Are people under 35 who oppose gay marriage typically unintelligent generally?

[afleitch]

If the nature of gender itself is at the heart of the debate, I don't see how you can claim it is all homophobia.  It's not like people decided they don't like gays and so constructed a definition of gender and marriage around that.

You don't think so? I brought that up earlier;

No. But there is a certain lack of empathy. In order to exclude same sex couples from marriage, those who 'define' marriage tend to do it in such a way (i.e, throwing the idea of commitment under a bus and focusing heavily on procreation and people's 'plumbing') it ends up dismissing a significant number of opposite sex marriages too. That demonstrates it's less about 'defending' marriage and more about excluding same sex couples from it.

That seems to be quite a common practice.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

If the nature of gender itself is at the heart of the debate, I don't see how you can claim it is all homophobia.  It's not like people decided they don't like gays and so constructed a definition of gender and marriage around that.

You don't think so? I brought that up earlier;

No. But there is a certain lack of empathy. In order to exclude same sex couples from marriage, those who 'define' marriage tend to do it in such a way (i.e, throwing the idea of commitment under a bus and focusing heavily on procreation and people's 'plumbing') it ends up dismissing a significant number of opposite sex marriages too. That demonstrates it's less about 'defending' marriage and more about excluding same sex couples from it.

That seems to be quite a common practice.

No, I don't think everything related to how people think about gender is really just about homosexuals. 

[afleitch]

If the nature of gender itself is at the heart of the debate, I don't see how you can claim it is all homophobia.  It's not like people decided they don't like gays and so constructed a definition of gender and marriage around that.

You don't think so? I brought that up earlier;

No. But there is a certain lack of empathy. In order to exclude same sex couples from marriage, those who 'define' marriage tend to do it in such a way (i.e, throwing the idea of commitment under a bus and focusing heavily on procreation and people's 'plumbing') it ends up dismissing a significant number of opposite sex marriages too. That demonstrates it's less about 'defending' marriage and more about excluding same sex couples from it.

That seems to be quite a common practice.

No, I don't think everything related to how people think about gender is really just about homosexuals. 

Of course not. It affects heterosexuals too and pre-conceived notions about gender disproportionately affect women too. That's been seen in the changing definitions of marriage over the course of modern history.

[Mr. Illini]

As someone who has spent most of his time on the northside of Chicago and at the University of Illinois, I can't say I can think of more than 1-2 people in that age group that don't support gay marriage. Those few people aren't necessarily unintelligent. One that I can think of is an evangelical Christian and the other just seems super sheltered (so he would be uneducated on the topic rather than unintelligent).

Thankfully Illinois is blue.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Honestly in my social circles, people who oppose gay marriage might as well be LaRouchites. They're just so fringe and unheard of you can simply assume anyone you meet isn't one. They basically don't exist in your general assumption. So I can't make any real generalizations about them.

I know people who don't care about gay marriage but don't know anyone who is opposed to it. Whether it is rednecks who throw the word "fag" around, members of experimental bands or grad school students, the idea of opposing gay marriage on principle is viewed on a spectrum from being an obnoxious position held by fundamentalists to being akin to neo-nazism.

This is not to say that opposition to gay marriage is a mark of unintelligence but rather that it is an unintelligible position in most of the country at this point.

[Simfan34]

Then you have surrounded yourself with a lot of similar people. I know a lot of people who don't support it, and they are all intelligent, compassionate, and thoughtful.

[memphis]

Honestly in my social circles, people who oppose gay marriage might as well be LaRouchites. They're just so fringe and unheard of you can simply assume anyone you meet isn't one. They basically don't exist in your general assumption. So I can't make any real generalizations about them.

I know people who don't care about gay marriage but don't know anyone who is opposed to it. Whether it is rednecks who throw the word "fag" around, members of experimental bands or grad school students, the idea of opposing gay marriage on principle is viewed on a spectrum from being an obnoxious position held by fundamentalists to being akin to neo-nazism.

This is not to say that opposition to gay marriage is a mark of unintelligence but rather that it is an unintelligible position in most of the country at this point.

My experiences with people I know are similar, but it is important to remember that the people we know are not reflective of the entire country. People cluster into like minded groups. Big Religion is still an enormously powerful institution even if you do not personally know anybody under its control.

