I hadn't heard about the brouhaha that followed when the heavily Mormon town of Kanab, Utah, resolved to promote the "natural family" unit, defined as man and woman, duly married "as ordained of God," with hearts "open to a full quiver of children." The Los Angeles Times has the story.
From Mormons to Muslims, the Washington Post takes a look at how social pressure is pushing some Islamic gays to seek lesbian wives. At least in this case it's not the state doing the pressing, yet.
28 Comments for “‘Natural Family,’ or Not.”
posted by Randy R. on
The article in the Post about gay men wanting to marry lesbians: So what else is new? It’s perhaps a twist that the gay men are seeking a lesbian, but gay men have been marrying straight women for centuries and keeping the b/f on the side. That this is news is interesting, because the Post (and by implication the culture) assumes that gay men do NOT enter into sham marriages anymore.
I would have liked to see a bit more analysis of why and how this is emotionally damaging to the people getting married — it just sorta glossed over that party.
posted by Bobby on
It is emotinoally damaging because they know they are lying. They living out fake lives. If you have a conscience, you don’t do that. You come out, for better or worse.
There’s muslims who are out of the closet, there’s also the daughter of Alan Keyes, she came out knowing she would lose all financial support and moral support from her father. Oh sure, some of these muslims think it’s better to be accepted by their families. Or as other people in the closet tell me, “why raise a ruckus?” But in the end, you’re a fake.
And what about children? Their parents are gonna want grandchildren. How will they be conceived? Artificial insemination is expensive, adoption in a long-term process. I’m glad the Post reported on that story.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
Here is the statist’s quandary.
On one hand, they insist that every gay man has the right to marry. . . a woman. On the other, they express shock and incredulity that gay men would marry. . . a woman.
Such absurdities are the natural result of a system that is, itself, absurd.
posted by Xeno on
Why do they even bother sticking with such parents and a “family” that would disown them for who they trully are? They should of vanished from them the second they graduated from college, but I guess some people are too weak to lance off a lifelong tumor.
posted by Randy R. on
Not every culture is like ours, where you can move out of the house at 20 and move to another part of the country and reinvent yourselves. In many parts of the world, it is unthinkable to move out of a parent’s house until you get married because money is way to scarce. You simply cannot live alone and support yourself. In others cultures, you live in a small village where everyone knows everyone. Even if you wanted to move out of that village, where would you get the money? Where would you go? How would you support yourself once you get there?
We live a priviledged life in America, and it’s wrong to assume life is so easy for the other 90% of the world.
posted by kittynboi on
Randy, if ever I needed evidence that America is superior, you just gave it too me.
posted by Xeno on
Randy R,
First, that excuse is obviously invalid to those gay immigrants living in the western world that get into marriages of convienience. They are weak individuals and have no understanding of what a genuine family trully is if they feel they need to masquerade in order to be accepted by their parents.
Second, as for those who don’t live in the western world, it’s a mixed bagage since we now live in an era of globalization and information. Those that have a university education can sever from their parents and emigrate to the western world for a better and more honest life. IMHO, only those that can’t emigrate from inferior cultures due to monetary and education issues are the only ones that deserve sympathy.
posted by Xeno on
kittynboi,
I wouldn’t narrow it down to the US, espcially since there are regions that are regressive in mentality as third world countries. My bf from rural North Carolina plans to emigrate here in eastern Canada, and before our relationship he almost caved in to the pressure to marry a girl. Now I’m proud to say that he’s a much stronger individual.
posted by Randy R. on
Xeno: Those that have a university education can sever from their parents and emigrate to the western world for a better and more honest life. IMHO, only those that can’t emigrate from inferior cultures due to monetary and education issues are the only ones that deserve sympathy.
Which, of course, elminiates at least 90% of the world’s population. Virtually all Chinese (since only a small fraction of the 1.3 billion people have any higher education), vast majorities of Indians, Indonesians, Cambodians, Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Laotions, Burmese, Pakastanis, Iranians, Tajickistanis, Kazakhstanis, and all the former Soviet States of asia, not to mention majorities in northern and sub-sarahan Africa.
