A new annoyance

[lydy]

There's an argument that idiots use when arguing about whether or not homosexuality is a bad thing, unnatural, etc., that totally drives me spare. It's the argument that homosexuals do not have children. This argument is usually in conjunction with the argument that homosexuality is not genetic, but rather a choice, since it could not possibly be passed on in the genes.

To which I want to say, "Hello! Sitting right here! Eldest of four, and my father was a homosexual. What the fuck are you talking about?"

The idea that homosexuals don't have children is weirdly, massively wrong. Quite aside from the various technological possibilities now available, I suspect that homosexuals have been busy having kids since as long as there were, you know, people. There is the incredible social pressure to marry and have kids. Many people have married and procreated with people they didn't particularly care for. Some of them were homosexual. And the drive to have children isn't tied to sexual orientation. Lots of people have had sex with partners they didn't particularly care for in order to procreate. This is one more way to try to ignore the real, lived complexity of people's lives. And it attempts to erase me. Which really, really pisses me off.

Comments

[laurel]

There are many reasons this argument always bugs me, but the one that hits me closest to home is the way it also seems to denigrate heterosexuals who don't procreate. Because if "real marriages" are for procreation and the raising of families, then what about all the married folks who choose not to do so? Or who can't?

Strange how this argument from conservatives as one reason homosexual marriage is bad simultaneously devalues a bunch of heterosexual marriages.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Yes. Every argument that homosexual shouldn't marry because they can't procreate applies to heterosexual couples who choose not to, who want to but are infertile, who are past the age of possibility, and so on.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

Which is one of the reasons they keep on losing their court challenges. They are completely unable to draw a useful distinction between two people in their eighties who want to marry and are heterosexual, and two people who are of the same gender who want to marry.

I find it interesting that the argument has multiple ways to offend people, and that people are taking offense based on their personal experience. Amusing, even. (This is not a criticism. We live where we live, you know?)

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty offense-proof on all grounds. I just think it's stupid.

On second thought, I'm intellectually offended!

What this kind of viewpoint never does is take the next step, or as Sturgeon said, "Ask the next question."

[lydy.livejournal.com]

The "argument" is actually designed to close off questions. It's supposed to be a show-stopper, a way of keeping people from moving forward in their thinking.