Althouse: "Why would a guy want to marry a guy?"

August 27, 2012

"Why would a guy want to marry a guy?"

A question asked in 1959.

98 comments:

Andy said...: Why would a guy want to marry a guy?"

It's not uncommon for me to have straight guys tell me that they wish they were gay so they could shack up with another dude.

Maybe some of the straight men here could help elaborate on the "why".; 8/27/12, 10:39 PM
Curious George said...: In the words of Sam Kinison "How does a man fall in love with another man's hairy ass?" I would ask Andy, but he's a bottom. I learned that at Althouse.; 8/27/12, 10:44 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: Andy R.,

It's not uncommon for me to have straight guys tell me that they wish they were gay so they could shack up with another dude.

Uh, Andy, those aren't straight guys,...; 8/27/12, 10:52 PM
wyo sis said...: Asked and answered.

"Security"; 8/27/12, 10:52 PM
Shouting Thomas said...: Back in the 70s, before it became doctrinaire that God just made you that way, men in San Francisco were switching from hetero to gay, and insistently trying to convince other hetero men to do the same.

The reasons were always the same. Women are boring in bed and have no sexual appetite. Go gay and you can get all the sex you want.

Then the AIDS epidemic was caused by President Reagan, which put a crimp in the party. Damned Republicans!; 8/27/12, 10:55 PM
Andy said...: I would ask Andy, but he's a bottom.

I could correct this, but then I think the squares around here would freak out and say that all gay people do is talk about their sex lives.; 8/27/12, 10:56 PM
Andy said...: Asked and answered.

"Security"

I think there is more to it than this.; 8/27/12, 10:57 PM
Shouting Thomas said...: Andy, you're a closet hetero. You got your ass kissed by the school system, and you ate up the perks of being the resident victim.

You are clueless about your own sexual identity.; 8/27/12, 11:01 PM
Gary Rosen said...: WARNING: HOMOPHOBIC REMARK TO FOLLOW

Nobody's perfect!; 8/27/12, 11:01 PM
YoungHegelian said...: I'm sure Prof Althouse remembers, as do I, that in the 60's & 70's no self-respecting gay activist wanted anything to do with that repressive & hopelessly bourgeois institution known as marriage.

I mean, hell, even J.P. Sartre & Simone De Beauvoir wouldn't touch that dead dog of an institution with a ten foot pole, much less the light-in-the-loafers crowd.

Times change.; 8/27/12, 11:07 PM
Anonymous said...: Note that the question is "Why would a guy want to marry a guy?"

It's not:

* Why would a guy want to have sex with a guy?
* Why would a guy want to have a sexual relationship with a guy?
* Why would a guy want to shack up with a guy?
* Why would a guy want to live with a guy?
* Why would a guy want to have a civil union with a guy?

Marriage is about children, family, community, sexual fidelity and a lifelong commitment.

I live in San Francisco and know a fair number of gays, some of whom broke ground as among the first gay married couples.

My impression, fair or not, is that very, very few gay men are interested in what heterosexuals call marriage.; 8/27/12, 11:07 PM
Andy said...: no self-respecting gay activist wanted anything to do with that repressive & hopelessly bourgeois institution known as marriage.

We don't wanna MARRY.
We just wanna FUCK.
Smash the CHURCH.
Smash the STATE.; 8/27/12, 11:11 PM
Shouting Thomas said...: Andy, you're a complete fake. A product of female school teachers and administrators.

You are the pet of the state.; 8/27/12, 11:19 PM
YoungHegelian said...: @Andy,

Re your 11:11 Post:

I'm aware that the anti-marriage as a bourgeois institution still exists among some strains of the gay movement.

My point is that that anti-marriage sentiment was nor just mainstream 60's & 70's gay activist, it was mainline sex-activist of almost any sort.

What most gay activists today seem to miss is that not only has their movement become more socially respectable within the society at large, social respectability has infected them also.

Go read the writings from the folks who started the Mattachine Society or the Daughters of Bilitis. There's no hunger for social respectability there. It's very much a celebration of negative liberties --- Leave us the Fuck Alone!

Much like a pole-smoking mirror image of Barry Goldwater. Or somethin'; 8/27/12, 11:22 PM
Andy said...: What most gay activists today seem to miss is that not only has their movement become more socially respectable within the society at large, social respectability has infected them also.

This is not news to the gay activists I know.; 8/27/12, 11:27 PM
YoungHegelian said...: @Andy,

This is not news to the gay activists I know.

Then this is a worthy topic of discussion with the broader community, not just within yourselves, like it's some Straussian esoteric secret teaching. A worthier topic for discussion that the GLBT clueless attempts at criticizing others' faiths.