I would love for you to travel to some of these places and see how the rest of the world lives. When most people live on a few dollars a week, education and immigration are at best mere dreams.
posted by Randy R. on
Back to the main question: The \\”natural family\\” unit simply doens\\’t exist. In previous societies and some current ones, unmarried sisters or brothers stayed home, becoming uncles and aunts. Today they live on their own. Grandparents often lived at the home of one of the children\\’s families — today they often live alone or in nursing homes. Some societies think nothing of having cousins living at a home. Widows might be taken in, too. So what exactly is the natural pattern here?
I am reminded of some pre-Columbian indian families. Men would have sex with women without regards to who was married to whom. The resultant children didn\\’t have one father and one mother, but were raised by the village. The europeans were appalled, and said how do you know which children are yours? The indians replied that that is the problem with europeans, they love only their own children, whereas with the Indians, they love ALL the children.
Sorta makes sense, doens\\’t it?
posted by Xeno on
Randy R:
“I would love for you to travel to some of these places and see how the rest of the world lives. When most people live on a few dollars a week, education and immigration are at best mere dreams.”
I plan to one day to tour the world after I graduate and hopefully I could do something about that issue.
However, like I’ve specificed in the second sentence you’ve quoted, I’m not refering to those people stuck in poverty and have slim chances of emigrating from their hell holes. I’m refering to those who have much better options, and most of the marriage of convience stories that I’ve seen (mainly in the US and the UK) are related to immigrants who live in the western world, bringing cultural garbage with them. Take the wall street whiz or the bright young doctor in the article for example, he can easily sever ties with his parents and form a better family, since they obviously has the resources to do. Any why aren’t they? Because they’re weak and slaves to their own trivial morality codes.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
Those that have a university education can sever from their parents and emigrate to the western world for a better and more honest life
Don’t be so sure. Emigration to any western country takes years of paperwork and tens of thousands of dollars in spending on lawyers, etc. Even then, it’s not a foregone conclusion. I know many highly skilled Asian and Middle Eastern people who cannot get into the USA, Canada or the UK — even as the governments of all three countries whine about a shortage of skilled technical people. All these folks would gladly embrace US, Canadian or British nationality, but the west won’t have them.
Of course, we will lecture their home governments about “freedom and pluralism and democracy” while simultaneously denying motivated, self-sustaining citizens of those countries with the opportunity to live in our own society. It’s a bit like lecturing someone on securing their valuables while flashing them in the bay windows of an unlocked townhouse — hypocrisy at its finest.
posted by Randy R. on
I shudder whenever I hear someone talk about another culture as \\”inferior\\” Any one else?
I mean, I love the US, but is our culture really superior? And in Asia, their concept of sexuality is almost totally alien to ours, and theirs to us, and it varies from region to region. To make broad generalizations based on ignorance and blindness serves no one and advances no argument
posted by Randy R. on
I wouldn’t dismiss their moral codes as trivial. Many people in Asia, even if soundly gay, really want to children and a traditional family. Part of it is the culture of ancestor worship — the belief that you must have decendants to worship and pray for you after you have died. Perhaps you think this is silly, but it has been part of some cultures for over a thousand years.
I certianly agree that people must live their own lives, not the lives that please their parents or society. But sometimes it’s not an easy choice of either/or. Sometimes there are strong reasons to be part of the family and not sever ties — and some of the reasons may not be financial at all!
All I’m saying is, don’t be so quick to judge others. We do that all the time (and I’m guilty as anyone else). But really, I feel more pity and sorrow for those people trapped in a life that they cannot leave and desire for something better. To heap scorn upon them really doens’t profit anyone.
posted by Xeno on
“I shudder whenever I hear someone talk about another culture as “inferior” Any one else?”
Not me. It’s simply the sad reality that some culture have more negative elements than others.
“I mean, I love the US, but is our culture really superior?”
