In all the discussions about Same Sex Marriage, the rarely-acknowledged elephant in the room is that there is no coherent non-religious opposition. The religious opposition, of course, boils down to “people who are not members of my chosen religion should nto have the same civil rights as people who are members,” so it makes sense that opponents of SSM would cast about for a reason beyond the sexual orientation of Paul. When I tried to bring attention to this lately, there were quite a few protests, and cries of, “but my opposition has nothing to do with religion! I just don’t see SSM as part of the American legal tradition,” or, “I just think that past examples of SSM in other cultures have been transient.”
But here’s the thing. Those reasons are religious.
There was gay marriage in ancient Rome. When did it stop? When Christianity took over the empire.
There were socially sanctioned same sex relationships among many indigenous North American civilizations. When did they stop? When they were converted, often forceably, to Christianity.
Every (or nearly every … I’m not encyclopedia-man here) post-Roman Western European civilization was officially Christian. The legal tradition they handed down to us was a Christian legal tradition. Christian morality became inexorably bound up in the law, to the point where things like blasphemy were considered crimes.
Thus, when someone says, “Hey, those traditions of Same Sex Marriage in other cultures sure seemed temporary,” what they’re really saying is, “Hey, those traditions of Same Sex Marriage in other cultures sure are part of a non-Christian tradition that ended when we made them convert.”
When someone says “I just don’t see examples of legally/socially sanctioned Same Sex Marriage in western civilization,” ((And by the way, even phrasing the argument in such a way that you talk about ‘western civilizations’ is really very racist. In order for it to make a lick of sense, I would have to be convinced that we somehow have more in common with the 11th century French than we do with the Iroquois Confederacy whom we based much of our Constitution on. More in common beyond “but America’s supposed to be white,” I mean.)) what they’re really saying is, “I just don’t see examples of legally/socially sanctioned Same Sex Marriage in civilizations with enforced Christianity.”
When someone says “I just don’t see examples of legally/socially sanctioned Same Sex Marriage in the United States,” what they’re really saying is, “I just don’t see examples of legally/socially sanctioned Same Sex Marriage in a country whose legal code grew from laws based on Christianity.”
And of course, when someone says, “I’m opposed to Same Sex Marriage because marriage has always been between a man and a woman,” what they’re really saying ((Aside from, “I am ignorant of history and other cultures”)) is, “There was a time when it was against the law to follow another religion, and I sure miss that.”
There was a time when it was illegal to do business on a Sunday. There was a time when adultery was illegal. That was because of this. There was a time when sodomy was illegal, and that was because of this. As time has gone on, those things have been jettisoned from the American legal tradition, in part because of the understanding that there ought to be a distinction between the legal and the religious. The same is true here.
Beyond all that, of course, argument from tradition is a logical fallacy. Knowing how people used to do things ‘way back when’ doesn’t hold any logical or moral weight. If it’s a good idea, we should do it now. If it’s a bad idea, we shouldn’t. Whether or not the Hittites, the Franks, the Normans, or the Aztecs allowed Same Sex Marriage or not is a hell of a red herring.
Please do not comment unless you accept the basic dignity, equality, and inherent worth of all people.
There was a time when adultery was illegal. That was because of this.
I’m pretty sure adultery has been disapproved, especially for wives, even in many non-Christian cultures, and was disapproved before the birth of Christ. The degree to which there is something that can be described as a legal code in the culture makes a difference in whether it can be said that adultery was “illegal,” but any society where inheritance passes through the male line is going to try to police women’s sexuality to ensure that men’s heirs are the men’s biological children.
To the extent that the government recognizes something called marriage, and that marriage involves sex, there’s probably going to be some restrictions on sex outside marriage, at least for heterosexuals who have to deal with the baby problem. The solution for men’s sexuality probably will be multiple wives/ concubines (as in Old Testament Judaism, both old and contemporary Islam, and much of East Asia) whose offspring have a recognized claim on the men.
Oh, certainly. My point there wasn’t that it was a uniquely Christian prohibition, just that:
1) The reason it was illegal in early America was very probably Christianity.
and
2) More importantly, the reason it’s not a crime now is because of the (perfectly appropriate) decoupling of law and religion.
—Myca
I’m not trying to be anti-SSM, because I’m not. I am, however, a thwarted classics enthusiast, and everything I know about Roman culture and history is very anti-same sex relationships. They acquitted slaves of murdering their master because of allegations that he was abusing the male slaves sexually. That’s how repugnant the upper and middle classes of Roman culture found male-male sex. So, I’m not disputing that ancient Athens really accepted and promoted male-male relationships, but I’d like at least a name that I can validate the Roman same sex marriage bit on. Because all my previous research and schooling is wrong then.
Myca,
But adultery is still a crime in many American jurisdictions. Lawrence v. Texas carved out adultery as a sexual prohibition that could remain even as sodomy fell, because adultery deals with the state regulation of marriage. By getting married in Virginia and other states that prohibit adultery, you’re agreeing to sexual fidelity until death/ divorce.
Whit,
From what I’ve heard, Cicero regarded the younger Curio’s relationship with another man as a marriage. Martial and Juvenal both mention public ceremonies involving the families, dowries, and legal niceties. Nero married two men in succession, both in public ceremonies with the ritual appropriate to legal marriage. At least one of these unions was recognized by Greeks and Romans, and the spouse was accorded the honors of an empress.
Hear hear!
I don’t think there was any historic example of Democracy with universal adult suffrage before a century ago, for instance, but that doesn’t prove that universal suffrage is a bad idea. There was no internet for the vast majority of human history, but that doesn’t make the internet a bad idea. Etc, etc..
1) I agree with Ampersand: “new” idea does not mean “bad” – and sometimes it just means “inevitable”, even for conservatives.
2) I am going to write a long comment, I hope you might find it interesting or at least don’t mind – but I studied Greek and Latin literature for more or less five years so…
In most of ancient Greece same-sex relationships were accepted and encouraged, as long as they were between an active adult and a passive adolescent male (paederastia). The Greek lyric poems, the Achilles/Patroclos relationship in the Iliad, the Jupiter(Zeus)/Ganymede myth all fall in this category.
On the other hand, Aristophanes uses a male homosexual that has a relationship with an adult as a recurring “comic relief” with very, *very* homophobic tones.
An exception are the lyrics by Sappho in which she loves (and is loved back by) other women. But: she still has an husband and a daughter, and eventually all her lovers – that are also her pupils, a female version of paederastia – get married in turn.
