An Open Letter to Gay Marriage Protesters

Here's another guest blogger, Matthew Harmer. This is a letter he wrote to his local paper, and figured I'd want to repost it. That's fine with me, so here it is.

Incidentally, the offer still stands. I'm more than happy to take guest blogs. Just send me your work and I'll put it up.
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On the evening of 10 April, at the intersection of Main and Church streets in Elmira, I managed to talk to a small group of people as they protested against gay marriage in New York State. Although they were unaware of it at the time, they were able to provide me with a rare opportunity I had been seeking: the chance to teach my son about the values of those who take a stand against gay marriage.

First and foremost, I taught my son about Ignorance. This is the most important of these values, as without it, none of the others would exist. Ignorance is a difficult concept to teach a young child, as they are naturally inquisitive. Additionally, in a household such as mine, ideas such as critical thought, analysis and rational skepticism are highly valued; fortunately, none of these were on display at the protest. Rather, the people on the corner had suppressed that instinctive curiosity, and what I did see were the knee-jerk reaction, close-mindedness and the general fear of learning so typical of virulent opponents to gay marriage. Even more obvious was the astounding lack of logic or factual basis for this group’s claims; one sign in particular read, “Save the Kids! Say NO to Gay Marriage!” Now, any rational person would ask, “what harm can come to children if same-sex couples are allowed to wed?” While such desperate, emotional pandering would instantly expose the fundamental absence of reason in their argument, these people genuinely believed they were “saving the kids” despite any evidence for their position! Because of its high value in an argument completely lacking reason, it follows that ignorance serves as the keystone of their beliefs; without ignorance, their view of the world cannot exist.

Secondly, I was able to teach my son about Hatred. For many people, hatred is unheard of; at worst, “dislike” is as strong a reaction as one could feel (for those seeking a semantic argument, I would point out the wide gulf between hatred and dislike). Hatred is, in a metaphoric sense, the direct descendant of ignorance. By logical extension, acts of hatred, in whatever form, are therefore acts of ignorance. This is not to say that all ignorance leads to hatred; on the contrary, hatred develops from the intentional preservation of ignorance. As one has to constantly guard against evidence contrary to one’s outlook in order to remain purposely stagnant, the inevitable conflict with reality breeds resentment. This phenomenon was succinctly demonstrated in one protester's claim that “just about everybody who ever wrote something is pretty much nuts.” Imagine how much effort that person has to expend in order to maintain his level of ignorance! Try to conceptualize this person’s animosity to the written word; only by dismissing what the overwhelming majority of people accept as the foremost means of sharing knowledge as “nuts” can he preserve his ignorance.

With the development of hatred, we have the catalyst necessary for the third value, Exclusion. This value, obviously, forms the crux of the argument: “the right to marry, which we have, should be denied to gay couples because of who they are.” From a historical view, we see the same patterns of ignorance, hatred and exclusion (as well as the same tired arguments) happening during slavery, in the writing of Jim Crow laws, the butchery of the Indian Resettlement Acts, the development of miscegenation laws, etc., all of which we (for the most part) recognize as archaic and wrong.

I write “for the most part” because, when your values include ignorance and hatred, it becomes difficult to see the parallels where they obviously exist. When confronted with evidence contrary to their world view, those who oppose gay marriage tend towards three reactions. The vast majority simply ignores or disparages the evidence presented to them, reverting to ignorance as a defensive mechanism, causing more friction and hatred. Others attempt to rationalize their argument, either by contextualizing the parallels as being a product of the time period (which, logically, only emphasizes the flaws in their argument), or create convoluted rationalizations to explain why, for example, denying homosexuals the right to marry is different than denying mixed-race couples the right to marry.

The third reaction, one too rarely taken, is to re-evaluate their world view. As rarely as it occurs, it is the only means possible to eradicate the ignorance, hatred and exclusion seen every Thursday night in Elmira. Therefore, we must constantly expose those who wallow in these values to the contrary evidence, in the hopes that they follow this path.