That really depends on which culture and more importanly which cultural elements you’re trying to compare it with, such as a culture’s understanding of sexuality.
“And in Asia, their concept of sexuality is almost totally alien to ours, and theirs to us, and it varies from region to region. To make broad generalizations based on ignorance and blindness serves no one and advances no argument”
Eh. Before then, many of these cultures have had more neutral or accepting views concerning homosexuality, until they were tainted with inferior elements of old western civilization by colonialism. We mostly grew out of these elements, they’re still stuck with them.
Any culture that denies people for who they are and punish those that do not conform to their rigid models deserves to be called barbaric and inferior to western ideals.
posted by kittynboi on
“”””Perhaps you think this is silly, but it has been part of some cultures for over a thousand years.””””
I think a lot worse of it than that.
“”””Any culture that denies people for who they are and punish those that do not conform to their rigid models deserves to be called barbaric and inferior to western ideals.””””
Exactly.
posted by Randy R. on
Well, then, let me posit this: Our culture is clearly inferior to many other cultures, at least with regards to sexuality.
Here in the US, you are either gay or you are straight. These are rigid models that are barbaric and inferior to other ideals. Many people even doubt whether bi-sexuality occurs, when science clearly shows us that it does exist. Yet, in our culture, people are pretty much forced to choose either gay or straight.
In other cultures, such as many mediterranean cultures, it is perfectly acceptable for men to be happily married to women and yet have sex with their male friends whenever they like. Our culture does not accept that. Imagine if a gay couple were happily married, but one of the partner’s regularly has sex with women! He would be forced to give up his gay card.
In other cultures, such as Cambodia, about 10% of the men are called ‘lady-boys.’ They are men who live their lives as women, openly and with total acceptance. Here in the US, our culture simply doesn’t allow that.
We are therefore barbaric and backward in our understanding of sexuality as compared to these societies. Their cultures are clearly superior in that they allow people a greater freedom of expression for who they truly are.
posted by Hershel on
\\”I shudder whenever I hear someone talk about another culture as \\”inferior\\” Any one else?\\”
—I disagree, many gays in the music industry are doing their best to stop homophobic jamaicans from singing their homophobic songs in our country without changing the lyrics. Why? Because they realized that if neo-nazi rock doesn\\’t get airplay, why should jamaicans get to sing about hating and killing gays?
As someone who has known a Jamaican ex-gay for several years, I\\’m not afraid to say that Jamaican culture is somewhat inferior. Their society is extremely homophobic, at all government levels, their country is full of crime and total gun control exists, they are somewhat socialistic… I\\’m sorry, but I have much more respect for the US Virgin Islands, St. Marteen, Bahamas (their president welcomes gay cruises), and Bermuda.
If I don\\’t judge Jamaican culture as inferior, that means I approve of the way they do things. It means I approve of their homophobia, gun control, and socialism. And that will never happen.
Frankly, I don\\’t like a bunch of pot smoking perverts telling me that I\\’m immoral for being gay. I don\\’t like some rastafarian homophobic asshole that beats his wife, cheats on her, doesn\\’t take a bath nor cleans his hair, to sing songs calling me disgusting.
posted by kittynboi on
We are therefore barbaric and backward in our understanding of sexuality as compared to these societies. Their cultures are clearly superior in that they allow people a greater freedom of expression for who they truly are.
Well, would they allow them to be married to a male and have sex with women? I doubt it.
Yeah, I’ve heard the whole “eastern cultures believe in fluid sexuality” thing a lot. I’ve yet to be convinced it’s anything other than liberal multiculturalist optimism and nonsense, similar to thinking muslims are capable of tolerance and women aren’t treated bad in islamic hellholes that masquerade as governments and countries.