Another exception was a part of the Spartan army that was composed by lovers fighting side to side – but I don’t know much about it, I studied literature more than history.
It is also worth noting that the paederastia originated also from considering women much more inferior than men (this did not hold in Sparta, and in Corinth held less than in Athens, but still). So: not a sexual liberation I want to be part of!
Then, Rome. Ancient (early republican) Rome was a place where everybody admired an husband that had beaten his wife to death for drinking a cup of wine (really, it’s in Cato the elder). Where “men were real men”, that ruled the family with iron fist and didn’t want to pay for other men’s children (and no divorce allowed). Where one of the founding myths of the town was the rape of the women of the neighbouring town, or how a raped wife (Lucretia) had killed herself to preserve her honour, and all that sort of stuff. Guess what? Homosexuals not welcome.
Late Republic and Empire: Greece is the place where the hip culture (or the equivalent of “hip” back then) comes from, so gays get more and more accepted. But still: the “real man” is active – Nero is the husband, his lover is the wife.
Then Christianity, with the abhorrence of the same-sex love and of the rights of women that were so typical in Israel and in the few old-fashioned Roman families left…
But not after a struggle inside the Christian community itself! In the New Testament there are for sure (a) an eunuch that is baptized/saved in the Acts of the Apostles (b) a woman deacon (in a letter by none but Paul, if I remember correctly). Some interpret that the “slave” of the centurion that Jesus saves (without commenting on the centurion’s morality) is the centurion’s boyfriend (a paederastic relationship) – and given that the word for “valet” and “younger boyfriend” are the same it makes sense. Some historians have also dug up testimonies of same-sex unions celebrated by the early Christians in Rome, that evidently had absorbed the acceptance for gays of the capital (or had just thought that if Jesus preached love they had to accept love in all its forms).
Ok, here endeth the lesson. I hope it was not too boring.
Wow . . . you’re totally right, and I was honestly unaware of it. How amazingly barbaric!
I’ll add that to the list of ‘laws that grew out of the unholy hybridizing of religion and government and need repealing.’
—Myca
Marta, oh no, divorce was allowed in ancient Roman civilization. Livia divorced her first husband to marry Octavian, for example. Often, for rich women, the terms of divorce were written into the marriage contract such that the husband (who was often a social climber, a la Caesar) had to return his wife’s dowry upon divorce, but got to keep custody of the first 6 children of the union. I have entire notebooks filled with my notes on this stuff, so maybe I should go dig them up.
Ah, well, Nero bent a lot of rules because he was emperor and who was going to stop him? I may chase down the martial and juvenal cites.
Right, exactly, which is why it cuts no mustard with me when people say, “Democracy has always been defined as the vote being available to landed men of the appropriate race! We can’t redefine democracy!”
Oh, weird. I guess they don’t say that. How odd. It’s as if there’s some other consideration in play that they’re avoiding discussing.
—Myca
Barbaric?
It’s silly to tie the legal recognition of a relationship to whether that relationship includes sexual fidelity, and maybe we should get rid of adultery as a ground for divorce as well, but “barbaric” seems like an overstatement. This is the state’s requirement for people to obtain a governmental privilege. I suppose it would be better if the state simply revoked marriage recognition upon adultery, but that’s a discentive that potentially punishes the spouse of the adulterer.
It was more problematic when states’ anti-fornication laws were in effect (I think they’re now all abrogated by Lawrence), because then people didn’t have an option: either they got married and were bound by that, or they could be prosecuted for fornication. But now people can choose whether they want to be saddled with the demands of marriage or if they prefer to keep their relationship out of such state-mandated strictures.
I think the problem with your framing, PG, is that it means that as long as entry into a certain situation is voluntary, no government controls on it could be termed barbaric.
My perception is probably tinged by having been in a marriage that did not include sexual fidelity, and what a ridiculous intrusion both my wife and I would have considered it if our state had required it.
I was using barbaric in terms of ‘primitive; unsophisticated,’ which I think is a reasonable term for the idea that all marriages ought to be bound by law to a certain relationship model rather than bound by contract to whatever the people involved work out. In any case, I think barbaric is a subjective enough word that we can reasonably disagree as to its application here.
—Myca
PG, a crime as in you could go to jail for it? That’s going beyond what the state requires of you to get a government privilege. Or what do you mean by crime?
Myca,
I was using barbaric in terms of ‘primitive; unsophisticated,’ which I think is a reasonable term for the idea that all marriages ought to be bound by law to a certain relationship model rather than bound by contract to whatever the people involved work out.
Right, but marriage is like a default, already-filled-out-form kind of a contract for a relationship. I know people who are constructing their own legal form for their relationships through various contracts regarding inheritance, power of attorney, etc., because they don’t want to get married and be stuck in the default contract. I think it sort of comes back to the discussion about polygamy — the current model of marriage may be too restrictive and not fit people’s needs, but we have to be aware of the ways in which we need to actually change marriage to accommodate those needs, instead of pretending that marriage already does and it’s just a matter of changing a label here and there.
chingona,
I don’t think adultery is more than a misdemeanor in any state. In order to ensure that people comply with a requirement for a license, you either have to de-license them upon non-compliance or independently punish them without license revocation. If the state is concerned that revoking marriage recognition would unjustly punish the non-adulterous spouse (who conventionally was seen as the victim of the adultery), the remaining alternative is to criminalize the adultery.
Most states don’t enforce their adultery prohibitions, but the U.S. military slightly more often does, albeit usually piling the charge on top of other offenses.
Um,
– you tell them to look North. As in Canada. As in one of the “free democracies” with common historical, political, and philosophical roots to the US (including Christianity).
In fact, we are the closest analogue to the US on the planet – except we have more civil rights, because we have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms that actually works (took a long time to get it, but…). And we have SSM. Completely, none of this civil unions stuff.
I am constantly amazed at any arguments for/against SSM in the US that completely fail to take Canada into consideration. You’d think it would be a sure hammer for the pro-SSM side.
You don’t need to rely on semantics, and tell them “what they’re really saying is, “I just don’t see examples of legally/socially sanctioned Same Sex Marriage in civilizations with enforced Christianity.”” You just have to find north on a compass.
PG, I was pretty sure that it wasn’t enforced much, but neither were the sodomy laws, and they still needed to come off the books. This is pretty tangential to the post, but I just don’t see the state interest in criminalizing consensual sexual behavior between adults, You say, “This is the state’s requirement for people to obtain a governmental privilege.” Okay, but why? Other than imposing an arbitrary set of moral standards. What’s the public interest at stake? (And I’m talking particularly about criminalizing adultery, not creating legal forms for various poly relationships.)
