There are a lot of things that have gone wrong with how we treat marriage in this country, but letting gays marry I think is the least of them. I would be more comfortable with it if gay marriage supporters were half as concerned about the institution of marriage itself as they were about using the issue as a tool to route out "bigots" and feel superior about themselves. Not all are that way of course, but if often seems like it. It just seems like so many liberals care so much about gay marriage on one hand, but simultaneous talk out of the other side of their mouth about how marriage is an archaic institution that should be done away with and about how progressive they are for opposing this anachronistic holdover. You can't have it both ways.
I just don't understand what is really mutually exclusive about thinking marriage is a decayed institution while also supporting legalizing gay marriage. Of course, I don't personally think marriage is an archaic institution that should be tossed away and listening to that argument gets me all testy, but you can absolutely think it's a decaying institution while also thinking there's no reason not to legalize gay marriage.
I'm just not sure where this hostility you have for this issue comes from. You act like you support it, but you hate that you have absolutely no choice but to support it; like you're angry that other people force you to admit you're wrong about something. It's weird from someone usually so reasonable and wonky about everything.
The issue of marriage is one that's extremely important and personal to me. I highly value everything that I believe it entails and represents: love, commitment, sacrifice, faith, etc. I believe it is the highest and purest form of love, to lay down your life for another and to never look back. That's what I believe it's meant to be. I've seen so many people, my parents and grandparents and entire family included, make poor decisions and end their marriages over petty things, things that responsible people should communicate with each other about and work out. For supposedly being teams, people just don't understand that means you sometimes have to lose, and that that's ok; they don't see the greater good. They fail because they don't understand what it means to succeed.
I've lived through the divorce of my parents, and I don't know if there's a much worse non-abusive thing you can do to a child. Divorce is like a death, a death that takes with it all comfort, protection, and innocence of others as a simple externality. It's the very antithesis of the values I most deeply believe in, the death of love itself in the broadest and most encompassing sense, and it's so often for such trivial reasons. I can't understand it. Not one bit.
When I see people getting married without thought or planning, without care and consideration, I see people who don't take marriage seriously. I see people who are implicitly opening themselves up to that pain, a pain that never dies, and I see people who value so little what I cherish so much. Conversely, when I see people trash marriage as archaic, I see people who so often don't have the wherewithal to personify what I believe are the highest values people should strive for. I see people who want the benefits of relationships without the sacrifice and the commitment. I see people who are scared because they might get hurt when that pain could be as easily avoided by communication as by fleeing from the challenge. What I see is pettiness, and I harms my faith in humanity.
Gay marriage should come from this same place as straight marriage. It should come from the same values. But when I see the same people who make a fuss about marriage equality make fun of people who marry young, or people who get married at all, or sometimes even of monogamy (or monandry) itself, I don't understand why they would want to go through all the trouble of expanding something they fundamentally disagree with. Why would something think, "you know people shouldn't get married" and then "we should let gays get married" unless they had some sort of sadistic streak toward gays? Either you think marriage is a bad thing or you don't. I'm also not a fan of how marriage is couched in terms of rights; I don't think anyone has a right to a marriage, but rather that it should be a privilege. That's probably a purely textual matter, though. At the same time, I think conservatives have fallen for a red herring on this issue, instead of focusing on actually strengthening marriage; they themselves are as much to blame as anyone.
This issue comes up so incredibly much, and over and over and over again, the exact same arguments are made. The same incompatiblities come up in the discourse. People who can't possibly see the other side of the issue, and who so easily denigrate those who do. Gay marriage supporters are heathens and gay marriage deniers are bigots, sure whatever. It's poisonous is what it is. I hate the issue because of what it does to people; as someone who inately dislikes conflict, I honestly wish it would just go away. The government could recognize whatever and churches could recognize whatever. Maybe then people who stop hating each other over something so petty as a definition. Probably not.
There's no reason gays can't fulfill everything I described, just as there is not a reason why straights can't. I wish everyone would just do what they promise. I wish people weren't so self-centered about things that don't just involve themselves. But that is not this world.
Perhaps my issues are more sociological than political. But is there really any difference?
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