[Badger]

In reponse to the OP, no. Many youngs who oppose SSM are intelligent people who do so out of religious beliefs.

[Supersonic]

No, and the people who are saying they are, are probably unintelligent themselves.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

Oh yea. 

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

If the nature of gender itself is at the heart of the debate, I don't see how you can claim it is all homophobia.  It's not like people decided they don't like gays and so constructed a definition of gender and marriage around that.

You don't think so? I brought that up earlier;

No. But there is a certain lack of empathy. In order to exclude same sex couples from marriage, those who 'define' marriage tend to do it in such a way (i.e, throwing the idea of commitment under a bus and focusing heavily on procreation and people's 'plumbing') it ends up dismissing a significant number of opposite sex marriages too. That demonstrates it's less about 'defending' marriage and more about excluding same sex couples from it.

That seems to be quite a common practice.

No, I don't think everything related to how people think about gender is really just about homosexuals. 

Of course not. It affects heterosexuals too and pre-conceived notions about gender disproportionately affect women too. That's been seen in the changing definitions of marriage over the course of modern history.

You seem to be jumping back and forth between cause and effect a lot.

[afleitch]

If the nature of gender itself is at the heart of the debate, I don't see how you can claim it is all homophobia.  It's not like people decided they don't like gays and so constructed a definition of gender and marriage around that.

You don't think so? I brought that up earlier;

No. But there is a certain lack of empathy. In order to exclude same sex couples from marriage, those who 'define' marriage tend to do it in such a way (i.e, throwing the idea of commitment under a bus and focusing heavily on procreation and people's 'plumbing') it ends up dismissing a significant number of opposite sex marriages too. That demonstrates it's less about 'defending' marriage and more about excluding same sex couples from it.

That seems to be quite a common practice.

No, I don't think everything related to how people think about gender is really just about homosexuals. 

Of course not. It affects heterosexuals too and pre-conceived notions about gender disproportionately affect women too. That's been seen in the changing definitions of marriage over the course of modern history.

You seem to be jumping back and forth between cause and effect a lot.

Not particularly. Gender has always been at the heart of the debate when it comes to the act of marriage.

To paraphrase what I've said about this before;

Marriage was almost entirely about property. It was to ensure that property is managed and inherited because that was considered conducive to a civil society. Marriage up until very recently in the west was exclusively about property. Now luckily men and women today in most enlightened nations broadly speaking are equal in law. They are equal in law when they are born, when they are children and when they get married. If that marriage is dissolved then there is a fair hearing (one should hope) concerning that dissolution.

Patriarchy came before marriage. Women's subordination to men at all stages in her life; from her fathers dominion over her as a child and as an asset to be traded, adult males sexual dominion over her in adulthood and so on was the catalyst for establishing marriage as a contractual binding societal agreement. That is why there is marriage. Religions and customs born in cultures of exclusive patriarchy informed those cultural and religious laws that defined marriage. That is why justification in the Christian West for 'erunt animae duae in carne una'; the very words spoken in the marriage vow was intertwined in the set definition of women being subordinate in deed, mind and body to menfolk. In marriage, canonical law (which was interchangeable as 'state' law until secularisation) inferred that the very being or legal existence of the woman was suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of her husband. That meant a man could beat his wife and it was not recognised as assault. He could rape her and it was not recognised as rape because her rights were suspended.

Women, broadly speaking, since antiquity have ben charged with being 'defective.' The Greeks said it, it's found in Colossians, Peter, Ephesians, Corinthians and Timothy and the philosophies of Aquinas and Luther. While the definition of why people get married has changed and we rightly cringe at the 'property' aspect of marriage, we are now aware of the broad spectrum of human sexuality. However this time it's the people who have same sex attraction and form couples who are considered to be 'defective.' That is an extension of the same patriarchal hetero-orthodox positioning that has always been welded by those with political and religious power. Marriage after all was their institution to begin with. That's why they have allowed themselves at various stages in history to regulate it, usually in their own favour (divorce law for example) It's escaping them now of course, because it's increasingly seen as an act of personal commitment.