Because within that movement to respectability lies buried a massive sea change in foundational assumptions about what constitutes homosexuality. That is a discussion that the modern GLBT community simply can't have happen in any honest forum, because it would expose those assumptions for what they have always been: thoughts of a few counter-cultural bien pensants who have built castles of the sandy shoals of precious little actual science.; 8/27/12, 11:34 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: YoungHegelian,

I'm sure Prof Althouse remembers, as do I, that in the 60's & 70's no self-respecting gay activist wanted anything to do with that repressive & hopelessly bourgeois institution known as marriage.

Are you kidding? I was hearing some version of that all the way up to the early '00s. Hell, they didn't even like ME being married. Not that it mattered, because they were going to try me anyway - which was but one of the curses I had to endure for my wife and I being what people now call "open-minded."

Brain-dead was more like it,...; 8/27/12, 11:35 PM
Andy said...: Because within that movement to respectability lies buried a massive sea change in foundational assumptions about what constitutes homosexuality. That is a discussion that the modern GLBT community simply can't have happen in any honest forum, because it would expose those assumptions for what they have always been: thoughts of a few counter-cultural bien pensants who have built castles of the sandy shoals of precious little actual science.

I don't know what you're talking about. If this was directed at me, you'll have to elaborate.; 8/27/12, 11:38 PM
Revenant said...: Maybe some of the straight men here could help elaborate on the "why".

Capsule summary? Women are nuts. :); 8/27/12, 11:42 PM
Anonymous said...: Learning something new every day.; 8/27/12, 11:51 PM
Anonymous said...: A few weeks ago I reread Armistead Maupin's novel, "Michael Tolliver Lives," one of the latest installments of his wonderful "Tales of the City" series.

Michael Tolliver is the character closest to Maupin himself. In MTL Michael found a Dadddy relationship with Ben, a good-looking young man twenty or so years his junior. They live in San Francisco and they are of course married.

But it's a curious marriage by hetero standards. Every six weeks or so Ben wanders off to the bath houses for an "afternoon of hunting and gathering." Michael feels conflicted and sometimes competes by visiting a different set of tubs. Once in the book they do a threesome with a big friendly black hairdresser named Patrese.

Michael and Ben are stable for the duration of the book, but then Michael and Thack in the earlier books looked like a reasonable bet as a couple too. Michael figures he has a shot at "dying in his lover's arms" because he is older than Ben, but he doesn't assume anything.

Theirs is not a bad relationship of course. I wish the Michaels and Bens of the world all the happiness they can find.

But is this marriage? Should it be? That's not clear to me.; 8/27/12, 11:52 PM
YoungHegelian said...: @Andy,

It was directed at you, and I understand why I might have left you baffled. Let me attempt to clarify.

Two points: 1) There has been, even among gays themselves (I might say especially among) a change in their self-understanding. Now, they see themselves as born that way -- an orientation in binary opposition to heterosexuality. To the gay activists of the 60's (e.g. the Mattachine Society folks), all of those assumptions -- inborn, binary polarity -- would have been anathema.

2) The science that underlies our understanding of homosexuality has been always (Freud, Jung, later stuff like Kinsey) junk, based on little actual experimental data.

Then, there was bad science on the anti-gay side. Now, it's on the pro-gay. A genetic basis -- that's what everyone says. Except the guy who did the study everyone uses to justify that claim says it doesn't show that at all.

Activist movements are always trying to push the goalposts forward. That I understand. But, an honest understanding of the history of the movement sometimes reveals what direction those goalposts might lie.; 8/27/12, 11:54 PM
Anonymous said...: Yeah, why would a child molester marry a child molester?

Because diversity must be enforced, comrade.; 8/28/12, 12:00 AM
Andy said...: Except the guy who did the study everyone uses to justify that claim says it doesn't show that at all.

What is the one study that you think everyone is using?; 8/28/12, 12:03 AM
Palladian said...: Andy, first of all, I'd ignore Shouting Thomas. He once pulled that weird "you're not really gay" routine on me. It seems to be his little "thing" and it's a creepy briar patch that's not worth stepping in.

Then there's the whole "how does a man fall in love with another man's hairy ass?" nonsense, which is just another iteration of the old sexist saw about the "mysterious eternal beauty of women". I like a nice hairy ass, just like a straight guy likes to nuzzle into a hairy, occasionally bleeding, gash between a woman's legs. There is no universality to sexual attraction and furthermore, love has nothing to do with gash or butthole at all, so I'm not sure why one would attempt a conflation of physical desire and love in the first place.