My understanding is that the public interest is in preserving marriages, just like restrictions on divorce in most states (except Nevada, of course) are done to preserve marriage. Divorce restrictions exist so people won’t jump in and out of marriage too easily and thoughtlessly. Adultery prohibitions exist to provide an additional discentive (in addition to the whole “betraying your spouse” issue) to sexual infidelity.
Obviously, this rationale assumes that the person who is having an extramarital affair is doing so without the enthusiastic consent of a spouse. (Indeed, states limit adultery as a ground for divorce if the spouse was aware of the adultery for years and only starts complaining when he wants to get a divorce.) Maybe we should create a check-box on marriage licenses so people who are getting the “we only have sex with each other, forever. and ever. and ever…” kind of marriage are sure that they’re on the same wavelength, as are the “it’s not going to be a problem if we have sex with other people, right?”
But adultery really does break up a lot of marriages and inasmuch as the state has a rational interest in preserving marriages, it also has a rational interest in preventing adultery. Rational interest =/= best way to achieve goal.
Also, re: the comparison to the sodomy laws, they actually were frequently used pretextually. For example, a prosecutor who couldn’t make a sexual assault charge stick because the jury didn’t believe that the victim refused consent would throw in a sodomy charge if the defendant had admitted to such acts but claimed they were consensual. People don’t hear about those prosecutions because a maybe-rapist is a far less sympathetic defendant with whom to challenge the sodomy laws.
Hi Minerva,
Your right, it has been around since federally since July 20, 2005 according to wikipedia, which is longer than I expected. Of course, Harper took power in 2006 so it only makes sense that Martin Implemented in 2005.
SSM Canada
The interesting thing about it, while there is a defiantely a certain percentage against it, it is not a hot button issue.
All the following assertions are from Lefkowitz and Fant’s wonderful compilation of translated primary sources, Women’s Life in Greece and Rome. I can provide page numbers and citations if anyone wants.
From the laws of the kings: a wife could not initiate divorce but a husband could initiate divorce for the use of magic, drugs, counterfeiting the keys, or adultery. If he divorces for any other cause, part of his estate should go to the wife and be dedicated to Ceres. Selling your wife was a capital offense.
In 265 BC, Spurius Carvilius Ruga divorced his wife for sterility, the first recorded in Roman law.
From the Julian marriage laws:
Husbands were compelled to divorce their wives for adultery. They may remarry at a later date if they wish.
Marriage is the union of male and female and the sharing of life together, involving both divine and human law.
Cohabitation with a free woman is to be considered marriage not concubinage, unless she is a prostitute.
A marriage can only exist if all agree, that is the parties and those in whose power they are. (Children were considered to be in their father’s or grandfather’s power under the legal principle of patria potestas, except for married daughters, who fell under their husband’s/father-in-law’s/grandfather-in-law’s control.)
When a divorce takes place, if the woman is in her own power, she herself has the right to sue for the recovery of the dowry. … The adultery of a husband, if he is of age, is punished by requiring him to return the dowry at once, if it was to have been returned after a certain time; if his offense is less grave, it must be returned within six months…
Heya Minerva, I totally agree. I think discussing the history of SSM and omitting the fact that there are countries (including our neighbors to the north) currently performing them quite happily, is dumb. Hell, for that matter, two of our states are happily performing gay marriages right now, and the world hasn’t ended.
The problem from my end is that the folks who make the ‘THAT’S REDEFINING MARRIAGE!!11!” argument generally consider Canada (and Denmark, and South Africa, etc, etc,) to be part of that redefinition. They consider themselves brave warriors in the fight for … something. But certainly not homophobia or religious intolerance. No, no, certainly not.
Anyway, yeah, I sometimes point it out because it’s worth keeping in mind, but when they say ‘examples of same sex marriage in history,’ they’re really referring to pre-20th century (because the modern world is baaaaad), so I tend to skip it.
—Myca
What do you mean “was”?
Section 798.01, Florida Statutes.
And as for fornication,
Maximum penalty being 60 days imprisonment and/or a $500.00 fine.
I am seriously offended. Christianity is not the problem-it is the church-the political institution-that is the problem. Speaking of these types of generalities is very harmful. You might as well say that Islam and Judaism is the problem, which certainly leaves a lot of people out. The church that I attend has a lesbian partner who recently got married to her partner of fifteen years. We are a feminist congregation that has transexuals, homosexuals, bisexuals, straight folk, black, white, and Asian members. We did not like the policies of other churches, so even though we are still Christian, we decided to attack the institution by creating the only nondenominational feminist Christian denomination in the nation. Be a little more open-minded. Attack the institution, not the believers, which is what you do when you generalize like that.
Hey Corey, welcome!
The title of the post was deliberately provocative, but I stand by it, in the context of the post. I don’t think that ‘Christianity is the problem’ in terms of all the ills of the world, the problems of the modern world, or the problems of history, but when it comes to asking specifically, “why don’t western civilizations have much of a history of same sex marriage, and why did many indigenous cultures abandon their SSM traditions,” historically, Christianity is absolutely the problem.
Nowadays there are quite a few different Christian traditions, and yes, some of them are GLBTQ friendly. I attend a Unitarian church myself, which though not strictly Christian, does have quite a few GLBTQ friendly Christians in attendance. In the span of time I was discussing in the post, though, that wasn’t the case, either for the Unitarians or any other Christian tradition I’m aware of.
Thank you for commenting, though, because I do want to take this opportunity to point out how many churches, including yours and mine, perform same sex weddings and have for years! I believe that the reason that the USA hasn’t had nationwide legal Same Sex Marriages up until recently is because of the influence of the early churches, but now it’s become an issue of religious freedom . . . the freedom to have your religious choices respected just as much as the choices of next fellow.
—Myca
They acquitted slaves of murdering their master because of allegations that he was abusing the male slaves sexually.
Couldn’t that just mean they considered it wrong to rape guys?
@ Harold
– yep, since 2005 and our country has not yet gone down in flames! Or the Netherlands, Norway, etc…
Harper sorta danced around “re-opening the issue” when elected in 2006 to appease his constituency of religious rightists – but the fact is it’s a Charter right means the government will not get anywhere trying to fight it (though there is the “notwithstanding” clause that allows gov’ts to drag their heels for 5 years on something). And cracking open the Charter to remove rights means cracking open the Constitution – which the gov’t does NOT want to do, that opens whole cases of worms up here (and hasn’t been successful the last two times they tried it anyway).
