{"id":1809,"date":"2012-02-08T11:54:13","date_gmt":"2012-02-08T16:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?p=1809"},"modified":"2012-12-03T17:27:08","modified_gmt":"2012-12-03T22:27:08","slug":"weighing-the-consequences-of-gay-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/02\/weighing-the-consequences-of-gay-marriage.html","title":{"rendered":"Weighing the Consequences of Gay Marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

This post is part of a debate on gay marriage<\/a>. \u00a0I\u2019m responding to Matt\u2019s post on gay marriage and deep friendship<\/a>, and this is the first part of my three-part rebuttal. \u00a0Thanks again to Matt for taking on this debate. The second part of his argument will run tomorrow. Thanks also to the mostly respectful and mostly constructive commentariat.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
Another conventional male friendship shattered<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One reason I like arguing with conservatives is because even if I don\u2019t end up agreeing with them, they tend to be good at pointing out the cost of what I want. Public acceptance and awareness of homosexuality does change the dynamics of some same-sex friendships. That\u2019s not a defeater for support for gay marriage and gay visibility, and we shouldn\u2019t make a reflexive denial of the tradeoffs a part of our defense.<\/p>\n

In fact, I don\u2019t even need to refer to Matt\u2019s post in order to talk about the costs of gay visibility; I can come up with examples all my own: The coming out movement has made it harder<\/em> in some situations to be gender non-conforming. The dandyish, slim boys in some of the debating parties on the right at Yale were assumed to be closeted, whether or not they had girlfriends. Before I was out, I was surprised to find out my whole seminar had assumed I was gay because I wore \u201clesbian pants.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead of just thinking their classmates are weird, students put them in the \u2018weird\u2019 category they know: homosexual. It is hard to be isolated and bullied, and it\u2019s even worse to be both cast out of your peer group and cast into<\/em> a sexual role that may not fit. Even well-meaning people on my team can have a tendency to pressure people to come out if they seem<\/em> gay, regardless of their stated sexual orientation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Social Con or Natty Gay?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But you\u2019ll notice, despite these problems, I\u2019m pretty staunchly pro-gay marriage and pro-queer visibility. First, from a purely practical point of view, I don\u2019t think we can regress on queer visibility (the objection to gay marriage, in this first part of the debate is that it legitimizes and entrenches the public existence of gay people). If the die is cast, we\u2019re better off figuring out how to mitigate the collateral damage of a cultural shift than standing athwart history yelling \u201cStop!\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s more than fatalism backing up my position. To a large extent, I think the increasing visibility of queer people contains the seeds of its own solution. The less stigmatized queer relationships are, the less frightening it is to have your close same-sex friendship mistaken for one. That will take care of the harm external judgment does to intense friendships. I\u2019ll discuss the idea that potential attraction warps platonic relationships and ways to counteract that threat in two subsequent posts.<\/p>\n

Finally, the dangers to queer people when they are marginalized are real, and they are horrifying<\/a>. As long as you regard the mere fact of queerness as morally neutral, I don\u2019t think you can in good conscience ask LGBT people to go back into the closet for the sake of brotherly love. (So far, Matt hasn\u2019t made the case that same-sex attraction is wrong in itself, independent of its secondary effects on heterosexual or platonic relationships).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

This post is part of\u00a0a debate on gay marriage<\/a>. \u00a0I\u2019m responding to\u00a0Matt\u2019s post on gay marriage and deep friendship<\/a>, and this is the first part of my three-part rebuttal.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post is part of a debate on gay marriage. \u00a0I\u2019m responding to Matt\u2019s post on gay marriage and deep friendship, and this is the first part of my three-part rebuttal. \u00a0Thanks again to Matt for taking on this debate. The second part of his argument will run tomorrow. Thanks also to the mostly respectful […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[196],"tags":[74,11],"class_list":["post-1809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marriage-2","tag-anthony-esolen-yale","tag-lgbt"],"yoast_head":"\nWeighing the Consequences of Gay Marriage<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This post is part of a debate on gay marriage. \u00a0I'm responding to Matt's post on gay marriage and deep friendship, and this is the first part of my\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/02\/weighing-the-consequences-of-gay-marriage.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Weighing the Consequences of Gay Marriage\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This post is part of a debate on gay marriage. \u00a0I'm responding to Matt's post on gay marriage and deep friendship, and this is the first part of my\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/02\/weighing-the-consequences-of-gay-marriage.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Unequally Yoked\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-02-08T16:54:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-12-03T22:27:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/theblackcordelias.files.wordpress.com\/2009\/12\/gay-marriage1.gif\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Leah Libresco\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Leah Libresco\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/02\/weighing-the-consequences-of-gay-marriage.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/02\/weighing-the-consequences-of-gay-marriage.html\",\"name\":\"Weighing the Consequences of Gay Marriage\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-02-08T16:54:13+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-12-03T22:27:08+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#\/schema\/person\/17ee17592b35b40040d5f5f7ea5ab464\"},\"description\":\"This post is part of a debate on gay marriage. \u00a0I'm responding to Matt's post on gay marriage and deep friendship, and this is the first part of my\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/02\/weighing-the-consequences-of-gay-marriage.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/02\/weighing-the-consequences-of-gay-marriage.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/02\/weighing-the-consequences-of-gay-marriage.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Weighing the Consequences of Gay Marriage\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/\",\"name\":\"Unequally Yoked\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#\/schema\/person\/17ee17592b35b40040d5f5f7ea5ab464\",\"name\":\"Leah Libresco\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/20e1e6a3a94c4e7928687804a41d888d?s=96&d=mm&r=r\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/20e1e6a3a94c4e7928687804a41d888d?s=96&d=mm&r=r\",\"caption\":\"Leah Libresco\"},\"description\":\"Leah is the author of Arriving at Amen and Building the Benedict Option. 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