And creeley23, what a hilarious conceit to search for sociological truths in Armistead Fucking Maupin! It's good for a laugh and perhaps killing time on a beach, but attempting to correlate Maupin's characters with real life is like deciding you'd never date rich women from Colorado because of something you saw on "Dynasty".; 8/28/12, 12:06 AM
Palladian said...: And then there's "whoresoftheinternet", who used to go by a whole slew of other names in its long history of posting faux-hysterical provocations around here. It swears a lot, and it tries really hard, but in the trolling department it has nothing on Andy R.; 8/28/12, 12:09 AM
Anonymous said...: And creeley23, what a hilarious conceit to search for sociological truths in Armistead Fucking Maupin!

Palladian: Pray, enlighten me. I know that MTL is fiction, but nonetheless like most novels it bears some relationship to reality.

Are there no gay married couple like Michael and Ben?

Perhaps you can respond to my concern which Andy R. ignored:

My impression, fair or not, is that very, very few gay men are interested in what heterosexuals call marriage.; 8/28/12, 12:12 AM
Palladian said...: Are there no gay married couple like Michael and Ben?

Sure! There are straight couples like them, too! But, you see, it doesn't make very interesting reading to write about an uneventful, monogamous relationship, does it?; 8/28/12, 12:16 AM
YoungHegelian said...: @Andy

What is the one study that you think everyone is using?

I believe it was the study by Dean Hamer (see this article under "Chromosome Linkage Studies".

I may be wrong about that, because it's getting late here in EDT, and my brain has gotten fuzzy. So, don't go quoting me to the media, or anything. I'm bowing out of this conversation.

Good Night to all.; 8/28/12, 12:18 AM
Palladian said...: I mean, after reading "Tales Of The City", you must be really concerned about the apparent fact that most landladies are transexual home marijuana growers, or that most single women end up dating amnesiac writers who have infiltrated Episcopalian cannibal cults!; 8/28/12, 12:19 AM
Anonymous said...: Sure! There are straight couples like them, too!

Statistically, I imagine that's true. But I don't know any and I've never heard of any from any of my straight friends.

In my younger years I knew couples, though not married, try the open relationship route. Those all blew up.; 8/28/12, 12:22 AM
Revenant said...: A genetic basis -- that's what everyone says

No, that isn't "what everyone says". It is commonly said to be innate, but "innate" and "genetic" aren't the same thing at all. More than just genes go into the biological makeup of an adolescent male or female.; 8/28/12, 12:23 AM
Anonymous said...: I mean, after reading "Tales Of The City", you must be really concerned about the apparent fact that most landladies are transexual home marijuana growers, or that most single women end up dating amnesiac writers who have infiltrated Episcopalian cannibal cults!

Palladian: Part of my problem the same sex marriage debate is that gays often seem to interact in bad faith.; 8/28/12, 12:25 AM
Andy said...: Part of my problem the same sex marriage debate is that gays often seem to interact in bad faith.

Gay people: hey folks, we'd like to get married too so we can have the same rights and responsibilities as you straight people get from the government.

Bigots: That's like a man marrying his dog! This is the end of Western Civilization!

Yeah, it's the gay people who are arguing in bad faith....; 8/28/12, 12:37 AM
Anonymous said...: Andy R: Exaggeration and ridicule are my idea of bad faith.

I have not said those things. If you are addressing me, as opposed to some voices in your head, I'd appreciate if you would keep that in mind and respond to what I have written.; 8/28/12, 12:43 AM
Revenant said...: I'd appreciate if you would keep that in mind and respond to what I have written.

Not that Andy particularly deserves to be treated with respect -- but all you did was make an unfounded accusation.

If you're going to claim that an entire class of people acts in bad faith, at least offer examples.; 8/28/12, 1:28 AM
Anonymous said...: but all you did was make an unfounded accusation.

Revenant: No. I specifically said:

Part of my problem the same sex marriage debate is that gays often seem to interact in bad faith.

That has been my experience, it was a qualified statement, and it was a direct reply to Palladian's ridicule at 12:06 and 12:19, which I assumed was obvious but perhaps not.

Again, I don't consider ridicule and exaggeration to be good faith efforts at communication.

I'm not a fragile person who will fold if people put some spin on their comments, but I will point it out so as to push for a substantive response.

So far neither Andy R nor Palladian will touch my earlier point:

My impression, fair or not, is that very, very few gay men are interested in what heterosexuals call marriage.

Instead they respond as they have ... which I find interesting.; 8/28/12, 1:45 AM
Chip Ahoy said...: You know whose hairy ass I cannot look at anymore? Guess.

Guess, I said.

Fox New's hairy ass, that's whose hairy ass I cannot look at anymore.

They're turned their screen into the poorest designed webpage on Earth. Chyrons for days. On the bottom gobbling up space, on the right gobbling up space but providing no worthwhile content. A storm map that goes erk erk erk erk boink erk erk erk boink erk erk erek boink, a scroll that says something about some something some. And a thing that says

FOX NEWS FOX NEWS FOX NEWS FOX NEWS FOX NEWS

And the corner with people in it talking has its own chyron, it's own scroll, and it's now 1/4 of the total screen. And it says to you, to me, to everybody who tunes in

CHANGE THE CHANNEL IMMEDIATELY !!!