[Torie]

Superbly written essay there alfteich. I very much enjoyed reading it.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Then you have surrounded yourself with a lot of similar people. I know a lot of people who don't support it, and they are all intelligent, compassionate, and thoughtful.

Even if I wanted to, I could find very few people my age against gay marriage. Its an inexcusable position for youngs who live in between San Diego and Bellingham.

[The Free North]

High intelligence does not always correlate with smart decisions/opinions

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Then you have surrounded yourself with a lot of similar people. I know a lot of people who don't support it, and they are all intelligent, compassionate, and thoughtful.

Even if I wanted to, I could find very few people my age against gay marriage. Its an inexcusable position for youngs who live in between San Diego and Bellingham.

...or where Simfan lives. Actually even moreso.

[Simfan34]

Then you have surrounded yourself with a lot of similar people. I know a lot of people who don't support it, and they are all intelligent, compassionate, and thoughtful.

Even if I wanted to, I could find very few people my age against gay marriage. Its an inexcusable position for youngs who live in between San Diego and Bellingham.

...or where Simfan lives. Actually even moreso.

Yet I know a great many. Hmm. I suppose they come from Ferndale.

[Simfan34]

Also, this attitude is very much one confined to white people. The excessive arrogance about the matter is something that would baffle pretty much any minority group, they being a bit slow on the  sanctimoniousness and sheer utter reversal.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

If the nature of gender itself is at the heart of the debate, I don't see how you can claim it is all homophobia.  It's not like people decided they don't like gays and so constructed a definition of gender and marriage around that.

You don't think so? I brought that up earlier;

No. But there is a certain lack of empathy. In order to exclude same sex couples from marriage, those who 'define' marriage tend to do it in such a way (i.e, throwing the idea of commitment under a bus and focusing heavily on procreation and people's 'plumbing') it ends up dismissing a significant number of opposite sex marriages too. That demonstrates it's less about 'defending' marriage and more about excluding same sex couples from it.

That seems to be quite a common practice.

No, I don't think everything related to how people think about gender is really just about homosexuals. 

Of course not. It affects heterosexuals too and pre-conceived notions about gender disproportionately affect women too. That's been seen in the changing definitions of marriage over the course of modern history.

You seem to be jumping back and forth between cause and effect a lot.

Not particularly. Gender has always been at the heart of the debate when it comes to the act of marriage.

To paraphrase what I've said about this before;

Marriage was almost entirely about property. It was to ensure that property is managed and inherited because that was considered conducive to a civil society. Marriage up until very recently in the west was exclusively about property. Now luckily men and women today in most enlightened nations broadly speaking are equal in law. They are equal in law when they are born, when they are children and when they get married. If that marriage is dissolved then there is a fair hearing (one should hope) concerning that dissolution.

Patriarchy came before marriage. Women's subordination to men at all stages in her life; from her fathers dominion over her as a child and as an asset to be traded, adult males sexual dominion over her in adulthood and so on was the catalyst for establishing marriage as a contractual binding societal agreement. That is why there is marriage. Religions and customs born in cultures of exclusive patriarchy informed those cultural and religious laws that defined marriage. That is why justification in the Christian West for 'erunt animae duae in carne una'; the very words spoken in the marriage vow was intertwined in the set definition of women being subordinate in deed, mind and body to menfolk. In marriage, canonical law (which was interchangeable as 'state' law until secularisation) inferred that the very being or legal existence of the woman was suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of her husband. That meant a man could beat his wife and it was not recognised as assault. He could rape her and it was not recognised as rape because her rights were suspended.

Women, broadly speaking, since antiquity have ben charged with being 'defective.' The Greeks said it, it's found in Colossians, Peter, Ephesians, Corinthians and Timothy and the philosophies of Aquinas and Luther. While the definition of why people get married has changed and we rightly cringe at the 'property' aspect of marriage, we are now aware of the broad spectrum of human sexuality. However this time it's the people who have same sex attraction and form couples who are considered to be 'defective.' That is an extension of the same patriarchal hetero-orthodox positioning that has always been welded by those with political and religious power. Marriage after all was their institution to begin with. That's why they have allowed themselves at various stages in history to regulate it, usually in their own favour (divorce law for example) It's escaping them now of course, because it's increasingly seen as an act of personal commitment.

