Homosexual Equality (the Lessons of History & Clarifying the Concepts of "Marriage")

[Originally Posted 9/24/09; edited and expanded 1/10/15]

Despite being 100% heterosexual, I find choosing to support homosexuals having equality of social status, as well as rights and protections provided under the rule of law, in amazingly simple decision to reach given the constitution and lessons provided by history.  I realize large social changes take time, but how can so many of us still be so blind to the lessons of the past?  It wasn't so long ago in the annals of world history that the majority of men struggled vehemently to deny women equal rights to own property and participate in the voting process of democracies.  Not so long ago the majority of whites in this country so passionately fought, either through force or active bigotry, to deny blacks genuinely-equal social status and legal rights.  And now, our society once again finds itself socially polarized, this time on the topic of homosexual equality.  Well, let us be honest with ourselves.  As past generations had their social revolutions, this generation is, too, experiencing a social revolution, and I would argue success in overthrowing the current social status-quo with regards to granting homosexuals equal social status and legal rights is as every bit as inevitable as the successes hard fought for by blacks and women over the last couple hundred years.

I was told a story recently about a black man who was obliviously broadcasting his side of a cellphone conversation about homosexuals to a small crowd sitting nearby him.  Needless to say, his opinion of homosexuals was passionate, egregiously unfavorable, and, quite simply, astoundingly hypocritical.  Past generations of this man's family, as recently as his parents undoubtedly, poured their blood, sweet, and tears into fighting and struggling against that very same prejudicial attitude towards blacks—simply because they were "different" in some relatively benign way compared to the majority.  Nevertheless, there he was, as blind to the absurdity of his irrational attitudes towards homosexuals as whites' attitudes had been towards his ancestors.  It just goes to show that personal self-awareness and rational reasoning can be absent in anyone, even someone whose heritage should have made him realize what a hypocrite he was being that day.

We all must always be on guard against and actively fight against prejudice and hatred, especially within ourselves.  We each harbor a degree of stereotypical thought processes in our daily lives, usually without being consciously aware of its subconscious influence on our thinking and behavior, and occasionally have what would be deemed by our own self to be 'undesirable' emotional responses to certain circumstances we encounter.  To provide a relatively clear-cut example: if you were a middle- or upper-class white, who genuinely believes they do not have a racist "bone in their body" thanks to a non-racist upbringing, walking through your nice, mostly-white family suburban neighborhood at dusk and see a young African-American male heading towards you on the sidewalk wearing a hoodie that hides all but part of his face and sagging, baggy jeans, there is a really good chance you are going to have an instinctually negative emotional reaction upon first recognition of those circumstances, such as a degree of anxiety, even though your conscious belief system reminds you seconds later that you should not judge that person and their potential threat to you based on a stereotype; despite this rational reminder you may continue to feel tense until you pass him without incident.  This example was constructed to maximize the understanding of the general concepts, but countless, less clear-cut real life examples exist in practically everyone's daily life in which the brain is naturally, inherently, constantly interpreting and evaluating the things in its environment at a subconscious level, using probability as its guide in prioritizing how it evaluates what things should receive what percentage of the finite resource of one's attentive awareness at that moment, and judges what the safest instinctual interpretations of the things going on in that person's environment are.  Because of the way the brain automatically processes information about its environment based on probabilities, which are determined by patterns recognized in past life experiences and engrained "background information"/knowledge, stereotypes we know about, whether we consciously object to stereotyping or not, factor into how the brain instinctively reacts to its environment.  To a large extent, instinctual responses are unavoidable at the moment they occur, and can only be overridden through conscious evaluation of a given situation using good reasoning.  Thus, the path towards social prosperity and harmony, which benefits us all in the end, must begin with a thorough, objective self-evaluation of the quality of one's own rational and moral reasoning and knowledge-base which forms one's established worldview, belief systems, and values.