That's whose hairy ass I cannot look at anymore.; 8/28/12, 1:55 AM
Ernst Stavro Blofeld said...: The drudge-position of photos today is about as subtle as a 12-pound sledge. Mitt on his wedding day with Ann, Obama with Reggie Love, and Obama with Charlie Crist.; 8/28/12, 2:00 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: That is a discussion that the modern GLBT community simply can't have happen in any honest forum,...

One amongst a multitude - just keep talking about "Will & Grace" and let the rubes think they're HAVING an honest conversation, while all these sexual pathologies continue to fester behind closed doors instead.

Like Obama's promise to lead an honest conversation about race, they just don't have the balls...; 8/28/12, 2:11 AM
jr565 said...: Andy wrote:
Bigots: That's like a man marrying his dog! This is the end of Western Civilization!

Yeah, it's the gay people who are arguing in bad faith....

that's not the argument. The argument is in fact in response to gays bad faith argument that society cant define marriage as it has always been defined because it is discriminatory, and can't impose it's morality on anyone, yadda yadda. The only reason things like dogs or marriage with kids come into the argument is because gays keep making the argument that society CAN'T as opposed to society SHOULDNT discriminate in marriage. But of course society does in plenty of ways . If society can't define marriage as between a man and a woman, can it limit the number applying for marriage? Can it limit underage marriages or harems or even restrict people from marrying dead people or inanimate objects or animals, or even restrict people from being in more than one marriage at a time.
Unless you want to stand for unrestricted rights to marry your daughter, as but one example, then we are talking about restricting marriage along some lines as defined by society. And where would those against unrestricted marriage amongst family members stand in your eyes. Would they be the hateful bigots that similarly refuse to allow gays to marry, or would you be on the side of the those restricting the civil rights of people who have a non traditional relationship?
If sex requirements are non defined and can't be defined, is number to similarly be undefined or redefined? Why restrict polygamists, bigamists harems? Why limit marriage to two people alone? Anyone of those could be defined any way or no way, and you will certainly find people in the world who are in such telationships.

If the only question is whether people are in love and pay taxes then again, why would you have a problem with a dad marrying his daughter? And why would you not demand that society provide full benefits to said relationship, thus making incest a neutral relationship.

When your side argues there can be no restrictions then don't be surprised if other marriages sumilarly restricted get brought into the equation.; 8/28/12, 2:29 AM
jr565 said...: Or to put it more succinctly, if a father and daughter or a father and his two daughters tried to marry tomorrow, using the gay marriage argument, there should be no reason to deny them a marriage license. Correct, Andy?
So you support incestuall marriages right?
And in fact, if someone said that shouldn't be legal, then you would call those who were against fathers being able to marry their daughters hateful bigots, correct?
And it would be a civil rights argument equivalent to blacks not being able to marry whites. Right Andy?; 8/28/12, 2:38 AM
Revenant said...: Revenant: No. I specifically said: Part of my problem the same sex marriage debate is that gays often seem to interact in bad faith.

Yes, that would be the aforementioned "unfounded accusation".

There's no reply worth giving, since you didn't actually make an argument or offer evidence. You're deservedly classified with people who make comments like "social conservatives are usually closeted homosexuals". :); 8/28/12, 3:23 AM
Jason (the commenter) said...: It's important to remember there are several million gay people in America, who obviously hold a broad variety of views. If you want to talk about what we think as a group, provide some polling data to back it up.; 8/28/12, 5:17 AM
Michael said...: 1.8% of the population is gay including lesbians who self identify as bi-sexual. 1.8%.

We are sorry iti is not 25% like on t.v. And in blog comments. But it is only 1.8%. Quite small even when overstated.

The 98.2% rarely, if ever, think about the 1.8%. Except when reading blogs or watching tv.; 8/28/12, 5:42 AM
Jason (the commenter) said...: Michael: The 98.2% rarely, if ever, think about the 1.8%. Except when reading blogs or watching tv.

Interesting choice of rhetoric. The 98.2 and the 1.8% sound a lot like the 99 and 1%.

And the idea that people don't think about a topic, unless they see it on TV, when they spend hours a day watching television, seems a little inconsistent.; 8/28/12, 6:10 AM
Jason (the commenter) said...: Oh, and 1.8% of 311 million people is 5.6 million!; 8/28/12, 6:13 AM
edutcher said...: 53 years later, it's still a valid question.

Andy R. said...

Why would a guy want to marry a guy?

