1 of 1- kielgillard
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Is this insensitive and possibly irrational?
i know some parents who support "same-sex marriage". Their daughter has announced she's romantically involved with her first woman. The mother, at least, seems shocked and upset.
To my mind, this reaction is completely understandable but also in contradiction to their support of "same-sex marriage".
The only way I think you can explain the reaction is if the parents, deep down, know same-sex attraction is abnormal.
If that's the case, I don't think you can consistently support "same-sex marriage" arguments presenting those as the same as marriages. If you're upset or shocked, then you're aware they're not equal or the same and cannot believe or rationally uphold ssm.
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- DanielCC
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Re: Is this insensitive and possibly irrational?
kielgillard wrote:
The only way I think you can explain the reaction is if the parents, deep down, know same-sex attraction is abnormal.
If you're upset or shocked, then you're aware they're not equal or the same and cannot believe or rationally uphold ssm.
Thoughts? Be brutal for that's the only way I'll learn.
Other equally tenable options might be:
1. The mother knows that rationally there is nothing objectionable about ssm marriage but because of having grown up in a society where homosexuality was frowned upon cannot shake off her inherited cultural prejudices and thus still feels uncomfortable about it.
2. The mother takes her daughter's homosexuality to mean that she will never have children and thus said mother will never have grand-children. This sort of attitude is unpleasantly common.
3. The mother believes ssm to be morally permissible in principle but knows it will mean that her daughter's life is bound to contain additional hardship.
Of course if true none of these explanations say anything about the moral permissibility or otherwise of ssm. But I would be inclined to think an instinctive ‘feeling of abnormality’ wouldn’t either. We have to be careful as too often ‘ick’ arguments can be paralleled in forms where the conclusion is unacceptable e.g. I suspect an unfortunately large number of people would claim they know racial superiority is false but would still be upset if their child was dating someone of another race or ethnicity.
- Dennis
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Re: Is this insensitive and possibly irrational?
We all know, for the most part that as humans, we(most people) are rightly culpable of irrationality at times, and when we're not, and encounter inconsistencies as such within our way of doing things, I think it comes down to convenience and personal struggle and some sort of faith in a proposition that is founded upon deep inclinations for something to be 'right,' but not necessarily, there are just too many factors, personal and impersonal. Rationally upholding SSM and doing so only because of it is convenient in one way or another is a totally different thing, many people will uphold to the latter, in concerns to things and not just SSM, while actively denying the former, even if they know it is not defensible. But then there's also personal demons that has to be mentioned, maybe the mother thinks that SSM is defensible and most probably right, however, is conflicted by her natural disgust(if she is disgusted by it), there's too many things to factor, so the best way to find out would be to actually talk to the woman, hoping for an honest conversation to find out what exactly the fact of the matter is.
- kielgillard
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Re: Is this insensitive and possibly irrational?
Thanks for the replies, all.
I think my suggestion that the mother posessing a subconcious awareness of the abnormality of same-sex attraction is insensitive and irrational because it is clearly only one of many other options available to explain her feelings or reaction.
After writing my post above, I strongly suspect her reaction (or other person's reaction, for that matter) is more a side effect of a revelation or a change in expectations and these expectations can be held independently of one's understanding of sexual attraction etc.
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Thread Starter- iwpoe
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Re: Is this insensitive and possibly irrational?
2. The mother takes her daughter's homosexuality to mean that she will never have children and thus said mother will never have grand-children. This sort of attitude is unpleasantly common.
Why is that unpleasant? I understand not being shitty about it, but I would be disappointed if I was excited about grandchildren and my child told me that she wasn't going to have any (for whatever reason). I agree that it's unpleasant insofar as that disappointment is construed as implying a failed obligation to breed on the part of the daughter, but one needn't interpret disappointment that way.
Or do you just mean that the idea that lesbians *won't have children* is unpleasant? It's a false idea, but it's not a flagrantly wrong idea. It takes additional steps for homosexuals to have children, and those aren't always as easy as they seem in the imagination.