We need to recognize that marriage under the law and marriage 'under God' need not, and should not, be considered one and the same thing in this debate.  I myself was legally married in a court of law to my wife almost five years before we married through the church.  The argument by the majority of religious people, who improperly entwine the concepts of legal marriage with "spiritual" marriage, and, in so doing, believe that allowing such legal marriages some how sullies the 'sanctity of marriage' ("sanctity" being a term that, by definition, can only be associated with religious marriage 'under God'), that legal marriage should be prohibited for homosexuals, despite the fact that our constitution specifies the necessity of recognizing a 'separation of church and state,' is simply untenable.  Measuring how sanctimonious a marriage is has everything to do with how faithful, loving, and selfless the behavior of the two partners towards one another is, and has nothing to do with what is in their underwear—in similar fashion to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s belief that a person should not be judged based on the color of their skin, but "by the content of their character."  There is no doubt in my mind that there are countless homosexual couples whose behavior is far more laudable than many heterosexual couples.  Let us leave the religious side of the debate to the religious establishments and stop letting conservative religious arguments unconstitutionally influence our government from obeying its own constitutionally established protections.  The 14th Amendment to the Constitution states, "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."  This constitutional amendment did not happen by accident.  It was one of the most consequential and direct results of the Civil War and the overall social struggle to restore the human dignity of, and establish legal rights and protections for, blacks.  It will take time but it is certain that the 14th Amendment, and the same kind of revolutionary social attitude that gave birth to it that exists today, will earn homosexuals equal social status and protection under the law across this country in the years to come.

[The prediction I made nearly five and half years ago, when I first published this post, concerning the social progress that would occur to provide for equal social status and application of law for homosexuals turned out to be correct, though the good fight against prejudice continues....]

Gender Inequality (Response to a College Assignment)

[Originally posted: Wednesday, February 03, 2010]

My overall interpretation of "Gender, Race, and Class in Silicon Valley" was that the primary issue creating inequality (of treatment, opportunity, and support) between the sexes in 'stereotypically male' industries is the common perception, by both sexes, of what gender role constructs are accepted and expected.  Personal family experiences and other cultural influences have shaped the beliefs, attitudes, and perceptions of past and current generations of men and women concerning gender roles.  I found it somewhat surprising that, at least as represented by this author (despite her own gender), the majority of women are as guilty of possessing gender perceptions that propagate workplace inequality as men are.

Despite the continued prevalence of this socioeconomic inequality between the sexes, it is my opinion that the average trending, especially in the U.S. from the mid-20th century to the present, towards more socially liberal attitudes and beliefs in society is gradually eroding the prevalence of the traditional role constructs that are largely responsible for the current gender inequalities.  Therefore, I find it at least relatively reasonable to believe that the pervasiveness of this problem will continue to steadily dissipate over the next few decades.

I thought it would be interesting to point out an example of work-related discrimination that is often experienced by men for similar reasons: male nurses.  A typical perception is that women have a significantly higher capacity for empathy and ability to care for others to a higher interpersonal standard, and that it is not the place of men to have such an occupation.  Therefore, as has been related to me from a female RN, male nurses are far more likely to have to deal with patients that mistreat or devalue them and their work, and are also likely to experience a slightly increased challenge in establishing or maintaining male-male friendships because of their occupation.  Again in this case, persistent cultural role constructs have formed the personal perceptions that feed these (arguably negative) behaviors and reactions.

One particular line in "Violence Against Women" really stood out for me.  "Violence therefore operates as a means to maintain and reinforce women's subordination."  Clearly men who are violent towards women usually consciously or instinctively justify their behavior, at least partially, based on socially-propogated constructs of what a 'real man' is expected to be physically, psychologically, and in their interpersonal behaviors, which include an inherent perception espousing male domination and female subordination through these various socially-promoted male attributes.  As the quoted sentence implies, more often than not, the reason for the violent behavior is to maintain and reinvigorate the man's self-perception of having the aforementioned qualities defined by the prevailing social expectations.  Although I realize I'm treading a fine line here and do not claim women are at all directly responsible for the violence against them, I would suggest that womens' acceptance of these same gender constructs is an underlying reason for the stubborn persistence (staying-power) of individual relationships in which violence has taken place.  I would argue that if abused women had been raised in a social environment in which women were taught and expected to think and behave in ways that were truly equal to men in all practical respects, those same women would be far, far more likely to end an abusive relationship promptly.