It's not uncommon for me to have straight guys tell me that they wish they were gay so they could shack up with another dude.

You have to stop listening to the voices in your head.

Michael said...

1.8% of the population is gay including lesbians who self identify as bi-sexual. 1.8%.

Actually, 1.3%. Forget the whole "self-identify" crowd. They're just trying to be fashionable.

And, regardless of how many, it's still an abnormal minority.; 8/28/12, 6:44 AM
Paco Wové said...: "My impression, fair or not, is that very, very few gay men are interested in what heterosexuals call marriage."

I think Andy R. provided the best comment here when he said, "we'd like to get married too so we can have the same rights and responsibilities as you straight people get from the government."

Andy may or may not be interested in "what heterosexuals call marriage", but he is definitely interested in some gummint cheese.; 8/28/12, 6:56 AM
Paco Wové said...: NTTAWWT.; 8/28/12, 6:58 AM
Mick said...: Gay "marriage" is against the law of nature, and is therefore beyond the purview of the Federal government. Heterosexual marriage is sanctioned because it has the desired purpose of propagating the citizenry. See Vattel, "Law of Nations", ch. 212.; 8/28/12, 7:08 AM
Kenneth Burns said...: "In his own personal life, [Johnny] Carson apparently became a distant father and an unfaithful husband. 'I’m sure there were females,' says a tight-lipped Joanne Carson, the second of his four wives. 'I didn’t know about them; I didn’t want to know.'"

Is this marriage? Should it be? That's not clear to me.; 8/28/12, 7:25 AM
Tank said...: How important is the issue of gay marriage?

Based on politics and blogs and TV and media and gay activists, seems very important.

But only ... what ... about 1-2% of Americans are gay, and ... what ... 1-2% of them want to get married.

So ... what ... we're talking about ... what ... 500 people total?

Least important issue ever (compared to time spent discussing it).

There's an old joke/riddle about what if you call a dog's tail a leg - doesn't matter what you call it, the dog still has only 4 legs.

Same here - I don't care if gay people get married - it doesn't matter what you call it - it will still not be the same thing as a heterosexual marriage.; 8/28/12, 7:29 AM
KCFleming said...: Chesterton noted that those who would damage traditional marriage "suffer from the modern and morbid
weaknesses of always sacrificing the normal to the abnormal."

He also argues that marriage is about family, specifically in having and raising children and that the family is "the only formation" in which the charge of the rich and the state can be repulsed.

And here we are.

"The child is an explanation of the father and mother and the fact
that it is a human child is the explanation of the ancient human
ties connecting the father and mother. The more human, that is the less bestial, is the child, the more lawful and lasting are the ties. So far from any progress in culture or the sciences tending to loosen the bond, any such progress must logically tend to tighten it.

...This triangle of truisms, of father, mother and child, cannot
be destroyed; it can only destroy those civilisations which disregard it. Most modern reformers are merely bottomless sceptics, and have no basis on which to rebuild; and it is well that such reformers should realise that there is something they cannot reform. You can put down the mighty from their seat; you can turn the world upside down, and there is much to be said for the view that it may then be the right way up.

...[Family] is the only one of these institutions that is at once necessary and voluntary. It is the only check on the state that is bound to renew itself as eternally as the state, and more naturally than the state."; 8/28/12, 7:44 AM
damikesc said...: It's not uncommon for me to have straight guys tell me that they wish they were gay so they could shack up with another dude.

So gay-dar DOESN'T exist?; 8/28/12, 7:58 AM
MaxedOutMama said...: It seems like most gay guys still don't want to marry another guy in the traditional sense - fidelity and all that. There often seem to be male/male relationships of great warmth and trust, but the sexual fidelity thing does not go over too well.

Because of that, it is likely that the institution of male homosexual marriage that our society will evolve won't look much like heterosexual marriage.

Over and over again, homosexual writers advocating for same sex marriage come out and say that heterosexuals are "doing it wrong". Thus marital relationships among male couples are not going to return the same types of benefits as they do for heterosexuals.

I think straight people want to change male homosexuals through marriage, and I don't think it's going to happen at all.; 8/28/12, 8:08 AM
David said...: Health insurance.; 8/28/12, 8:26 AM
Æthelflæd said...: Revenant said...

"Capsule summary? Women are nuts. :)"

As a woman, I can tell you - you don't know the half of it. :); 8/28/12, 8:44 AM
Æthelflæd said...: My husband says the terror is part of the charm and keeps things interesting.; 8/28/12, 8:45 AM
Ann Althouse said...: What percentage of commenters actually went to the link?

