Selling the idea of gay marriage to conservatives

[CTLawGuy]

Poll question: Selling the idea of gay marriage to conservatives

I think gay rights activists need a new campaign to market the idea of marriage equality to a more conservative audience.

Here are a couple ideas for campaigns:

1. "Free market marriages". Let the workings of the all-wise free market determine who gets married to whom. After all, the market always produces the most efficient conditions in society. Anything else is just socialism. If you won't let government provide health insurance for all people, why should you trust it in the marriage business? Isn't government the problem?! Ronnie Reagan thinks so!

2. "Marriage choice". Government-run marriages lead to consistent underperformance by unhappy married people, including high divorce rates. If we broke the heterosexual monopoly of government marriages and introduced COMPETITION (gay marriages) into the mix, then hetero marriages will be forced to improve their performances to keep those young men and women from turning gay!


Pick one or submit your own!

[rucky]

1. "More chicks for us straight guys"

With gay marriage, that's two more men that no longer have to live a lie and take a woman off the market for a sham.

Sure, gay women would get married, too... but that's HOT!

[Rhythm and Blue]

2. If you wanna be silly/amusing, go with #2. But #1 is indicative of a rather big

problem in the modern Republican party. Republicans often claim that they believe people know better than the government how to live their own lives, whether you're talking about schooling, health care, wages, hiring practices, unions, or any other economic issue. Why should marriage be any different?

The uncomfortable answer, of course, is that the anti-gay-rights movement was pushed on the Republican party by a pack of raving theocrats. The free-marketeers hate them for constantly getting their self-righteous noses in profitable movies, video games, music, television, advertisements, etc., etc. The religious right hates the free-marketeers for making money by pushing "immoral" goods. The capitalists hate having to pander to the Christians, and the Christians are angry that despite supplying the votes, all they ever really get in return is a wink and a nod in speeches.

They very rarely will publicly call attention to the constant tension between the two. They have very little they can agree on, though. All they really have in common is a shared hatred for liberals, albeit for different reasons. That's one of the major reasons why any discussion on most any domestic issue turns into a batch of liberal-hate--going into why you support something in any depth risks angering one of the two halves of the spectrum, while everyone can agree that the "other guys" suck. And it's on issues like immigration, in which the two halves are completely opposed to one another, that you see Republican leaders most anxious to move on as quickly as possible.

[pnwmom]

3. My serious, not hilarious, approach to conservatives on this issue.

I point out that gay men and women have just as much of a need (and right) to form loving families as straight people do.

The traditional route has been for gay men to marry unsuspecting straight women, and even to have children with them. But unless you would be happy about a gay man pretending to be straight in order to marry your straight daughter, I think we should all support laws that allow gay people to marry each other.

I know I have changed some minds with this argument. It probably helps that I can speak from my own experience growing up in one of those unhappy "mixed marriage" families.

[incapsulated]

4. I think they tried number 2

But here is something interesting. A sizable number of them have no issue with civil unions. This is a religious debate for them. Marriage to them is a religious institution, in their minds, and never will they accept gay "marriage".

So, I don't think anything will work for the hardcore.

[izquierdista]

5. "He's just married, not dead"

Afraid that marriage will make that hottie with the bulge in his jeans turn you down in the men's room? Don't be! After all, gay men probably cheat on their spouses more than you do. Just because some hot young stud has a ring on his finger doesn't mean he doesn't want another mouth on his member. That tapping you hear is his wedding ring on the stall partition, letting you know that lunch is ready if you want to slip into the next stall.