Believe me, I’m not afraid to be openly intolerant when I think it’s called for.
posted by Kevin Eckstrom on
For what it\\’s worth (and it\\’s probably not worth much to anyone other than us), it was Religion News Service, not the Washington Post, that did this article. But that\\’s what happens when you work for a wire service. Happy blogging.
posted by Kevin Eckstrom on
For what it’s worth (and it’s probably not worth much to anyone other than us), it was Religion News Service, not the Washington Post, that did this article. But that’s what happens when you work for a wire service. Happy blogging.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
In other cultures, such as many mediterranean cultures, it is perfectly acceptable for men to be happily married to women and yet have sex with their male friends whenever they like.
Actually, this is a myth. The revealing thing is when you ask the individual making the contention which “Mediterranean” country or countries where this is common. They always come up blank, because it’s one of those clich
posted by Randy R. on
Having traveled to Egypt and Greece, and having friends in both countries (gay and straight), I can say with certainty that this sort of thing exists and is quite common.
Moroever, although I have not been any other islamic countries, I have friends who have, and journalists who have studied the issue, and they all report it is common. In fact, in Afganistan, the british troops were complaining about the inordinate number of young men who wear make-up and were obviously the b/fs to older married Afghani men. This made it in the news wires.
It is rather strange when you go to bars in these countries and the place is packed, and there are no women around. Oddly enough, the only time I saw women in equal numbers to men were at the so-called gay bars, where there were no gay men I saw. Friends who report back from Brazil find the same thing.
posted by Steven Bielinski on
I have to echo the previous comment that calling other cultures “inferior” is disturbing – especially based soley on a country’s present view on homosexuality. As someone who has spend a great deal of time living and studying in China, I believe you would be suprised by how accepting Chinese people are becoming of openly gay and lesbian men there. There are now some 15 gay and lesbian bars and dance clubs in Beijing alone, gay positive college classes on homosexuality being offered at Fudan University in Shanghai (China’s #3 best school), and a bill was even introduced in the last two sessions of the People’s Congress to legalize same-sex marriage. Obviously such a drastic step is a long way away, but judging other country’s cultures as “inferior” to ones own because of present day prejudices is both short sighted and extremely bigoted in itself. As gay and lesbian Americans, let’s not fall into the same trap as religious fundamentalists. Mainstream Chinese literature was featuring same-sex love stories hundreds of years before we began to burn witches for being left-handed. Give countries like China and Brazil 30 years, and let’s see whose country is treating its gays better.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
Having traveled to Egypt and Greece, and having friends in both countries (gay and straight), I can say with certainty that this sort of thing exists and is quite common.
Ever check the penal codes of Egypt and pre-EU-membership Greece?
posted by Randy R. on
Yup. Ever check the penal codes in Texas before Lawrence v. Texas? Just because it’s against the law doens’t mean that men don’t have sex with men. Sheesh — I thought every gay person knew that!
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
Just because it’s against the law doens’t mean that men don’t have sex with men. Sheesh — I thought every gay person knew that!
Nobody ever advanced the theory that in Texas, it’s common for married men to have sex on the side with their friends, too. The idea that it’s culturally acceptable and therefore common is easily mitigated — both in Texas and the examples you’ve given — by a legal system which has villified it (and in Egypt’s case, often made it fatal).
posted by raj on
Randy R. | June 27, 2006, 3:42pm | #
Moroever, although I have not been any other islamic countries, I have friends who have, and journalists who have studied the issue, and they all report it is common. In fact, in Afganistan, the british troops were complaining about the inordinate number of young men who wear make-up and were obviously the b/fs to older married Afghani men. This made it in the news wires.
Yes, it did make the news wires. But you are referring to something quite different than homosexuality as it is currently understood in the West. What you have described as occurring in Afghanistan (and I read the BBC report of it at the time) was probably more akin to pederasty: an older–usually wealthy–male “befriends” (in a sexual context) a male who is in his mid-teens. The society does not disapprove of the relationship because the younger male is not considered to be “fully-formed” (I don’t recall the actual terms used in the report). As the youth ages, if the older male is particularly pleased with him, the older male oftentimes tries to marry the youth to one of his daughters.
But this has nothing to do with their view of homosexual activity between adult males, which is generally frowned-upon.