Do you think the point of this post was to set up a discussion on the generic topic of same-sex marriage, which we've been talking about on this blog in numerous posts for 8 years?; 8/28/12, 8:52 AM
wyo sis said...: Instead of comparing the worst hetero marriages with the best gay marriages why not compare the best with the best or the worst with the worst. Wouldn't that be a more enlightening comparison?; 8/28/12, 8:55 AM
Æthelflæd said...: Wyo sis tried earlier..."security!", but no one took her up on it.

Since women are graduating in much higher numbers from college, and earning a lot of money, it would seem to be one more nail in the marriage coffin. But I don't believe it, yet.; 8/28/12, 9:05 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: Kenneth Burns,

"In his own personal life, [Johnny] Carson apparently became a distant father and an unfaithful husband. 'I’m sure there were females,' says a tight-lipped Joanne Carson, the second of his four wives. 'I didn’t know about them; I didn’t want to know.'"

Is this marriage? Should it be? That's not clear to me.

No, it isn't, shouldn't be, and - ultimately - can't. What I find fascinating is, every time I inject reality here, I get attacked, through the groupthink tactic of twisting me into a fundamentalist fanatic, instead of what I am:

Someone forced by circumstance into always acknowledging reality rather than denying it.

The intellectual dishonesty at the heart of the issue can be summed up by, both, Johnnie's being "distant" from what he'd created - taking no pride in the situation and an unwillingness to face those it affected - and "wife" Number Four's statement that she "didn’t want to know."

The cultural imperative for maintaining these charades is self-imposed ignorance. But, even worse, it's an ignorance imposed on everyone. No one can "want to know" anything - as the push-back I've received here, about Romney and the Mormons, indicates. By sheer force of will, and overwhelming numbers, a liar isn't a liar, a cult isn't a cult, and a marriage isn't a marriage - definitions be damned - they're ALL whatever the willfully-ignorant say they are.

And it's not called "the dumbing-down of the culture" for nothing,...; 8/28/12, 9:08 AM
Dante said...: Maybe some of the straight men here could help elaborate on the "why".

"Security."

I say "Government Benefits." How odd.; 8/28/12, 9:10 AM
Dante said...: The drudge-position of photos today is about as subtle as a 12-pound sledge. Mitt on his wedding day with Ann, Obama with Reggie Love, and Obama with Charlie Crist.

Isn't that fair game? At some function that had a lot of gay attendance, Obama did say Michelle doesn't go all the way down, and implied that he did.; 8/28/12, 9:17 AM
Known Unknown said...: Do you think the point of this post was to set up a discussion on the generic topic of same-sex marriage, which we've been talking about on this blog in numerous posts for 8 years?

I think the point was to try and generate traffic for your offspring.; 8/28/12, 9:21 AM
Anonymous said...: There's no reply worth giving, since you didn't actually make an argument or offer evidence. You're deservedly classified with people who make comments like "social conservatives are usually closeted homosexuals". :)

Revenant: The evidence was in this thread and I've explicitly pointed it out to you. If you can't or won't understand, there's not much I can do.; 8/28/12, 9:30 AM
Anonymous said...: Kenneth Burns @ 7:25: Yes. Many heterosexuals make a hash of their marriages, especially Hollywood celebrities. However, I would bet that even Johnny Carson did not make his wedding vows with a plan for ongoing infidelities built into it.

Carson also had three sons from his first marriage and raised them. Again, something almost no gay marrieds do.

As Tank said, "But only ... what ... about 1-2% of Americans are gay, and ... what ... 1-2% of them want to get married."

And about 1-2% of those married gay couples want to have and raise children.

We can declare that marriage is whatever two people (or three, four or more) say it is.

However, my point is that the marriages gay men set up don't overlap much with heterosexual marriage.; 8/28/12, 9:32 AM
Anonymous said...: I think straight people want to change male homosexuals through marriage, and I don't think it's going to happen at all.

MaxedOutMama: I don't believe homosexuals are going to change through marriage either.

However, I think the point for many straight people is to stop male homosexuals from changing marriage.; 8/28/12, 9:39 AM
Paco Wové said...: "Do you think the point of this post was to set up a discussion on the generic topic of same-sex marriage..."

I dunno, seemed pretty open-ended to me. I think EMD had a pretty good hypothesis. If you don't want Andy R. hijacking your comment threads, perhaps more context is in order.; 8/28/12, 9:43 AM
Anonymous said...: I dunno, seemed pretty open-ended to me....perhaps more context is in order.

Agreed. I'm not keen on clicking opaque links and I won't bother to watch a video if the linker doesn't offer a good reason for why it's worth my time.; 8/28/12, 9:53 AM
Andy said...: If you don't want Andy R. hijacking your comment threads, perhaps more context is in order.

Um, this was my comment:
"It's not uncommon for me to have straight guys tell me that they wish they were gay so they could shack up with another dude.

Maybe some of the straight men here could help elaborate on the "why"."