Last edited by iwpoe (8/31/2015 2:44 am)
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- DanielCC
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Re: Is this insensitive and possibly irrational?
2. The mother takes her daughter's homosexuality to mean that she will never have children and thus said mother will never have grand-children. This sort of attitude is unpleasantly common.
I agree that it's unpleasant insofar as that disappointment is construed as implying a failed obligation to breed on the part of the daughter, but one needn't interpret disappointment that way.
This is what I meant. I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting grandchildren either but if one tacitly belives one's children having a duty to provide them and resents them for not doing so then one's action is wrong.
Last edited by DanielCC (8/31/2015 5:33 am)
- iwpoe
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Re: Is this insensitive and possibly irrational?
2. The mother takes her daughter's homosexuality to mean that she will never have children and thus said mother will never have grand-children. This sort of attitude is unpleasantly common.
I agree that it's unpleasant insofar as that disappointment is construed as implying a failed obligation to breed on the part of the daughter, but one needn't interpret disappointment that way.
This is what I meant. I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting grandchildren either but if one tacitly belives one's children having a duty to provide them and resents them for not doing so then one's action is wrong.
I agree, though mainly because it's obvious that the claim someone should have children for my fulfilment is highly dubious as both properly responsible to the child and as a duty on the part of the parent(s). As you know, I am not convinced that we have any general duty to reproduce but I'm also not convinced that we don't. It does seem *right* given the kind of things we are that we raise and bear children. A man who doesn't does seem to be missing something similar to a man who opts never to love anyone.
Fighting to the death "the noonday demon" of Acedia.
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It is precisely “values” that are the powerless and threadbare mask of the objectification of beings, an objectification that has become flat and devoid of background. No one dies for mere values.
~Martin Heidegger
- DanielCC
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Re: Is this insensitive and possibly irrational?
I agree, though mainly because it's obvious that the claim someone should have children for my fulfilment is highly dubious as both properly responsible to the child and as a duty on the part of the parent(s). As you know, I am not convinced that we have any general duty to reproduce but I'm also not convinced that we don't. It does seem *right* given the kind of things we are that we raise and bear children. A man who doesn't does seem to be missing something similar to a man who opts never to love anyone.
Taking it as given that there is a reason to reproduce I’m sceptical it should be as a means to perfect our nature any more than God’s creating the world is a means to perfecting the Divine Nature.
I think there is a disanology with your last point though. In the case of loving someone that person exists before the loving relation is in place - their existence is prior to there being an object of love. This cannot be the case with a child though since (duh) parents are unable to know what person their actual child will be. This doesn't necessarily mean love for the unborn counts for nothing even if it's not love directed towards a person: perhaps it could be hashed out as love directed at the very idea of life itself.
- iwpoe
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Re: Is this insensitive and possibly irrational?
I think there is a disanology with your last point though. In the case of loving someone that person exists before the loving relation is in place - their existence is prior to there being an object of love. This cannot be the case with a child though since (duh) parents are unable to know what person their actual child will be. This doesn't necessarily mean love for the unborn counts for nothing even if it's not love directed towards a person: perhaps it could be hashed out as love directed at the very idea of life itself.
I was more thinking that should I fail to use my faculties that are directed towards loving another person (by accident or design) then I have grievously failed with respect to my nature. Something is *wrong* with the old maid. Something is *wrong* with Scrooge when he never takes a wife despite the opportunity. I suspect that something simmilar is true of the person who never has children; he has failed with respect to many of his faculties. It might not be a lack of love, but there seems to me to be some kind of personal failure.
It's obviously not a systematic account. It's down the path of virtue ethics I suppose.
Fighting to the death "the noonday demon" of Acedia.
My Books
It is precisely “values” that are the powerless and threadbare mask of the objectification of beings, an objectification that has become flat and devoid of background. No one dies for mere values.
~Martin Heidegger