Access to $$ for Charter challenges even used to be provided by the gov’t but the Cons killed that, surprise surprise.
You guys really need something like this. It’s not perfect but it’s working for us on some of these issues. Possibly takes a progressive Supreme Court to really apply it though. Apparently a criticism of the ERA was that it would enable SSM, and state-level ERAs have been used in that way. Worth considering.
Whit, thank you for the informations! (By the way, when I said “no divorce” I was thinking of the really early Rome, Kings/early Republic.)
Myca: my church in Italy is quite strictly Christian, and they celebrate unions of same-sex couples. They cannot call them “marriages” because (a) still not all of the church is convinced (b) there could be legal problems with the State ending in the church losing the license to celebrate marriages at all. They are Waldensians, in case you’re wondering.
About “redefinition of marriage”: here’s an image you might have seen somewhere else: http://feathers.tumblr.com/post/64969624/conundrum-lollodj-ilgobbomalefico – and that’s referring to the US only!
Oh, Marta, that’s a lovely image.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Israel
A data point of sorts: Israel recognizes SSM performed in other countries, and allows people to be openly homosexual in the military.
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Wow. Way to erase LGBTQ Christians who are struggling to change the culture of their institutions or, in the case of every single member of the clergy at my church, breaking off from those institutions and forming affirming, welcoming parishes where same-sex marriages are performed and celebrated, and where the congregation is active every single day in the fight for equality.
My faith is not “The Problem,” thanks.
angela,
See comment #22, in which Myca explains for those who read only the post title and not the post that the post is about Christianity’s historical role in quashing SSM where it had arisen in other cultures. Do you have any information to refute this claim?
Yeah, a surprising number of Christians are seeing the title and freaking the hell out, assuming that the post is about how Christianity represents everything that is wrong with the universe or something.
I’m all for debating the ideas in the post, but I’m not really interested in defending things I never said.
—Myca
The Roman justice system didn’t really care if masters raped their slaves, because slaves were required by law to do anything their masters instructed. However, if a slave disobeyed his master or failed to offer him aid when he was being attacked, he could be put to death. And if one slave killed his master, then the rest of the slaves in the household would also be put to death.
So for a Roman jury to acquit a group of slaves of murdering their master, because they felt that the master’s abuse of his slaves was so egregious (and flagrant, this master had a reputation of flaunting his sexual use of male slaves) as to justify the murder, really speaks to just how distasteful male-male relationships were within ancient Roman culture. I couldn’t get to the notebook I wanted last night, so I don’t remember the name. Will look tonight.
For the classics folks in this thread, there’s also a serious debate about the acceptability of homosexuality even in ancient Greece — Martha Nussbaum’s reputation as a scholar took a hit over this. Testifying in Colorado over the Amendment 2 that prohibited anti-discrimination legislation that would protect homosexuals,* Nussbaum basically took Myca’s stance here that Christianity pushed condemnation of homosexuality onto Greek culture, while Robert P. George and John Finnis argued that it was a “preposterous claim that moral objections to homosexual conduct in the West originate with Christianity.”
So for those interested in debating the ideas in the post instead of whining about its title, I recommend reading George’s and Finnis’s writings on the matter, which should provide some intellectual firepower for challenging Myca’s claims.
* Amendment 2 eventually was found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in Romer v. Evans. It is notable that Amendment 2 didn’t bar all legislation that would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation (which would protect heteros from discrimination too); it only barred protection of LGB folks:
Hm, interesting link, PG. Nussbaum’s claim is a little broader than mine, in that she claimed that, “moral objections to homosexual conduct in the West originate with Christianity,” which is not a claim I have the information to make with any kind of confidence.
My claim has much more to do with pointing out several specific instances of state/socially sanctioned same sex relationships that were ended by Christianity, and recognizing how ludicrous it is to say, in that context, “Well, I’d support SSM if only we had post-Roman western world examples of it.”
I’m not singling Christianity out except that it’s the particular historically homophobic religion that ended up dominating post-Roman Europe. If Mithraism were just as homophobic, had dominated as thoroughly, and we had evidence of it ending several pre-existing state/socially sanctioned same-sex arrangements, the post would be titled, “Mithraism Is The Problem.”
Of course, then I’d get hella people upset that I was talking bad about Sol Invictus. You win some, you lose some.
—Myca
Myca,
But Finnis isn’t saying that other religions contributed to intolerance of homosexuality; according to the article,
I don’t have the background in the Greeks’ non-political philosophy to say whether Finnis is full of it or not, but his argument is that there was secular and not just religious opposition to homosexuality. Which makes sense; I think intolerance of homosexuality, and especially opposition to same-sex marriage, is grounded in beliefs about the importance of gender roles that correspond to one’s biological sex, and such beliefs certainly aren’t held only by religious people.
I don’t have the background in the Greeks’ non-political philosophy to say whether Finnis is full of it or not,
Looks like a big yes to me. Though I think secular opposition to homosexuality did exist, at least if you include all sexual acts between men in “homosexuality”.
Ancient Rome and Greece are very separate entities, until of course, Rome conquered the Greek city-states. There was definitely state-sanctioned same-sex relationships in some greek city-states, and an overall intellectual approval of the older man mentors and has intercrural sex with pubescent boy – by Socrates, and Aristotle at the very least. The philosophers (and roman law) held that women were inherently mentally inferior to men, and the greeks carried that to it’s inevitable conclusion that the most fulfilling relationship a man could have would be with another man.
So, to be clear, I have *no* problem with the statement “There was gay marriage in ancient Greece. When did it stop? When Constantine converted to Christianity.” I do have a problem with the statement that it was just as fine by Roman law, because Nero is one exceptional example. And I can quote the king’s laws to the emperor Justinian’s as defining marriage in Roman territory as the union of a man and a woman.
Myca – I think the issue your argument doesn’t confront is that it’s flipping between two different senses of marriage.
There’s marriage as a generic social tradition, and you can talk about marriage in ancient Egypt or ancient Rome or of tribes people who’ve no contact with Christianity. And there’s also the specific legal tradition of marriage in western countries at the moment, which is still heavily influenced by the Christian tradition.