I took that to be what the clip was getting at. The derail about gay marriage wasn't from me.; 8/28/12, 9:58 AM
Bender said...: we'd like to get married too so we can have the same rights and responsibilities as you straight people get from the government

Of course, that is NOT what marriage is, or what it is about, at all. To conflate marriage with the legal protections that society has chosen to give to marrige is to grossly misunderstand (perhaps intentionally so) exactly what "marriage" is.

The question remains -- are there really all that many same-sex attracted people who are really interested entering into the essence and nature of marriage (even marriage with a person of the same sex, were that even ontologically possible)?; 8/28/12, 10:25 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "I dunno, seemed pretty open-ended to me. I think EMD had a pretty good hypothesis. If you don't want Andy R. hijacking your comment threads, perhaps more context is in order."

I suppose this blog could consist of me putting up posts saying nothing more than "Here talk about X again."

It annoys me that people are acting like that's what I did here. This post had specificity, but it's only seen by clicking on the link. Short posts that are completed by clicking on the link are nicely bloggy, in my view and it just makes me kind of sad to see that people are not achieving completion.; 8/28/12, 10:30 AM
Paco Wové said...: "The derail about gay marriage wasn't from me."

Ok, fair enough. My characterization was incorrect.

I don't really know how a post about "Why would a guy want to marry a guy?" got sidetracked into talking about gay marriage. It's not like they're related in any way.; 8/28/12, 10:33 AM
Paco Wové said...: ATTENTION COMMENTERS:

You must be THIS WITTY---> ========

to post comments at Althouse.

Thank you for your cooperation!; 8/28/12, 10:37 AM
Bender said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/28/12, 10:47 AM
Bender said...: The question remains -- are there really all that many same-sex attracted people who are really interested entering into the essence and nature of marriage

Now, to be sure, there are PLENTY of "straight" people who are not really interested into entering into what is authentic marriage (hence all of the cohabiting, divorce, and hook-up culture), but there are also many, many more who do wish to enter into a marital state of being.

Still, the question remains, are there really that many men who would really want to marry, in the full and authentic sense, another man? Why would he want to marry another man? Or is the implicit premise of the question (by Tony Curtis or whoever) that, in marrying a man, he gets something less than he would get in marrying a woman?

Jack Lemmon answering, "Security!" isn't responsive to the question(s). A big bank account can give you security (economic). A dog can give you security (social/emotional). But those are not marriage.; 8/28/12, 10:49 AM
Anonymous said...: Ann: Quite a lof of your MO on this blog sure looks like throwing stuff at the wall and letting commenters make a conversation of it. If you have something specific you want -- as you did in the Songs / Place Names topic -- you might make that clear.

And no, it wasn't completed just by clicking on a link. I clicked on that link and saw another link, also unexplained, to a video. I've been Rick-Rolled or otherwise had my time wasted often enough that I don't click on videos. You may call it bloggy; I call it annoying.; 8/28/12, 10:54 AM
Dante said...: This post had specificity, but it's only seen by clicking on the link.

Should it be requisite to have seen the movie to post something? It looked like you were specifically pointing to some guy who dressed up like a women as a pretend kind of thing, and in so doing became mentally "in character."

He says he wants the womanly thing, "Security," which is I suppose a humorous contrast to what men want as opposed to women.

That led me to make the only reasonable comment I could think of, which is the arrogation of male functions by the government have bled over into the gay male community.

Seems like a bit more context could have been in order here. I have no idea what kind of discussion you were expecting based on the movie snippet.; 8/28/12, 10:54 AM
Bender said...: Another question --

Which is the enlightened response and which is the bigoted response to Some Like It Hot?

Is it bigoted to laugh at men being women, and to laugh at the idea of a man marrying a man?

Or is the bigoted response to think that the film isn't really all that funny?; 8/28/12, 10:58 AM
bagoh20 said...: "Maybe some of the straight men here could help elaborate on the "why"."

They are really imagining living with a vagina that understands and accepts them like another guy would. We often fantasize about a woman with male sensibilities. That's the most rare of all creatures. There are far more men with female sensibilities, and many are gay. Even lesbians mostly have the female personality traits that men hope to avoid: Drama, control though dissatisfaction, emotion driven decision making, male-negative discriminatory legal rights.; 8/28/12, 11:10 AM
bagoh20 said...: I achieved completion, and I'll even be back tomorrow. So it's all good. Let's keep it on this level, between us.; 8/28/12, 11:13 AM
Known Unknown said...: We often fantasize about a woman with male sensibilities.

My wife likes football way more than I do. That's pretty cool.; 8/28/12, 11:21 AM
bagoh20 said...: I have strange punctuation tics. 1.8% of us do. I insist that the rest of you to accept this as normal and correct just like your traditional punctuation. Bigots.; 8/28/12, 11:25 AM
Nathan Alexander said...: Because, to some extent, you aren't really/fully a man until you have been tempered in the fires of marriage to an emotional woman.

