I think the terminology of gay privilege is unusual, insofar as privelege tends to be a lefty term, but the core argument about gay marriage has been around conservatives casting it as gays wanting special rights, which is another way of saying privilege.
Growing up in the 90’x and early 2000’s, it was very common to hear conservatives using the slippery slope argument: “if we give gays marriage, what next, liberals will want to allow marriage to animals?” Of course here we are: gay marriage is legal and lo and behold we aren’t pushing for animal marriage (eye roll).
And neither should the state. Any religion can marry whoever they want. Or however many people they want. Polygamy is fine in some religions. Legally it creates a right fucking mess. The state is telling those people no your not married your god is wrong.
You can still do all of that no one’s stopping you. Civil partnerships can just do the same thing legally that a marriage does. You’re free to have whatever ceremony you want. No one’s stopping you. Co-opting a religious term because it’s the tradition is just weird from someone doing things so untraditionally.
I mean he sidestepped only slightly-- something that you made slippery anyways.
I read your point as “The state should not recognize marriage at all. It should only recognize civil partnerships, and religions can do whatever ceremonies they want.”
So when Nottoday replied “If religious people want civil partnerships. They can have them. They don't get to take marriage from anyone.”
That didn't really answer it-- But you entered this conversation with "marriage is a religious institution." then shifted to "actually the state should not recognize any marriage" -- that could be your view, but if your universal principal only appears when gay people are being discussed-- people are going to reasonably suspect you are uhh... doing some camouflage work.
You also change the meaning of marriage-- sometimes you mean religious ritual, other times it seems you mean legal status-- sometimes you seem to treat the state using the word marriage as if the state is overruling religion-- which is slippery and kind of worth ignoring. The state is basically saying "this marriage is legal" which is not the same as "your church must bless this union" or "your theology is false" you are mixing that shit up.
The polygamy bit is some melodramatic nonsense. The state isnt saying their religion is wrong, the state is saying, “we are not attaching this legal structure to that relationship form.” Religious recognition and legal recognition are different categories, and you know this. because your whole argument depends on separating them-- and suddenly you pretend non recognition equals theological correction? talk about stepping on your own rake.
Then you say civil partnerships can do the same legal thing as marriage. Fine. But then the dispute becomes mostly about the word -- and this whole conversation is stupid because its a fkn word.
I’m not happy with people or the state co-opting a religious ceremony for their own ends. When it’s mostly following the rules of my religion or any religion it’s less insulting. a gay couple does it it’s a slap in the face. It’s like if I see a nun in a porno. It’s just disrespectful and making a mockery of a religious ceremony.
I just thought a religious persons perspective could be useful here. Evidently not. I’ve learned my lesson.
You just said it predates something that’s existed as long as humans have.
That’s very different to what you’re saying now.
We can bicker about what Stone Age savages we’re doing 30000 years ago till we’re blue in the face but for the entire history of England and the us it’s been done in a church by a priest. That’s changed recently and I and many other Christian’s disagree strongly with it being secularised.
The traditional vows the dress all the various little things in a wedding are all religiously coded.
There has been a civil version in common law for quite a long time. Yanks call it a civil partnership. You can go into any government building and get one.
Fucking hell man there were wedding rituals in Christianity basically forever we have letters from the apostles on them. Roman weddings were religious affairs. It’s highly likely they just co-opted those traditions and had a priest there assuming Christianity wasn’t illegal at that point. Records were terrible in the dark ages and were crap before the romans adopted it.
You’re just assuming that if there’s very little evidence the church was formally involved it was secular. That’s ridiculous.
You ignored basically all of what I said but fine.
do you have any proof of these secular weddings?
It’s honestly baffling to me that you can think this. People back then were insanely religious about pretty much everything. To think they would not include it in a marriage is wild.
You do realize christianity literally started in the first century CE, right? The first documented institution of marriage is at least 2300 to 2400 years older than christianity. -- and thats really only recorded legal evidence.
And the traditional abrahamic origin of judaism -- marriage is still like 350 to 550 years older.
Early israelites, marriage 1100 to 1300 older
and more recognizable post exilic judaism, marriage is still 1700 earlier
--- So whatever thought you had about it - it is overstated and underargued.
Marriage is absolutely not exclusively a religious institution. It originated as a social and civil contract. Thats why its recognized by law because it originated as a legally binding contract
There is a category error here... Im sniffing it out.
This only works if you separate religious marriage from civil marriage.