I think this is a problem for you because when people advocate Same Sex Marriage, they’re not doing it in the generic sense of marriage, they’re trying to buy into the current western Christian-derived tradition of marriage. The rights SSM advocates are advocating for are derived from the Christian tradition – things like inheritance, or insurance or familial rights. Were the modern tradition of marriage derived from the indigenous North American or Roman civilizations Same Sex Marriage advocates would have (or be advocating) for a different bundle of right to the ones they currently have (or want, depending on jurisdiction).
This cuts both ways. I’m not sure you can write off the protests of being pseudo-religious, while what advocates of Same Sex Marriage are advocating for is just as pseudo-religious too. I’m not sure you can say Christianity is the Problem, when without Christianity SSM advocates would be focused on obtaining a very different form of marriage to the one they currently are.
It’s very difficult to draw a separation between marriage and Christianity the way you try to do. Had Christianity never existed SSM advocates would want something different to what they currently want, and be advocating something very different instead. It’s just as legitimate to say that the rarely-acknowledged elephant in the room is that there is no coherent non-religious advocacy of SSM.
james,
Could you explain what exactly is Christian about the legal institution of marriage in the U.S., taking into account the variations across state jurisdictions in matters like “inheritance, or insurance or familial rights”? How is “Christian marriage” different from, say, “Roman marriage,” given that Christianity was merging into the Roman Empire? Are you making a claim about canon law here?
It’s just as legitimate to say that the rarely-acknowledged elephant in the room is that there is no coherent non-religious advocacy of SSM.
I don’t understand how this is so. The principle non-religious argument for SSM is based on equality – equality between gay people and straight people and more simply, equality between men and women, and it’s based on equality within the legal framework of marriage as it exists in our society today. Whether you agree or not, there’s nothing incoherent about it.
What’s the Christian argument for letting me marry my husband again? We’re both atheists.
James, do you believe that you meet the moderation guidelines for this post?
They are:
What does Justinian have to do with it again?
As for james’ argument, we obviously can’t know what would have happened to Western marriage had Christianity never existed, but we know that marriage in US law has nothing to do with religion anymore. (Indeed, various people object to it for that reason and e.g. seek “covenant” versions.) We know the arguments for allowing same-sex marriage do not need to invoke religion, nor do they depend on hypothetical threats that seem more dubious by the day.
This is slightly off-topic, but I had a kind of breakthrough the other day while talking to someone who thinks that allowing same-sex marriage will devalue marriage to heterosexuals.
I realized that when liberals talk about marriage, what they consider desirable are good marriages — marriages in which both partners are reasonably satisfied and have no burning desire to get out of the marriage. This is why liberals worry about teenagers’ getting married, especially if the wedding is precipitated by an unintended pregnancy; they don’t think those are conditions that foster the good marriage. (Particularly given Western social norms that since at least the Victorian era have emphasized marriage as a site of emotional compatibility rather than just a method of making and raising offspring.) That’s why liberals cite Britney Spears so often as an example of something on which same-sex marriage surely can be an improvement: at least gays seem inclined to marry long term partners rather than whoever’s with them in Vegas on a given weekend.
In contrast, conservatives generally just want to maximize the number of people who get and stay married, regardless of how happy they are in the marriage, so long as they aren’t hitting each other or the kids too hard, nor conceiving any children outside the marriage. This is why you see conservatives like Maggie Gallagher talking about how hetero marriage already has been “damaged” by no-fault divorce and other innovations that made it easier for people to escape bad marriages, as well as the resistance in some conservative jurisdictions like South Carolina to recognizing emotional abuse as a ground for divorce. Of course, hetero marriage hasn’t been so damaged that allowing gays to marry won’t somehow perpetuate MORE damage. What bothers conservatives about Britney is not how easily she got married, but how easily she got the marriage annulled instead of having to abide by her drunken commitment.
This is a really under-acknowledged way in which liberals and conservatives think they understand what the other is talking about, but actually don’t. The kind of marriage that conservatives want to preserve, in its tight-lipped unhappiness and staying together not just for the children’s rearing but also for the neighbors’ perpetual approval, is not the kind of marriage that liberals consider worth preserving.
From the reading I have done across historical cultures, if the culture has a serious interest in raising the birthrate of legitimate citizens, they tend to start cracking down on everything that isn’t hetero married people having babymaking sorts of sex. On the grounds that visiting a brothel or having a male lover is a distraction from what you’re supposed to be doing.
There is also a different way of looking at sexuality in the historic past. There was less worry about what gender you were sleeping with, certainly, but a lot of worry about whether (if male) you were the penetrator or the penetratee, because there was an institutionalized sexism that made women lesser than men, and a man who submitted to oral or anal penetration put himself in the position of a woman.
I think theologically Christianity got contaminated by certain Greek philosophies that were world-negating rather than world-affirming. If the body is in itself corrupt, then what it enjoys is corrupt, and you can only excuse the pleasure of sexuality with the excuse that you have to make babies to continue the family name and such.
So, to be clear, I have *no* problem with the statement “There was gay marriage in ancient Greece. When did it stop? When Constantine converted to Christianity.”
Whit (and others),
I think that this statement is actually false, at least in the way that gay marriage is being recognized in those countries and states where it is. The homosexual relationships in ancient Greece (and many, if not all, of the other instances cited here and in these kinds of discussions in general) were external to what was understood as marriage. When the Greeks had homosexual sex with young men, for example, this relationship was considered to be substantially different in nature to the relationship that a man had with his wife.
Throughout history homosexual relationships have had varying degrees of recognition and/or “place” in society. But I know of no real example of a widely accepted marriage-like relationship between two men or women. Certainly Christianity put a damper on extra-marital and non-procreative sexual relationships. So if you want to say that Christianity is to blame for suppression of homosexual acts then I think that’s accurate. But what we want recognized when we want same-sex marriages recognized is a relationship between two men or two women that is substantially the same as the relationship between a man and woman. And I just don’t see that as having ever happened before.
“But I know of no real example of a widely accepted marriage-like relationship between two men or women.”
Pueblo peoples.
Ancient Rome.
Native American two-spirit traditions.
Both of which were cited specifically in the first coupel paragraphs of the post.
—Myca
Myca, can you site the article you had on same-sex marriage in ancient rome? because I think people were wanting some direct evidence. I remember you showing it to me once, I think.
Ancient Rome.
Native American two-spirit traditions.
Both of which were cited specifically in the first coupel paragraphs of the post.