Property has long been important to marriage and there are good reasons for this that don’t depend on marriage itself merely being mainly a mere vehicle for property.  To say that marriage exists in large part for the sake of inheritance does not mean that marriage is not about the care for children and for loved ones.  It means precisely the opposite, as it is about their provision.  Then again, it is not the only way of doing this, and in cultures where property is not handed down from father to child, still marriage exists.  And when in the many epochs of human history people have been deprived of the ability to hold property and to pass it on to their descendants, still they sought to marry.

We can’t really know for sure how or when marriage started.  Marriage predates the historical record.  What we can say is that marriage is, in its many forms, a human cultural universal, or at least extremely nearly one.    Certainly it is more of a universal than any particular relation of inheritance to gender and lineage, or than any unambiguously patriarchal social organization. 

I don’t buy this argument of Engels and his ideological heirs that marriage and every other institution have their origin and nature merely in power relations.   That does a great disservice to the breadth of human needs and human imagination.  We are creatures of nurture and meaning. 
Bronislaw Malinowski,  a founder of ethnographic method in anthropology, believed that “in most human societies there exists an almost mystical bond of mutual dependence between husband and wife” and even went so far as to say that it is “everywhere based on love and affection.” 

Even while the legal implications of “two souls in one flesh” allowed (at some points) the domination of women,  the poetry and symbolism involved in the formulation itself shouldn’t be disregarded.  Some religious authorities, as you recount, saw women as deficient, but in Genesis the reference to “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” gives a very different account of gender and the origin of marriage.  Adam sees his own insufficiency and need for companionship, and is rescued by the sight of the Woman created from the stuff of his own body.  “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.”  The marriage (in this case matrilocal or neolocal) is based in love, understood as a relation found within one’s flesh to another, rejoined in companionship and intercourse.  Marriage as being about personal commitment (along with a great many other things) is far from a modern invention, and a level of expectation of consent from both partners (while not universal) isn’t either.

[Bojack Horseman]

Anyone who opposes gay marriage ain't very intelligent period. Doesn't matter how old you are.

[Non Swing Voter]

I'm amused that most of the Republicans on this forum have focused in on the fact that I talk to people who bag groceries.  Believe it or not there is a grocery bagger in the league I play softball in. 

However, while the Republicans here have made a compelling case that upper class people and grocery baggers typically don't inter-mingle, few have made a compelling case that those under 35 who oppose gay marriage are not social degenerates. 

It seems from the poll that most agree that people under 35 who oppose gay marriage are generally unintelligent.

[Hifly]

However, while the Republicans here have made a compelling case that upper class people and grocery baggers typically don't inter-mingle, few have made a compelling case that those under 35 who oppose gay marriage are not social degenerates. 

It's funny that you should say that since your level of analysis as to how you think people under 35 who oppose gay marriage are unintelligent was completely flawed, and consisted simply of a couple of lines in which you slagged off working class people. This has again been exemplified by your use of the term; "social degenerates", to refer to those who "bag groceries" and whoever has a lower paid job than yourself. You're a disgrace.

[Brittain33]

Then you have surrounded yourself with a lot of similar people. I know a lot of people who don't support it, and they are all intelligent, compassionate, and thoughtful.

...but perhaps not when it comes to this issue.

[RosettaStoned]

Anyone who opposes gay marriage ain't very intelligent period. Doesn't matter how old you are.

 Indeed.

[Non Swing Voter]

However, while the Republicans here have made a compelling case that upper class people and grocery baggers typically don't inter-mingle, few have made a compelling case that those under 35 who oppose gay marriage are not social degenerates. 

It's funny that you should say that since your level of analysis as to how you think people under 35 who oppose gay marriage are unintelligent was completely flawed, and consisted simply of a couple of lines in which you slagged off working class people. This has again been exemplified by your use of the term; "social degenerates", to refer to those who "bag groceries" and whoever has a lower paid job than yourself. You're a disgrace.

You twist every post, how disgusting you are.  I called Republicans under 35 who oppose gay marriage social degenerates (you must be one), not grocery baggers.  You are either inept and cannot read the post or a liar.  Either way I will never again read one of your posts.