Shana,
My husband says the terror is part of the charm and keeps things interesting.

I'll have to adopt that as my motto.; 8/28/12, 12:12 PM
Mick said...: Ann Althouse said,

"It annoys me that people are acting like that's what I did here. This post had specificity, but it's only seen by clicking on the link. Short posts that are completed by clicking on the link are nicely bloggy, in my view and it just makes me kind of sad to see that people are not achieving completion".

Come now "law prof". We know that you are only trying to drive traffic to your son's navel gazing blog post.

Why? Just to piss off heteros, of course. It's the homo mafia way.; 8/28/12, 12:13 PM
Anonymous said...: Bender and bagoh20 hit the high points for me, assuming it's allowed to converse further on gay marriage.

If gay marriage were simply a matter of substituting Bob & Ted for Bob & Carol on the wedding cake, and then Bob & Ted would go on to take a whack at marriage as we have generally known it -- fidelity, lifelong commitment, children, family, etc. -- I would say, Fine, go for it.

But that is not what gays are doing. They not only want to change the gender composition of marriage, they want to change the nature of marriage in other important respects as well. Furthermore, they are mostly covert about it, as witnessed by the constant deflection by gay commenters in this topic.; 8/28/12, 12:16 PM
Æthelflæd said...: The scary thing, Nathan, is that I am rather even-keeled as far as women go.; 8/28/12, 1:52 PM
Dante said...: Ann,

Please tell us what you thought was so interesting about the movie snippet.

It looks like this thread was killed, but I still have no idea what you had in mind.; 8/28/12, 8:22 PM
madAsHell said...: 1.8% of the population is gay!?!

Man, you need to adjust the squelch on your gaydar. I'm guessing somewhere between 10% and 20%.; 8/28/12, 8:23 PM
Anonymous said...: Man, you need to adjust the squelch on your gaydar. I'm guessing somewhere between 10% and 20%.

madAsHell: Seriously? I live in San Francisco, I know plenty of gays, and I know that's not true.

Unless you're adding in every horny guy who mighta sucked or got sucked once, I don't buy it.

Clue: What you see on TV isn't reality.; 8/28/12, 9:06 PM
Gary Rosen said...: creeley, the late great Herb Caen once had a line in his column, "It used to be the love that dare not speak its name. Now it won't shut up." Allegedly quoting a gay man so he could get away with it.; 8/28/12, 10:05 PM
Gary Rosen said...: Bender:

"To conflate marriage with the legal protections that society has chosen to give to marrige is to grossly misunderstand (perhaps intentionally so) exactly what "marriage" is."

If they just called it "domestic partnerships" with the same legal rights it would have been a done deal a long time ago. But suddenly that was not enough.; 8/28/12, 10:08 PM
madAsHell said...: I'm in Seattle.

It's very gay here. I ride the public transportation.; 8/28/12, 11:18 PM
TMink said...: 1.8% is close, the best research varies between 1 to 3%.

Trey; 8/29/12, 8:55 AM
Anonymous said...: Nice to see a little life left in this orphaned thread.

Here's an article about Gary Gates's work on gay demographics. It's probably the source of the 1.8% number cited earlier.

Gates' best estimate, derived from five studies that have asked subjects about their sexual orientation, is that the nation has about 4 million adults who identify as being gay or lesbian, representing 1.7 percent of the 18-and-over population.

That's a much lower figure than the 3 to 5 percent that has been the conventional wisdom in the last two decades, based on other isolated studies and attempts to discredit Kinsey.

One reason, according to Gates, is that until recently, few surveys tried to differentiate respondents who identified as gay or lesbian from those who sometimes engaged in homosexual acts or were attracted to people of the same sex. All were lumped into the gay category.

For bisexuals:

Gates found, for example, that another 1.8 percent of the adult population, or a little more than 4 million Americans, identifies as bisexual, according to his research brief published Thursday by the Williams Institute.

Furthermore:

He also estimated that 19 million people, or 8.2 percent of the population, have engaged in sex with a partner of the same sex. That includes all groups, such as gays, bisexuals and heterosexuals who have experimented with same-sex behavior.

So this puts estimates of 10%, 20% and even 25% of the population being gay into fantasyland, no doubt aided and abetted by gay activists and Hollywood.; 8/29/12, 1:17 PM
Anonymous said...: Man, you need to adjust the squelch on your gaydar. I'm guessing somewhere between 10% and 20%.

madAsHell: Just where is the squelch control on your gaydar? You need to get that calibrated.

Back to you.; 8/29/12, 1:20 PM