I have to disagree with the Native American concept of two-spirit as being an historic example of gay marriage. It is a better example of a societal role for ‘non-traditional’ gender identity and it is of an instance of marriage between homosexuals. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding of two-spirited individuals was that they carried on a particular role within the society, and that they were believed to have special or mystical qualities about them. This other-ness is substantially different than modern gay marriage. Again, I view this primarily as an example of how a particular society or group of societies treats homosexuality and gender identity rather than an example of gay marriage before Christianity.
And just because these examples were cited above doesn’t mean that I failed to acknowledge them. I focused on Greece because the most scholarship is there of homosexual relationships. And as pointed out, that ancient Rome had gay marriage has been questioned by several of the commenters here.
I’m not denying that pre-Christian societies had a different acceptance of homosexuality than pre-modern and even modern Christian societies. What I’m saying is that they even differ from how we view homosexuality now. I see it as a difference of gays as “other” v. gays as “same”. And even though some Native American societies sanctioned same-sex relationships, did they treat them as identical in essence to opposite-sex relationships?
“And even though some Native American societies sanctioned same-sex relationships, did they treat them as identical in essence to opposite-sex relationships?”
Yes.
“I have to disagree with the Native American concept of two-spirit as being an historic example of gay marriage. It is a better example of a societal role for ‘non-traditional’ gender identity and it is of an instance of marriage between homosexuals. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding of two-spirited individuals was that they carried on a particular role within the society, and that they were believed to have special or mystical qualities about them.”
Sigh.
Yeah, sort of. But also not necessarily.
Look, there’s a whole basic problem with the fact that you want to look at this tradition through a western lens and make it about otherness v sameness, or about gender identity AS OPPOSED TO homosexuality, or about mysticality or whatever. I mean, yes, there’s a mystical component to the whole concept, but … that doesn’t mean that they “occupy a special role in society” any more than people in general occupy special roles in society. The entire idea that you can separate out ‘mysticality’ as a thing that isn’t just, holistically, part of existence is very western in its origin.
Anyway, I think I’m done No True Scottsmaning with y’all. You’ll always be able to come up with a reason why that fabric isn’t really tartan.
“And even though some Native American societies sanctioned same-sex relationships, did they treat them as identical in essence to opposite-sex relationships?”
Yes.
Can you point me towards a discussion of this? I’m curious to read more about it. My impression was that the answer to that was no.
Look, there’s a whole basic problem with the fact that you want to look at this tradition through a western lens and make it about otherness v sameness, or about gender identity AS OPPOSED TO homosexuality, or about mysticality or whatever. I mean, yes, there’s a mystical component to the whole concept, but … that doesn’t mean that they “occupy a special role in society” any more than people in general occupy special roles in society. The entire idea that you can separate out ‘mysticality’ as a thing that isn’t just, holistically, part of existence is very western in its origin.
I have to take this a few steps at a time. I have read several different articles detailing the various roles that two-spirited people played in certain native American societies. I did not portray them as something other; the scholarship did. I am trying to understand the various incarnations of same-sex relationships throughout history and relate them to the current drive for modern same sex marriage.
Second, of course I’m looking at it through a western lens and so is virtually everybody else. Gay marriage is arising as a modern question not in spite of western culture but because of it. And that is why it is arising in this particular way; as a measure of equality. But the modern notion of same-sex marriage is viscerally rooted in western tradition that can’t be removed by taking away a “lens”. The two-spirited nature of certain Native Americans has little bearing on the actual debate because it is so far removed from the general experiences of those supporting or opposing gay marriage. By arguing that I have to take off my western lens in order to see something suggests that same-sex marriage cannot arise from within western culture and I just don’t think that’s true.
Anyway, I think I’m done No True Scottsmaning with y’all. You’ll always be able to come up with a reason why that fabric isn’t really tartan.
Perhaps I haven’t made myself entirely clear. I am actually for “gay marriage” in the sense that I had one last year. And I think that gay marriage today is VERY important precisely because it has never happened before. It is all to common for supporters of same-sex marriage to embrace historical examples of homosexuality, like Nero’s marriage to man or two-spirited Native Americans or intergenerational same-sex relationships among the Greek upper class; but they are different in their essence to modern same-sex marriage (in many ways so is homosexuality itself). Opponents say things like Myca pointed out in the original post but they’re framing the issue entirely wrong. No, there is no example of same-sex marriage sanctioned by western society but on the other hand the reason that same-sex marriage is right and good is rooted in those same cultural traditions that have previously denied it. Modern same-sex marriage is uniquely western.
So no, I don’t think that any of the examples you have given are comparable to our current notion of gay marriage and yet I don’t think it’s terribly relevant to the question either.
Of course it is… in response to anti-marriage equality claims that, “never in human history has SSM been tolerated or legal.” It’s not that pro-marriage equality folks are saying that ancient Greek or Roman or Native American or insert historical example here practiced marriage in a manner equivalent to today’s marriage in Western culture. But anti-SSMers, when presented with facts disproving their claim, then start arguing exactly as you have been – saying that those examples are not exactly like modern Western marriage. It’s just a distraction from the original argument and the facts. And it’s old, boring and childish.
But what is the tradition of opposite-sex marriage as it currently is practiced in the U.S., in which there is no differentiation made on the basis of sex when it comes to roles in the marriage, ability to call for a divorce, responsibility to pay alimony, to obtain custody, etc? What is the tradition of sex-equal, indeed sex-neutral, marriage in Western civ?
You can’t find a same-sex marriage from the past that was identical to the opposite-sex marriages in that same society because the opposite-sex marriages were dependent on differentiating by sex what each partner’s rights and responsibilities were. That’s no longer true, which is exactly why I find SSM perfectly easy to slot into existing marriage law, whereas poly-marriage would be quite difficult.
But why bother to bring up those historical examples? When an anti-SSMer says that never in history has same-sex marriage been legal or tolerated, why not say “so what?”
It’s just a distraction from the original argument and the facts. And it’s old, boring and childish.
Calling one’s opponents childish is not very effective, especially when that opponent agrees with your desired outcomes.
It is not, however, a distraction from the “original argument” or the facts. There are very few, if any, historical examples of sanctioned same-sex relationships existing in lieu of opposite-sex ones. I do not think that that is irrelevant to the discussion of modern same-sex marriage. In fact, the entire notion of an historical example is what is distracting from the argument, because the examples from history of homosexual relationships do not unambiguously support either side. Which I believe is one of the points that Myca was originally making.
But what is the tradition of opposite-sex marriage as it currently is practiced in the U.S., in which there is no differentiation made on the basis of sex when it comes to roles in the marriage, ability to call for a divorce, responsibility to pay alimony, to obtain custody, etc? What is the tradition of sex-equal, indeed sex-neutral, marriage in Western civ?
