“Why I Can’t Care About Same-Sex Marriage”
The following are excerpts from online responses to Opinion Columnist, Andy Bryan’s 11/9 article “Why I Can’t Care About Same-Sex Marriage.” Due to space, we cannot print each response in full. Responses can be seen in their entirety on The Weekly’s website, weekly.gustavus.edu.
I think that this is a very perceptive argument and an important discussion for our community. However, I don’t think that lobbying for same-sex marriage and being more considerate of all of the important issues during election season are mutually exclusive. It’s a common characteristic of voters that we pay attention to what we latch onto. I also happen to agree that there were a number of issues poorly covered that are always poorly covered. Perhaps a more constructive way to engage the community in conversation next time would be to use this space to bring up those issues. Believe me, you can care about same-sex marriage and also care about other stuff. It’s important that we bear in mind that we are a community and that we all have a responsibility to make our voices heard during this important time, and it is our responsibility to make that happen.
Julia Tindell, Senior
You know, Andy, I completely agree. I want to stop talking about same-sex marriage. Trust me, Andy, you have no idea how much I want to stop talking about it. No, really, you have no idea, because you’re a straight white male. I don’t know if you’re aware of, frankly, anything about gay rights and where we stand beyond what you’ve heard in the media the last six months. This is not a case of the selfish homos like me taking up your valuable space in political discourse, Andy. This is a f***ton of straight people making my orientation illegal until 9 years ago, and then after the Supreme Court made the perfectly reasonable assumption that the government shouldn’t give a f*** who is in my bed, another f***ton of straight people decided that they get to choose who does and doesn’t get married. And I have a problem with that.
Nick Prince, ‘11
Andy, you are a d*** good writer, and a class act. I don’t have the time or, frankly, the interest to respond to Nick’s spittle-flecked comment, other than to say that far too many at our school have chosen to adopt an attitude of interest group navel-gazing at the expense of humanity as a whole. The former is easier, and it has the added bonus of making it look like you really genuinely care. I have not yet come across a gay rights activist who was equally concerned with the unmanned drone strikes in Yemen that killed three legal US citizens, one of them 16 years old, among many other less politically charged human beings. I’m sure it is possible to care for both. But it is not common. Keep up the good work, Andy.
Ethan Marxhausen, ‘11
Nick, it looks like you were really emotional when you wrote this response. I think “No, really, you have no idea, because you’re a straight white male” is a really arrogant statement to make. I can understand the point the author is making when he says he’d rather talk about thousands of people dying than people getting married. I don’t agree with him, because those issues have some pretty stark differences. The key difference is that the solution to people getting married is much simpler and more attainable, i.e. legalizing gay marriage. So I think the dialogue for the marriage amendment was warranted because it was a key battle that was winnable and the timing was critical. The problem has not yet been solved, but voting down the amendment was an important step.
Drew Corbett, ‘10
I was emotional. Angry and condescending is my style. Is that a bad thing?
And Drew, I agree. It is more important. I forgot about all the gays who put a same-sex marriage ban on the ballot when they controlled the state legislature. Clearly us emotional gays are at fault for that.
Like I said. I would loooooooooooooove to talk about s*** other than how LGBTQ people are not second class citizens. But for some reason people keep lobbing this s*** at us.
The only logical conclusion to you and Andy’s argument is that the minority threatened with an oppressive amendment should simply lie down and take it out the goodness of our hearts, because d*** it, there’s more important things to talk about!
Nick Prince, ‘11
If that is the only logical conclusion you can draw from Andy’s argument and my own, then you have very poor logical reasoning skills. Also, don’t think that LGBTQ are the only people getting this s*** lobbed at them. There are many straight people who find it ridiculous that these rights are not recognized already as well.
Drew Corbett, ‘10
I think he brings up a good point, though. It’s only okay to discuss ‘social’ issues on campus and it’s only okay to be on one side of the social issue. For myself and for a few others, issues like foreign affairs and defense issues are important, and it should be important to the rest of us too since $.60 of every single tax dollar is going to the Department of Defense.
Danny Schmalz, ‘14
Danny, Go tell that to the straight, white men who put marriage on the ballot. Let them know there are more important things to talk about.
In the meantime, I’ll be standing up for my rights against people who tried to constitutionally ban them. Please don’t tell me that’s wrong, or that I shouldn’t make all the noise I can when something like that is being voted on to be put into the Constitution.
Nick Prince, ‘11