civilization. You're going it wrong." I've even gone so far as to stipulate that your vision of how human beings should organize themselves is the correct one so we don't get lost in the weeds but you've still to explain how you get buy-in from the rest of society.

Or is that just not a particularly important question and I think that it is because I am tied up in some old-fashioned idea about the consent of the majority to be governed counting for something.


Cheers
Aj

[Toughy]

I do not have any idea of any other way to say that hate speech under the guise of religion is wrong. That is not a 'get rid of religion' or 'anti-religion' statement.

There are reasonable hate speech laws across the world. Canada has them, France, Germany etc. We do not have to let those hate mongers preach on TV or anywhere else. We can stop them and we should. Everyone knows what hate speech sounds like. Blaming queers (or blacks or brown or red or immigrants or ______) for 9/11, lack of jobs, a crappy economy, crime, the recent earthquakes and every other frigging disaster is hate speech and incites violence against queers and/or whomever is the flavor of the day. It should be illegal. Fines and/or jail time should be imposed. Religion should not be a free pass for hate speech. Free speech is not limitless....you can't yell 'fire' in a theater. Universities policies that enforce hate and hate speech towards anyone should not be allowed to do that......whether they be public, private or religious. I repeat one more time, hate speech under the guise of religion should not get a free pass.

Beating or killing someone while you yell 'faggot' or 'dyke' is considered a hate crime. It looks like hate speech to me. Why should hate speech be different when it comes out of a preacher's mouth?

We should not allow so-called therapists to get away with reparative therapy. It is utter bullshit. Queerness is not a disease or a mental illness and should not be treated as such. Since the medical profession has a damn hard time policing it's own, perhaps malpractice or criminal charges should be considered. Why is the government paying for reparative therapy through medicaid/medicare? It's not a legitimate therapy and is not based on good science.

This country is also about protecting the rights of the minority from the tyranny of the majority.

One of the things I learned from years of negotiating and advocating with big pharma and with our government is to put everything you want on the table. Go for the gold.....you will probably end up with the bronze or maybe the 4th place ribbon.

I actually believe most folks in this country are kind, caring and compassionate. Obama would not be POTUS if we weren't. I think most religion does good things. I think most folks in this country believe in live and let live. I think most folks at least tolerate us, as long as we look and act like them. I think, over time, most folks will accept us queers (in all our colors) as just another version of the human spectrum. Sometimes I am incredibly impatient....probably because I am in the last third (maybe a little more) of my life. It would be nice to see acceptance before I die. Tolerance is wearing thin at times.

It seems to me we keep settling for and arguing for the current limitations, rather than imagining what can be and fighting for that. That is probably because I do not believe in assimilation.

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by weatherboi

Marriage presently enslaves women all over the world.

Yes, it does, depending upon the couple in question and local conditions on the ground. However, are you saying that NONE of the women who are married--whether that is a m/f pairing or a f/f pairing (for sake of simplicity I am considering m/f to encompass any male person)--are there willingly? If you are, how do you explain so many women who have some choice making an inauthentic choice? Unless you are saying that ANY woman, chosen at random, regardless of cultural background, is enslaved if she is married then you need to explain the presence of women who, we will for the moment presume are self-interested, rational agents, see themselves as happily married and believe that they entered their marriage of their own free will. So, is that they are not happy but they don't realize it? If that is not the case then is it the case that they are happy but for the wrong reasons? If so, what are the right reasons for women to be happy?

I am not making an argument denying that for vast numbers of women around the world, marriage IS slavery. The more patriarchal the society, the *less* the society has embraced the idea of inalienable rights of humans, the more likely it is to be the case that marriage will resemble slavery. I am, rather, arguing that if what you say is true then we need not explain women in areas where they have little or no choice. Rather, we have to explain women who DO have a choice. Why would women, economically empowered, educated women *voluntarily* enter into slavery *particularly* when some number of these women took women's studies courses in college and are well aware of the patriarchy. Are they *also* expressing inauthentic preferences or false consciousness?

Unless I have reason to believe otherwise, whether or not I agree with her choices, I have to presume that a woman who is empowered to make choices is going to make good choices in the lack of coercion. Therefore, if a woman who is not under coercion or mental duress, I presume that her choices are authentic and that her preferences are as well.

Cheers
Aj

[weatherboi]

Hey AJ-

Sorry that was just one sentence from
A post I made that got erased when I posted from my iPhone. I shouldn't try and post from here cause it never works out. That why I deleted it but Toughy hit something inside me and there I went! I will come back and answer when I get home. My apologies.

[Slater]

I am also of the opinion that government should not be in the marriage business. Marriage should fall exclusively within the domain of the culture, community, or faith of those who are entering into the marriage. Government should care about households and not concern itself with the precise nature of the relationships of those living in the household. It should concern itself with the social benefits that family units and households of any structure create.

I know someone who has lived for well over a decade with her old college roommate. They are not gay. Theirs is not a sexual or romantic relationship. My friend wanted a child but not a husband. Her old roommate has medical issues that limit her ability to work. Together they have maintained a highly functional and supportive household that generates just as much social good as a married household. They should have access to the benefits that are currently reserved for married couples.