PG,
Well I don’t think there is a tradition of sex-equal/neutral marriage in western society; it’s a relatively new development. But gender equality comes out of the slow crawl of western thought toward individual freedom and basic human rights. Which is as you rightly say why SSM fits so neatly into our existing laws and poly-marriage doesn’t. How societies made a place for homosexuals/homosexual relationships seems to be illustrative of the context in which they viewed the genders. And modern SSM is unique to its time as well.
Why bother talking to anti-SSMers? Why discuss marriage equality at all? Why not just plug your ears and shout, “NANANANANA ICANTHEARYOU?” Why not run the other way?
Anybody repeatedly claiming that there have never in history been sanctioned SSM in the face of the facts is never going to agree with me anyway. Calling them childish, which I believe is an accurate assessment, does not lessen my effectiveness. Even if what I actually did was call their actions, not the arguer itself, childish.
Of course, most opponents of SSM consider the gender-neutrality of modern Western marriage to be a bug, not a feature. When I talked to the conservative mentioned in comment 44, I noted the fact that, for example, nowadays men are not automatically obligated to pay alimony, and that gender doesn’t decide which spouse will get physical custody. The conservative nodded and said, Yes, and those changes have undermined marriage.
You see why this was a lightbulb-goes-off conversation for me regarding the conservative view of marriage.
But anyway, that’s why the “Hey, marriage is gender-neutral now anyway” argument is ineffective with many conservatives and why some folks try other arguments like “there has been SSM before” instead. If gender neutrality is something horrible to you, saying that SSM finishes the job of making marriage gender neutral under the law is only going to heighten your opposition to it.
I have to disagree with the Native American concept of two-spirit as being an historic example of gay marriage. It is a better example of a societal role for ‘non-traditional’ gender identity
I don’t know how many opponents of same-sex marriage really care about the distinction, but I’m guessing not many.
Look, the thing is that yeah, a lot of these historic same sex relationships aren’t marriage in the sense we would mean marriage today. Sure. I agree. I’m down.
But, from the Wikipedia:
So yeah, they were often shaman and it was believed that their dual spirit nature meant that they had certain magic linked with their identity, and yeah, the concept of gender is tied up in this, and both folks who nowadays we would probably call transgendered and folks we would probably call gay or lesbian were identified as two-spirited. But also? Dudes marrying dudes.
The problem is that many of these same cultures also did not offer opposite sex relationships precisely equivalent to what we mean by marriage today.
We have no problem identifying heterosexual life-partnership between members of a Native American culture as a marriage . . . nobody lines up to pick apart what exactly we mean by marriage, and there’s no checklist to make sure that the hetero-life-pairing matches up to enough to be recognized. So when I see that happening with homosexual life-pairings, I can’t really take it seriously.
If folks want to take the position that “no marriages existed in either Indigenous American cultures or Ancient Rome,” well … okay. I think it’s a dumb position, but okay.
If you’re taking the position, though, that same-sex relationships that were socially recognized as the equal of opposite sex-relationships within those cultures shouldn’t count somehow? Scotsman. True. Whatever.
—Myca
Or, to put it another way:
The Iroquois did not offer tax breaks or issue nicely printed marriage licenses to either their opposite-sex or their same-sex couples. What did their opposite-sex marriages have that their same-sex ones did not that makes them unquestionably ‘a marriage’ in modern terms?
—Myca
Coming in late, but Myca, I love this. When (rarely) I talk about this to people who are against gay marriage, I find myself in the trap of having to accept at face-value their statement that “religion has nothing to do with it,” and then I feel like I end up having a pretend argument.
I’ve been staying on the sidelines on this one because others have been making points that I would have and are frankly doing a better job than I would have, being better informed.
However, as a side note; Minerva, I’ve been looking at the Charter you have in Canada and how it’s being applied. I’m not particularly thrilled with it. For one thing, it gives way too much power to judges. How accountable to the voters are judges, especially Supreme Court Justices, in Canada? And it also seems to permit what I consider entirely unacceptable limitations on basic rights and freedoms such as free speech, if this citation is accurate:
“Hate speech” limitations on the freedom of speech are highly suspect. If someone stands up and calls out “Let’s all go kill all the Jews”, then fine – that’s an incitement to violence and banning it is a reasonable restriction on free speech. If someone says “I think that Judaism is a perversion of God’s will” and people are afraid that some nutball will end up citing that as the reason why they brought a shotgun to a synagogue and opened fire, it’s not reasonable to use that to criminalize the statement.
RonF,
The Canadian Charter’s protection of free speech is like that in India’s Constitution: both are explicitly conditioned on ensuring civil order (Sec. 1 of Canada Charter says, “reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society”; Article 19(2) of the Indian Constitution). In contrast, the U.S. Constitution has no such specified limitation, but instead has the quite stark language, “Congress shall make no law…”
I’m also unclear on what free speech or lack thereof in Canada has to do with sex-neutrality in marriage law.
Also because, unless I really misunderstand your positions, you do not qualify to comment under the comment guidelines.
If you do, actually, “accept the basic dignity, equality, and inherent worth of all people,” I’d be interested in what exactly your legal strategy is for ensuring that gay and lesbian people have full equality under the law.
Finally, this is a sidetrack that I don’t want in by thread. As PG says:
—Myca
Michael, you’re right. Male-male sanctioned relationships in ancient Athens were supposed to stop when the younger male grew in a beard. I was overreaching in my attempts to find some ancient Classical example of same sex marriage. I truly can’t think of any. If there is an article (academic or not, I don’t care, I just want a name besides Nero) out there showing that Rome allowed same sex marriage, then I’m more than willing to have my mind blown.
For the record, I object only to the historical inaccuracy. I agree with Michael and Amp that the historical record is irrelevant and that we should have legalized same sex marriage long ago. Because it is the right thing to do.
But, see, this is actually the kind of thing I’m talking about when I discuss inventing standards for same-sex pairings that aren’t used for opposite-sex pairings.
From the Wikipedia, again:
Now, I’m certainly not arguing that either one was precisely what we in modern America would understand as marriage … but I do find it instructive that the age-structured nature of same-sex pairings is apparently enough to disqualify is as ‘marriage’, but the age-structured nature of opposite-sex pairings is not.
Double standards are fun, I guess.