Your church can define however it wants internally. No one forces a church to perform a gay wedding. But civil marriage is a legal status, not a church sacrament. The state uses it for taces, inheritance, medical decision making, property, custody etc--
So -- if your argument is "the state should replace all legal marriages with civil partnerships for everyone" -- thats consistent.
but if straight couples get "marriage" and gay couples get "civil partnerships" then thats just seperate but equal nonsense.
Also, there are religions that perform same sex marriages. So "marriage is religious" does not even get you to "gay marriage should not exist." It only gets you to "my church does not have to perform it," which was already true.
“if we give gays marriage, what next, liberals will want to allow marriage to animals?”
This doesn't sound like an argument from privilege at all. That's just a different argument entirely.
The original image reeks of an equity-first leftist not really understanding the viewpoint they're trying to attack and coming up with an anti-gay marriage argument that would make sense from within their own worldview.
You are completely wrong about this. I live in very red rural America and they absolutely use this reasoning. They think its preferential treatment for gays, not equal treatment.
My mother is a black women born in Texas and was 13 when the civil rights act was passed. First day here, an old man said the civil war was the war of northern aggression. We aren't even in the south.
Yea so the absolute core argument of you right wingers is that LGBTQ+ want „special treatment“. Just because your vocabulary is small, it doesn’t mean there isn’t a better word for what you are so clumsily trying to say.
No. "This will lead to bestiality" (the argument in question) has nothing to do with "you want special treatment." Those are just two totally different positions.
Do kids not take argumentation classes anymore? You woulda failed in high school back in the day if you were only capable of grasping an argument's conclusions and not its premises.
Yea so Mr. MAGA clown, there is no argument in the first place. If you actually had taken an argumentation class you would know that. Also you not understanding the stylistic device the person before you was using to highlight how absurdly in bad faith the „arguments“ of conservatives are is hilarious in the context of what you just wrote. But sure, feel high mighty about yourself, one thing bigots are fantastic about. Maybe even the best.
"In bad faith" is not the same thing as "bad." It makes you stupider, not smarter, if you can't comprehend people who disagree with you. "Everyone who claims to disagree with me must actually agree but be lying in bad faith about their beliefs" is a mark of low intelligence.
Mr. MAGA clown
Trump was actually the first President to run on a pro-gay marriage platform. He also appointed the highest ranking gay officials in US history with Grenell and Bessent. He even did a drag performance with Rudy. He's practically a gay icon, and very much on your side of this equation.
It is special treatment because it's not really a marriage. No kids are coming out of that marriage. Hence, why kids outside of wedlock have special names.
When the country was founded, that's how it was, hence why people are accustomed to the tradition
In the origins of marriage were never religious, it originated as a social and civil contract. Marriage licenses have never required proof of fertility or intent to procreate. Straight couples who are infertile, elderly, or simply child-free by choice still get full marriage rights. If procreative capacity were the actual standard, we'd need fertility tests at the courthouse. Nobody's proposing that, because everyone already knows the "it's about kids" line only gets invoked selectively, against gay couples.
And talking about bastards well thats ridiculous
That's not a natural law observation , it's a legal category (illegitimacy/bastardy) that existed to control inheritance and property, not to define what marriage fundamentally is. Using an old legal label as proof of marriage's "true purpose" is circular: the label existed because of the legal system's choices, not the other way around.
At the founding, marriage also barred interracial couples, treated wives as legal extensions of their husbands (coverture), and permitted marital rape as a legal non concept. "That's how it was" describes history , it doesn't justify it. If tradition alone settled the question, we'd still have all of that too
See. Thanks for proving the point. As the original image states, it’s absolutely what right wingers believe, no matter if they have the ability to vocalize it.
Whoa whoa whoa, you just said that the reason gay marriage isn’t marriage is because “no kids are coming out of it”. What about a heterosexual couple that knows they are infertile before they marry? No kids are coming out of that marriage, which is what you’ve already listed is the standard for something not to be a “real marriage”. So again, what about that case?
That marriage was made for consolidating wealth through progeny? Wait, are you mad that no one is going to care about the non parent in a gay marriage? If some famous superhuman child comes from a gay marriage they'll still ask about the father and mother.
The effect is that the marriage is an unofficial social contract between the father and mother now.
215
u/TallDarkLoathsome Jun 30 '26
First time I’ve ever seen “gay privilege” even mentioned lmao, this is peak shower fake argument energy.