--Slater

[imperfect_cupcake]

I know someone who has lived for well over a decade with her old college roommate. They are not gay. Theirs is not a sexual or romantic relationship. My friend wanted a child but not a husband. Her old roommate has medical issues that limit her ability to work. Together they have maintained a highly functional and supportive household that generates just as much social good as a married household. They should have access to the benefits that are currently reserved for married couples

this is what I'm saying. if there is domestic partnerships for everyone regardless of sex of the people involved, then you can have domestic partnership and marriage and it's up to the individuals to choose which one they want and marriage does *not* have to be erased to bring equality.

I think that should be extended to multi-adult (more than two) households, but one step at a time.

[Toughy]

Originally Posted by honeybarbara

this is what I'm saying. if there is domestic partnerships for everyone regardless of sex of the people involved, then you can have domestic partnership and marriage and it's up to the individuals to choose which one they want and marriage does *not* have to be erased to bring equality.

I think that should be extended to multi-adult (more than two) households, but one step at a time.

I would settle for this arrangement as long as domestic partnership has ALL the same rights, responsibilities and benefits as civil marriage. I also think we should include poly arrangements in the same household as well as multi-households.

[dreadgeek]

Toughy:

Firstly, just because a similar argument was made for slavery does not mean that the argument necessarily works. The logic you are using is this:

People said slavery was natural, critical to society, etc. Slavery was a moral evil. People said a moral evil was critical to society. They were wrong. THEREFORE, any argument on the basis of it being critical to society is also suspect.

The problem is that it does not follow. Just because society was wrong about slavery and used a very bad and inconsistent logic to reach their wrong conclusion *does not mean* that any argument reaching a similar conclusion is therefore wrong. To see why let's take this. Just so it's clear that this is NOT a Godwin violation I am NOT comparing any position that anyone has taken with anything the Nazi's ever did or espoused.

The Nazi's were wrong about any number of things. Nazi scientists were the first to link smoking with cancer. But the Nazi's were wrong. THEREFORE, they must have been wrong about smoking causing cancer. Except that smoking DOES cause cancer. Does that mean we now have to reverse position and claim that since they were right about this one thing, they must have (or might have been or we endorse) anything else they might have stated? No.

Works both ways, Toughy. Perhaps you are right but this *still* avoids the central question. Again, for the purposes of this discussion I am willing to stipulate that you are right. I grant you that IF society were arranged in a way more congenial to your idea of what society *should* be like (and whether you are willing to acknowledge that you are talking about remaking society as you would like it to be, that IS what you are talking about) THEN society would be a better place. My question is how do you get society to go along with you?

That's the question you keep avoiding, Toughy. What if the rest of us, or a majority of us, find your idea suspect? What then? How do you convince a society to *completely* change how things are done if they do not want to?

Since you invoked slavery, I'm going to remind you of how slavery ended. The South did NOT want to end slavery. Blacks did but white Southerners, for the most part, saw nothing particularly abhorrent about the system and would have been happy to let it continue indefinitely. Slavery ended because the North invaded the South, beat them into abject submission, and then imposed emancipation at the point of a bayonet. Are you prepared to go to that length, Toughy?

Now, the South was manifestly wrong. There are no arguments that one can make in favor of slavery that do not start out with having to deny the humanity of the enslaved group. But the point here is not whether the South was wrong (that is not in dispute) it is HOW the South ended up having to accept that slavery would no longer be allowed in this nation. It is now illegal to have slaves. Is THAT what you are after, Toughy? Making it *illegal* to marry?

Again, you don't have to convince me--at least not for the moment. I am stipulating that your idea of how to order society is *self-evidently* better, for the purposes of this discussion. My concern is how you get from where we are now, to where you believe we should be. Again, how do you deal with the innumerable people who are either unconvinced that this actually *will* be a better world or who are convinced that it will *not* be a better world? That's the question, Toughy.

Cheers
Aj

Originally Posted by Toughy

By sacred spiritual bond I am talking about pair bonding and a religious or legal aspect is not required to have that bond. I'm so not a believer in a personal god.

Holding tightly to the tools of the patriarchy will never change the patriarchy. Civil and religious marriage are tools of the patriarchy used to control girls and women. Slavery was (and still is) a tool of the patriarchy and was so ingrained in all societies and cultures and endorsed by the law and religion. One probably heard the same arguments when the idea that slavery was wrong started permeating society and cultures around the world. Slavery was centuries old and appeared to be critical to the social structure of the entire world. Guess what...........it wasn't and isn't.

All those legal benefits civil marriage gets don't have to be connected to civil marriage.

There is no reason to believe that social structure is stagnant. Obviously it's not and there is no reason to keep defending the structure of marriage. It's no one's business how I order my life and what kind of family I create and live in.

As long as we keep arguing for our limitations and hold fast to how the patriarchy runs the world, we will keep having those limitations and the patriarchy. Paradigm shifts do happen and it always starts with one person.

[AtLast]

Re- "marriage." The literature (based upon new studies) now being published by various social and behavioral scientists post the 2010 census, brings out some very radical changes in how the US views it. It ain't our fathers & mothers institution any longer. And something that I have been quite happy about is that it is not what the US far-right would want us all to believe.

So many of the property-based and child custody kinds of things we tend to associate with marriage are just no longer at the heart of why people (any kind of people) would marry.

Society does change and so do our institutions. Sometimes, a lot slower than many of us would like- but they do change.

Maybe as more and more of this new body of work is viewed and understood, we will address our "utopias" very differently?