Part of my point is that when we imagine opposite-sex marriages in other cultures, it’s generally easy for us to assume that they’re more or less the same sort of thing as modern American marriages. But they weren’t. For one, as mentioned, they were age-stratified. Also, the same-sex relationships often continued, even after an opposite-sex marriage … and there was serious debate about whether opposite-sex love could be considered the equal of same-sex love.
My point isn’t that therefore same-sex unions and opposite-sex unions were just the same. To the contrary, they were very different, but more to the point, they were both very different from what we, in the modern world, think of as marriage.
To that end, let’s jettison the term marriage completely. Rather than asking “did same-sex marriages exist,” how about we ask, “did socially, religiously, legally, and governmentally endorsed same-sex pairings exist, and were they generally considered the equal (or superior to!) opposite-sex pairings?” I don’t see how the answer can be anything other than yes.
—Myca
There are also limited examples of African same-sex marriages which were done for property (in some circumstances, women of wealth could marry other women to bear children who could inherit that wealth) or spiritual reasons (in some cultures, any man who was considered to be able to be possessed by spirits was automatically marked female, because he was ‘ridden’ by spirits as women are ridden by men, which meant he took a male mate).
You also get situations in which there’s basically no marriage at all, such as cultures where husbands are only temporary visitor’s in their wives’ homes, and relatively unimportant to the family structure. Or situations in which the men and women live almost entirely segregated existences, coming together only periodically to breed.
Of the latter, there’s the somewhat famous case example in which boys were considered to grow their manhood and fertility by partnering with older men. By drinking their seed, they were supposed to develop seed of their own.
And of course, among at least one of the sex-segregated cultures, heterosexual sex was considered to be so offensive to the gods that you had to do it outside in the woods lest you offend the gods at home. And outside, it would terribly offend the animals, who would try to bite and kill you. Because of its offensive nature, it was taboo most days of the year. Homosexual sex was, however, fine and dandy.
That’s not really an SSM variant exactly, but it certainly suggests there are historical models of family that ain’t got nothin’ to do with PIV sex, and indeed suggests that if we’re going to give ‘tradition’ some stupid weight then we might want to consider how many gods we’re offending when we boink in heterosexual fashion.
See, for me, though, that’s a benefit. Offending the gods with my sex life is sort of a kink of mine.
—Myca
Myca, the argument you developed here in comments 59, 60 & 66 is really good. I hope you’ll make it a post of its own, rather than leave it buried in comments.
Don’t want to derail here either Myca – so here’s just a link for anyone interested in how the Canadian situation worked:
http://www.mapleleafweb.com/features/same-sex-marriage-canada#charter
The age mandate for male-male relations wasn’t just a beginning, but also an ending. So, there was no transfer of property, though gifts may be given, or adoption, and so on. Transgressing the age boundaries on either end by wooing/partnering with a boy (or man) that was too young or too old was a gross violation of societal mores as well. I’m not as up on ancient Greek societies as Roman, so I’m not sure if was illegal, but it was just not allowed.
When thinking about how this worked historically, I think it’s important to remember that in a lot of societies, not having an opposite-sex partner and not having children was not really an option. I know that sounds like a very absolute statement, and of course there always would have been exceptions, not matter how social relations were organized – people who were infertile, people who entered monastic orders, people who never married, various other exceptions. But in many, many human societies, before the development of government-administered social security or pension systems, not reproducing was a very risky proposition because it was grown children who would have been obligated to take care of the older generation. It wasn’t just that people couldn’t control their reproduction as well as we can today, but all the incentives were stacked up the other way, to the point that reproducing was pretty close to an imperative.
I’m sure there are exceptions to what I’m describing, and no, I’m not trying to say that nieces and nephews or other relatives never took care of an aging childless relative or that no pre-modern society ever had a non-family mechanism for taking care of older people, but when you’re looking at how homosexual identity worked historically in different cultures and to what extent it was similar or different to heterosexual relationships, you can’t ignore that issue.
The Greeks, just to take that one example, have a very rational reason to mandate an age cut-off to the relationship. The youth, now grown, partners with a woman, has children, and, as a more mature man, may well have another homosexual relationship, this time partnering with a younger man. The women, though, would not have had the ability to support themselves outside of a man’s household, so you need to have the heterosexual relationship not expire, so to speak. The men don’t have that issue, but they have a different set of pressures.
The social and economic changes that have helped move opposite-sex marriage toward being a voluntary relationship between legal equals mean that we no longer have any rational for these differentiated types of relationships for gays and straights.
So I don’t think it’s as simple as looking back and saying those relationships were not what we would recognize as marriage. And I certainly don’t think you can assume it’s because (or only because) homosexual relationships somehow were “less than” in those cultures. You have to take into account the social and economic space that’s opened up for people to structure their lives for their own happiness, not for their mere survival.
I’d like to bring up the example no one has mentioned, which is that overt homosexuality was generally very common in the Arab world and in Persia in or around the… 12th to 15th centuries, if I recall?
There’s a lot of great writing and poetry, actually, to indicate that not only was it prevalent, but also quite well accepted. If you’re looking for a starting place to tackle the issue, that’s probably a good one to start with, as I recall there being a lot of information.
Regardless of any historical pro and con, we, as a nation, as a society, must ask ourselves: Is it right and proper in our journey through life to deny to any segment of the population their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? (Seems I’ve read that line somewhere before) For those opposed to same sex marriage, I would suggest you simply not participate and instead marry someone of the opposite sex, assuming they would have you. I have been happily married to the same member of the opposite sex for over 38 years, and hope to be for another 38 or longer. I do not feel threatened by same sex marriage. In fact, I would have to say it makes my heart glad to see two people who have found love and want to commit to each other. We should all be happy for them!
I think it has more to do with transgender people and transsexual people (with limitations of the time regarding what could actually be done for them) than gay or lesbian people.
From what I read about it, historians widely consider it gay relationships, and the feminity of a MtF they probably would view in the same way as they would that of a gay man: an artificial prop. Isn’t this where the term effeminacy originated it’s modern meaning (as a pejorative on par with sissy)?
Sorry if it’s slightly off-topic, but much of what I would have said, like about Canada etc has already been said. I’m no expert on Native Americans, though I think none other than Native Americans who’ve lived it would be able to explain it clearly enough.
Oh I’ll add that a tradition involving crushing your testes with a hard saddle might be a bit distateful to gay men who might like their testes. Personally, if it was the only way to get rid of them, I’d go through it, but I’m not gay, and I have no stake in keeping my testes at all.